Effectiveness of National Guard

[Philly_SWAT]

In Night, we hear on the TV and radio broadcasts the problem is becoming widespread. In Dawn, we can see the chaos that is erupting after only a few weeks (a lot of the chaos caused by the actions of the living). But also in Dawn, we see from the chopper that the National Guard, police, firemen, and local rednecks are teaming together to combat the growing zombie problem. When you watch that scene (cuz I'm a man!) you see that the collective assembly of guys with guns seem to be doing a pretty good job. And as I think about it, the guns with guns also seemed to be doing a pretty good job in Night too.

It is easy to grasp how chaos could erupt in the cities, with so many people in tight quarters. But what scenario would explain how the problem was not self contained within the big cities? The evidence that we are shown in the films themselves indicate that outside the cities, the living are handling themselves pretty well. Assuming at least some of the power structure of the US govt was hidden in a bunker somewhere, still able to communicate and plan activities, what explanation can you think of to explain how the problem becomes as widespread as it does? If anything, I would think people would start building walls to keep things inside the cities, not to keep people out.

[Trencher]

A plot point in Night is that things is coming under control, and it makes the movie better for it. In Dawn and Day a number is done about communication over radio being unrealible so there too there is the option that some semblance of society might remain. In Land I think there is supposed to show that the people who survived the initial outbreak have made new societies. I dont think that society will be wiped out in Romeros vision but that it will change into something more horrific.
As for your question one thing that could make the problem widespread is that the people in the cities flee from the cities en masse and then eats up all the food reserves and the ensuing struggle with the people who live in the contryside makes it impossible to mass produce enough grain to feed the whole population.

[Tricky]

One thing that always got me in the films,although the national guard & police show up quite a lot,where are the regular army & airforce?surely the "real" army would be out in force with armoured vehicles & airpower?

[dracenstein]

They are vitually all abroad in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan (depending on when you watching it), usually the governments would say that the military would stay in those respective countries to reassure the local governments that the US is not abandoning them.

Obviously, the US government wouldn't believe the situation would get that desperate, and when it does, the chain of command and even the lines of communication and transport would be seriously eroded, making their withdrawal to the homeland impractical, even if the orders to withdraw does get through. Plus whatever difficulties that would entangle or envelop the forces abroad.

Ie; the forces in Iraq are entrenched in conflict with Iranian forces invading Iraq.

[Tricky]

doesnt the military still hold a significant number of forces back on home soil though?maybe things are different over here,but even though a substantial amount of our military are deployed in iraq & afghanistan at present,we still have a big military presence here too,made up of units who have completed tours,those who are still training etc

Although i suppose lets face it,having the full might of the military in a zombie film would make it a very short film :lol: like the scene at the end of shaun of the dead when the army guys turn up & clear the place in seconds!

[Publius]

doesnt the military still hold a significant number of forces back on home soil though?maybe things are different over here,but even though a substantial amount of our military are deployed in iraq & afghanistan at present,we still have a big military presence here too,made up of units who have completed tours,those who are still training etc!

You're right. In the U.S., about a quarter of the active force is overseas -- half of that in Iraq and Afghanistan and the other half on normal overseas bases like in the UK, Germany, and Japan. But the three-quarters that are stateside at any given time still outnumber the Guard and Reserves, even counting the deployed Guardsmen and Reservists.

[Yojimbo]

In the 92 Los Angeles Riots it took quite a while for the National Guard to get mobilized and get their boots on the pavement. Honestly, I did not see their presence until the third day of the so caled "uprising" and by then a major chunk of the city had been torched, looting had become widespread, and many lives had already been lost. This was in a situation of a mere civil disturbance, so I would expect that getting things moving when the dead start to walk would be even harder, possibly taking even more time to coordinate. If you factor that the National Guard in a zombie situation might take at least three days to get moving, by that time the situation could have spread and mushroomed to the point where the streets would belong to the ghouls and sections of the city would already be overrun.
Also, if you figure that during the first chaotic days of the zombie crisis, you would have a mass exodus of folks trying to flee the city, the highways would be choked. In a crazy town like Los Angeles, a traffic jam can cause people to get unruly - fistfights and shootings will start and roadrage will add to the bodycount, thereby increasing the numbers of the ghouls. Figuring that the streets would become impassable, gasoline and food deliveries would be impacted, and soon the remaining surviors would be in a major panic state. I also imagine that those towns at least 1 gas tank's distance out of town would also be impacted, with survivors stuck trying to get another tank of gas. Some of these might being wounded with them, bringing zombies outside of the cities to the rural areas.

But, yeah, if the Armed Forces mobilized on day one, perhaps the outcome would be very different in the human's favor, As previously pointed out, however, it would make for a very short film indeed.

[Mutineer]

I'm not sure how effective our military would be with an outbreak that spreads so quickly.

Look at Katrina. Our government couldn't even help them out, not imagine this spreading rapidly across the country ?

And the National Guard ? They can't help; they'd be in IRAQ. :cool:

Our military is big, but it aint that big when comparing the population of the US, not too mention the zombies being in the service (Assuming which zombie world we're talking about)

[jim102016]

In the U.S., the National Guard and the Reserves have always been the #2 men to the active, standing forces. The members are part-timers with real-world full time jobs, and so it's conceivable that it sometimes takes forever to get them up and running like regular units.

Don't know about the riots in California, but Katrina was too big for any force to handle adequately, despite the opinions of all the monday-morning quarterbacks who came out of the woodwork once the smoke cleared. I saw lots of crime down there, but luckily people were not trying to eat each other. Maybe they would have been better off eating each other.

Good question about the active military components in the late 60s (Night'), late 70s (Dawn), and mid 80s (Day). During all three periods, the U.S. military was much bigger than it is today. Possessed many more bases around the world, and around the U.S. Of course, personnel were spread out all over, with a quarter million in Europe, half a million in Vietnam, etc. Still the majority of combined forces were stateside. There are what, 200,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghan combined right now?

In today's post Cold War/post Draft Dodger Bill Clinton-drawn down U.S. military, where the military is doing more with much less already, I'd have less faith in the military coming to the rescue in a zombie outbreak than I would have in previous eras.

[Slain]

I think early on in an outbreak some infected people would escape from big cities and make their way to the countryside. Even if they got a handle on the zombie problem in the cities, the disease would fester in the sticks and the zombies would eventually destroy the cities later on.

[sandrock74]

Thanks to Diary of the Dead, we now know that hospitals will be virtually (but not completely) zombie free and that the Amish will be over run by zombie hordes! :lol:

[blind2d]

lol! poor samuel... it's people like him, without access to a lot of news and modern weaponry that I worry for the most. At least they can still kick some undead when the time calls for it!

[Thorn]

This is an excellent question.

I have to in many ways agree with Yojimbo most of what he said is spot on in my opinion, and I do not really need to elaborate on it.

As to how it could get so out of control so fast, I think several factors would come into play many of which you all have likely considered.

1) Ignorance. People have shown that time and time again we will make bad decisions based on lack of knowledge. We see this in the films, and I think it is a good add. People not disposing of bodies, people thinking their relatives are still "in there" so they keep them around. This can only lead to issues.

2) lack of communication. The government is what it is, but I have always said and I mean this that the way it works now does not work In a crisis like this. Waiting around for the government to filter information down to you is not going to get the job done. You need to save yourself. You need smaller branches of government or local authorities stepping up to take charge and control. That way if information from Washington is too slow, unavailable, or wrong you are still in good hands.

3) Local infrastructure is fragile. 911 couldn't handle 9/11 without breaking. There are only so many people, with limited resources using outdated and inadequate infrastructure.

4) There is no "contingency" for this. Yes the government has a plan for floods, fire, nuclear attack, viral outbreak, riots, and military invasion. Do you think they have a plan for walking corpses eating people? I don't, and coming up with a plan takes time. The government is HORRIBLE at making snap decisions and worse yet about getting those decisions out to people. I look at Iraq and the fact that on the ground we were screaming for more armor for the sides of our hummers. We didn't get it so soldiers used their own credit cards to pay Iraqi civilians to weld armor plating on their doors and under carriage. Really? Uncle Sam couldn't help but Sam Smith and his Visa could? Sad. All the while this was debated, held up in appropriations and loaded down with pork. Because you know a Hippie Museum in New York and it's funding being attached to a bill meant to save the lives of our sons and daughters REALLY makes sense.

5)Fear. Fear keeps us alive, it can also lead to you making bad decisions and mistakes. At some point you can see bitten people being afraid to let people know about it, fleeing the city to the burbs and killing a lot of people there, and spreading the issue around. So while you build a wall around the city, you can not stop everyone from getting out and that wouldn’t be tolerated initially anyway. It would spread the problem around the country, and the world. People boarding planes, people going overseas. People going to see their aunt tilly. In the end they would take the plague with them.

6) We would certainly lose the cities, well almost certainly. Close quarter fighting is hard on any military. Going door to door and clearing New York city would take longer than we would have and more men as well. Each would result in losses and thus impair our ability to conduct those raids. Eventually I can see the government destroying them outright. They would be zombie invested disease spreading, unsanitary death traps waiting to spill out and over into the country side. We couldn’t keep a damn intact to save New Orleans from a flood, good luck on maintaining walls around the "The Big Zombie Apple".

7) Disbelief. No one would believe it. I mean if I told you right now it was happening, you would tell me I was full of it. We are up on the topic, and well watched and read. You would still be like "Thorn lost it, he has immersed himself in Zombies way to much and now he has gone off the deep end". You MIGHT check the news, or the internet. You might not. But you would go about your life more likely than not and then when you got bit it would be too late, or as others around you did. This would work against us, and it is common for humans to not want to believe things. "Not my kid" "This couldn't happen to me" "I would never be THAT guy" "That is impossible". Denial. It is a very real thing and it would lead to a lot of people being dead.

8) Self preservation > Duty. People would in fact look to save themselves, and their families over doing their duty. I can not fault them for this. I can not say I would not do the same. At the end of the day though this would in fact lead to issues. If you are assigned to a checkpoint, you leave to get your family out of trouble or check on a friend, who knows what could happen while you are gone? Maybe it gets over run, maybe the other guards leave too. Maybe no one ever goes back, your commanders assume it is covered and they get flanked and then the dead pour out of a city into the suburbs.


I have more but I do not want to go on and on, but just a few things I personally think could lead to problems getting as bad as they do in Land.

[Exatreides]

I'm in the national Guard
The 738th ASMC out of Monticello Indiana as a Medic.

The reason why the Active duty and Reserves couldn't be mobilized is simply the fact that it's against the law. Under Title ten of the United States constitution only the Governor of a state can active the National Guard.

And no Federal troops can be activated with out consent of the Governor of the state. Federal troops are also not allowed to participate in riot control ect. That is National Guard work.

Since we are the only military branch that is legally allowed to shoot civilians.

How long it would take people to get active has a lot of factors. Myself for instance, I have my own tactical gear from my unit at my home. I also have personal weapons.

My unit is about a two hour drive, however other armories are near that I could report to. We do have drills when we are randomly called and ordered to report to a said armory or our home armory and how fast we can get there. With little or no information provided.

People really do give the Guard a bad rap, however at a time. We were over 60% of the entire military force in Iraq. Indiana just recently had its largest deployment since the second world war.

[jim102016]

I'm in the national Guard
The 738th ASMC out of Monticello Indiana as a Medic.

The reason why the Active duty and Reserves couldn't be mobilized is simply the fact that it's against the law. Under Title ten of the United States constitution only the Governor of a state can active the National Guard.

And no Federal troops can be activated with out consent of the Governor of the state. Federal troops are also not allowed to participate in riot control ect. That is National Guard work.

Since we are the only military branch that is legally allowed to shoot civilians.

How long it would take people to get active has a lot of factors. Myself for instance, I have my own tactical gear from my unit at my home. I also have personal weapons.

My unit is about a two hour drive, however other armories are near that I could report to. We do have drills when we are randomly called and ordered to report to a said armory or our home armory and how fast we can get there. With little or no information provided.

People really do give the Guard a bad rap, however at a time. We were over 60% of the entire military force in Iraq. Indiana just recently had its largest deployment since the second world war.


Brother, I know where you were going but you typed this up wrong. A governor only has power over his national guard as long as the federal government lets him. The president of the United States can "nationalize" any guard unit any time he needs to without the consent of "Governor Whoever" in time of need. It's not a bargaining process, fed trumps state...to avoid political pissing contests I suppose.


Active duty (already mobilized as it's a full-time, standing military) and the reserves are owned exclusively by the federal government, and take orders only from the federal government. State governors have no power over traditional active forces and/or federally-owned bases within their particular states.

Federal troops have participated in riot control a few times throughout U.S. history. One example I can think of right now were the LA riots, I believe troops came out from the Presidio of San Fran and maybe Fort Ord, released on orders from Washington.

No matter how you rack and stack, I don't think any kind of outbreak like we talk about here could be successfully coped with anywhere without having time on our side.

[Exatreides]

Ah, sorry I stand corrected.

There have been a few times when it has happened, last time I can think of is the National Guard in the south fallowing the governors orders not to let blacks into a white school. The federal government had to call in an active duty unit to escort them in.

So it has happened.

The majority of the time the Federal Government has no control of the National Guard, the president would have to declare emergency war time powers and or Martial Law to sidestep the tenth amendment. So during the first bits of the outbreak, the Governor would be in charge of the Guard. Until said time of active duty. However a large number of states mine included have 1 or less actual active duty military bases.

[Publius]

The reason why the Active duty and Reserves couldn't be mobilized is simply the fact that it's against the law. Under Title ten of the United States constitution only the Governor of a state can active the National Guard.

Minor correction: Title 10 (of the U.S. Code, not the Constitution) authorizes the President to call up the Guard for federal service. State control of the Guard (by the state's governor) is dealt with in Title 32. Guard deployments overseas (e.g. to Iraq or Afghanistan) are pretty much always under federal mobilization via Title 10. When in Title 10 status, Guard units are subject to the same limits on participation in civilian law enforcement activities as any other federal troops (Posse Comitatus Act, etc.).

[Philly_SWAT]

This is one of the best replies to any posts I have ever seen Thorn. Great input. And you saying "Aunt Tilly" struck me as very funny for some reason! :)