At the end of August 2005, Maj. Gen. Mark Bowen, Alabama adjutant general, was pre-positioning troops near the Mississippi border.

It was a local move reminiscent of Alabama National Guard history: In the 1780s, a ragtag group of militiamen banded in small groups to quell Indian uprisings. A few decades later in the war of 1812, Creek Indians attacked, and Alabamans joined with militiamen from Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee to push them back.

In 2005, however, things were a bit different. The forthcoming "attack" was from Mother Nature. And the response would include not only the aforementioned neighboring states; it would eventually include elements from every state and territory Guard force.

Hurricane Katrina struck the Mississippi coast head-on Aug. 29, 2005. Along with a 30-foot storm surge, it killed more than 1,800 along the Gulf Coast, and damage estimates surpassed $100 billion.

Following the Category 3 storm, the levy breach in New Orleans that sent the Big Easy into turmoil laid the foundation for some of the Alabama Guard's responsibilities for the next year and a half.

The glancing blow to Alabama allowed the Guard to jump behind the hurricane and follow it up into Mississippi.

"We put about 1,500 soldiers into Mississippi very quickly," said General Mark Bowen in an interview with NARONAL GUARD last year. "We had them in the state in less than 24 hours."

But the Alabama Guardsmen didn't stop there. With Louisiana needing immediate assistance, General Bowen assured Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, Guard Bureau chief, he would have a self-sustaining force that would push west as far as possible to help.

Within days, about 350 of his Guardsmen moved all the way to the New Orleans and Slidell, La., area to help.

The disaster came at a time Guard contributions to the war on terror were at a high point-nearly half of the maneuver units in Iraq alone were Army Guard units.

When the storm hit, however, about 77 percent of Alabama's Guard was available to respond to the disaster-although 90 percent of Alabama's Guard troops supporting the effort already had served in Afghanistan or Iraq.

At perhaps no time in the Guard's history have state and warfighting needs collided, testing the Guard's durability. But it represents a history in which Alabama Guardsmen have constantly helped their neighbors since 1780.

At the time, settlements were sparse. But Alabama militia forces defended their homes from the Creek Indians during the War of 1812.

After the war, however, the Indians ceded large areas of land to the United States, opening up much of Alabama for settlement.

In 1819, Alabama became a state, and the governor became the militia's commander in chief.

The state adopted a militia law, which divided Alabama into four military districts, each led by an elected brigadier general. Throughout the 1820s and 1830s, the militia held two musters a year.

As the mid- to late- 1830s arrived, however, Seminole and Creek Indians battled Alabama and Florida settlers.

Most of the Alabama militia mustered to defend the state against the Creek Indians, but some other volunteer companies, which included the Montgomery True Blues and the Selma Guards, moved into Florida and faced some of the fiercest fighting.

Near Tampa, Fla., at Fort Foster, the Seminoles repeatedly tried to capture the log structure, but the Alabamans stood their ground and held the fort. It was later renamed Fort Alabama.

During the Mexican War from 1846 to 1848, Alabama supplied one regiment, two battalions and three independent companies for duty in Mexico.

The First Alabama Volunteers, commanded by Col. John R. Coffee, took 900 men to Texas and then into Mexico where they secured Vera Cruz after a heavy naval bombardment. They then moved toward Mexico City but stopped in Jalapa-about 200 miles from the capitol-when Mexico surrendered.

It wasn't long before conflict turned back to the states. Local volunteer companies formed, backed by many wealthy citizens, to bypass the actual militia system.

By early 1862, many troops were ordered to Pensacola, Fla., and Mobile to capture federal fortifications. While these early Civil War acquisitions were rather simple operations, the conflict picked up steam, and Alabama formed a variety of independent companies to fight on virtually all fronts-particularly in Tennessee and Northern Virginia.

Other Alabama units fortified the Gulf Coast in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi.

During the war, one of the most renowned units was the Fourth Alabama Regiment.

The first Alabama regiment to reach the front, its 1,400 men commanded by Col. Egbert J. Jones stopped federal troops who broke through the southern line at the Battle of Manassas (known as First Bull Run, particularly in the north) July 21, 1861, and helped the Confederates win the day.

At the Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam) Sept. 17, 1862, the regiment forced the adjutant of the 10th Maine to write: "Our comrades went down one after another with a most disheartening frequency, pierced with bullets from men who were half concealed or who dodged quickly back to safe cover the moment they fired. On all other fields from the beginning to the end of our long service, we never had to face their equals."

During Reconstruction, the militia was diminished to "associations" with an interest in military affairs but not really organizing as pan of a militia system until 1877.

In 1897, the force became the Alabama National Guard, divided into four infantry regiments, one artillery regiment, a cavalry regiment and a signal corps.

This assemblage neared completion when the SpanishAmerican War broke out. Many deployed to Miami, and although none saw action in Cuba or the Philippines, they suffered severely in the Florida swamps.

When Congress passed the Dick Acts in the early 1900s, federal funds and equipment eventually flowed to the Alabama Guard (What Has NGAUS Done For You, page 44).

In 1916, Alabama troops made their way to the Mexican border for duty against incursions by Pancho Villa. But troops spent a lot of time stationed at Nogales, Ariz., in anticipation of more serious duty in Europe.

While most of the Alabama Guardsmen served as replacements during World War I, the 42nd "Rainbow" Division participated in some of the war's fiercest battles, including the Champagne-Marne defensive and the Argonne-Muse offensive.

The Rainbow division was in direct combat with the enemy for 164 consecutive days, losing only 112 prisoners but advancing 35 miles under constant enemy fire.

In the Second World War it was Alabama's 31st Division that made its way to the Pacific to see some action.

It's primary military mission during the war was the invasion of Moratai, an island midway between New Guinea and the Philippine Islands. At 7 a.m. on Sept. 14, 1944, the 31st assaulted the beach. By noon, all of the 31st's men were on the island.

Known as the "Dixie" division, it cleared the last obstacle for Gen. Douglas MacArthur's return to the Philippines.

By the end of the war, the 31st had inflicted 7,346 casualties on the enemy and captured more than 34,000 enemy military personnel.

In the next few years, the Alabama Guard grew to 109 units and 12,000 personnel by 1948.

As the Korean War approached, the 31st provided training and repkcement personnel, but Alabama's 107th and 252nd transportation companies, 1169th Engineer Group and the 151st Engineer Battalion went to Korea.

The Alabama Air Guard's 117th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing also saw wartime service, flying missions from Germany for more than a year.

The force made some headlines at home in the years following Korea. In 1954, Gov. Gordon Persons dispatched the Alabama Guard to take over law enforcement in Phenix City, Ala., a town held hostage by home-grown mobsters.

Over the course of the summer, the Alabama Guard apprehended dozens of people, including local officials, closed 26 illegal gambling houses and several brothels, and uncovered a safe-cracking school and a business that bought and sold babies.

Organized crime never returned to the city, which was once dubbed the "wickedest city in America."

In 1957, the Guard's first female officer, 1st Lt. Sylvia Marie St. Charles Law, joined the state's 190th Evacuation Hospital.

And in 1963, the civil rights conflicts put the Alabama Guard in the middle of a tug of war between the state and federal government. Twice President John F. Kennedy took over the Guard from Gov. George Wallace, once to enable the federally ordered integration of the University of Alabama.

Alabama also had a unit that served in the Vietnam War. The 650th Medical Detachment (Dental) went to Southeast Asia in 1968.

With the 70s and '80s rather quiet, the Guard moved into the 1990s when about 5,200 Alabama Army and Air Guardsmen deployed for Operation Desert Shield/Storm from August 1990 to February 1991. Eventually 3,700 Alabama Army Guard personnel in 28 units deployed to the area.

Two Alabama Guard units then deployed to Hungary and two cells to Germany as pan of Operation Joint Endeavor-the peacekeeping force in Bosnia and also provided support in Kosovo during the mid-1990s.

After 9/11, the Alabama Guard once again went into action. To date, more than 12,000 Alabama Guardsmen have served in the war on terror, most in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Since the first action in the Persian Gulf in 1990, more Alabama Army and Air Guard units and personnel have deployed than in the previous 40 years combined.

But it's a participation level that always keeps a close eye at home for potential needs-whether in Alabama or one of its neighboring states.

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