The Republic of Texas Guard is descended from the Texas State Guard that existed before the Second Great Depression. They were similar to the reserves some other States had at the time, entirely under the command of their governor. They were not a National Guard and did not depend on national funding. There were only a few thousand Texas State Guards when the Second Great Depression began, but their purely Texas funding made them capable of surviving when Washington ran out of money to pay the troops. They had very few desertions, and it was not long before their roster swelled to ten times that number after the Texas Air and Army National Guards joined the State Guard. That made them larger than most national armies and air forces of the time, and they played a starring role during the Drug Wars. That cemented their reputation as a solid military organization and paved the way to their future.