Jack of Harts

I’ve spoken mostly about the American Federal armed forces so far. But the fact is that for all the funding that went into them, they were not the bulk of America’s armed might when The War began. They were powerful. Make no mistake about that. But most of the State governments maintained their own militaries to defend their borders. The old State Guards, National Reserves, or National Guard units from before the Second Great Depression stayed with the States they were part of when the Federal government collapsed. And they continued to serve those States in most cases into Jack’s time. They were the bedrock that the States built their militaries upon over months and years as the Islamic Jihad and the Cybernetic Wars ravaged what they couldn’t protect. The State militaries helped rebuild America and the Western Alliance in the years to follow. And then they took to space in the decades and centuries beyond that. They helped defend new State colonies, and spread their influence throughout the cosmos every bit as much as the Federal forces did.