Oklahoma National Guard

Overview

The Oklahoma National Guard is the state military force of Oklahoma — an Army component and an Air component administered by the Oklahoma Military Department, commanded by the governor when in state service and by the president when federalized (Oklahoma Military Department; Army Times). This profile is about the Oklahoma state force specifically, a distinct entity from the nationwide force described in the U.S. Army National Guard profile. Its lineage runs from the Territorial Militia created in 1890 to the 45th Infantry Division of World War II and Korea, and its modern record mixes overseas deployments with disaster response at home — including the 1955 Blackwell tornado, where its crews cleared debris under martial law (Blackwell Journal-Tribune).

The Military Department serves as “the administrative agency for all matters concerning the Oklahoma Army and Air National Guard,” tracing its history to 1890, when Congress authorized one regiment of organized militia for the Oklahoma Territory (Oklahoma Military Department). Its programs run through cooperative agreements between the National Guard Bureau and the State of Oklahoma and rely heavily on federal funding (Oklahoma Military Department).

Organization and command

The Guard’s two components are the Oklahoma Army National Guard and the Oklahoma Air National Guard, both under the Military Department (Oklahoma Military Department). Its best-known Army formation is the 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, heir to the 45th Infantry Division, whose members returned from more than eight months in Afghanistan in March 2012 (DVIDS). The 90th Troop Command is another Army element: one of its soldiers was on the first COVID-19 vaccine courier team in December 2020 (Oklahoma National Guard). On the Air side, the Guard fields the 137th Special Operations Wing in Oklahoma City and the 138th Fighter Wing in Tulsa, which integrated with the 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team for the January 2021 inauguration security mission in Washington, D.C. (Oklahoma National Guard).

Command sits with the governor in state service. Governor Kevin Stitt treated himself as the force’s “lawful Commander in Chief” when its troops were not mobilized federally — the premise of the 2021 vaccine-mandate standoff below (Army Times). The senior uniformed officer is the adjutant general; Army Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino was announced in November 2021, succeeding Maj. Gen. Michael Thompson (Army Times).

Component	Major units	Recent missions in this profile
Oklahoma Army National Guard	45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team; 90th Troop Command	Afghanistan 2011–12; Capitol security 2021
Oklahoma Air National Guard	137th Special Operations Wing (Oklahoma City); 138th Fighter Wing (Tulsa)	COVID-19 vaccine couriers 2020; Capitol security 2021

From territorial militia to the 45th Division

One of the first actions of the Oklahoma Territorial Council when it convened in August 1890 was creating the Territorial Militia; two infantry regiments, two cavalry battalions, and one artillery battery were authorized, but little funding was provided, and in 1895 the militia was reorganized as the Oklahoma National Guard (Oklahoma Historical Society). The Guard was not federalized during the Spanish-American War, though many of its men served with the Rough Riders and the First Territorial Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Oklahoma Historical Society). In 1899 it became the First Oklahoma Infantry Regiment, and with statehood in 1907 its units shifted from western to eastern Oklahoma (Oklahoma Historical Society).

Before World War I, Governor Lee Cruce used the guardsmen against illegal boxing and horse-racing operations and liquor-law and blue-law violations (Oklahoma Historical Society). The National Defense Act of June 3, 1916, reorganized the Guard, and fifteen days later it was called into federal service for duty along the Mexican border, stationing at San Benito and Donna, Texas, before mustering out on March 1–2, 1917 (Oklahoma Historical Society). On March 31, 1917, the First Oklahoma Infantry mobilized for World War I; at Camp Bowie, Texas, it combined with the Seventh Texas Infantry to form the 142d Regiment of the 36th Infantry Division, arrived in France on July 31, 1918, fought around Blanc Mont Ridge and in the Ferme Forest that October, and was discharged in July 1919 (Oklahoma Historical Society).

Between 1918 and 1941 the Guard was frequently called to state duty. In 1921 guardsmen were rushed to Tulsa during the city’s violent racial conflict — the Tulsa Race Massacre, treated in its own section below (Oklahoma Historical Society). Governor John Walton used the troops to block the legislature from convening during his impeachment, Governor William H. Murray dispatched the Guard thirty-four times, and Governor Ernest W. Marland used guardsmen to allow oil-well drilling on the Capitol grounds (Oklahoma Historical Society).

The 45th Division made the Guard’s wartime reputation. Activated in September 1940, it split after the December 1941 expansion — the 158th Regimental Combat Team to the Panama Canal Zone and the Southwest Pacific, one battalion to Alaska and Okinawa, another to the Burma Road — while the rest landed in Sicily in July 1943 and fought through six campaigns before deactivation on December 7, 1945 (Oklahoma Historical Society). Recalled in September 1950 for Korea, the division staged through Japan, replaced the First Cavalry Division in Korea by November 1951, fought four campaigns in 1952–54, and was released in April 1954 (Oklahoma Historical Society). Cold War reorganizations followed (pentomic in 1959, three-brigade in 1963, division deactivated into the 45th Infantry Brigade in 1968), the Guard mobilized during the 1973 McAlester prison riot and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, eleven of its units were federalized for Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990–91, and two infantry companies deployed to Bosnia in October 2000 (Oklahoma Historical Society).

Tulsa 1921: the Guard’s darkest state deployment

The Guard’s role in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre is the hardest episode in its history to write honestly, because the Oklahoma Historical Society’s own account contains two truths at once. When rioters demanded weapons from the National Guard armory, the guardsmen on duty refused to hand them out (Oklahoma Historical Society). But after the authorities formally asked for the Guard’s assistance, its “primary responsibility lay in arresting all of the African Americans in Greenwood and holding them at various locations throughout the city,” and “another group of guardsmen assisted other whites in attacking groups of remaining African American men who were still defending their property, families, and community” (Oklahoma Historical Society). The same account records the other side: one hundred Oklahoma City troops arrived in Tulsa at 9 a.m., their commander secured martial law, most rioters headed home as more Guard members entered Greenwood, and order was declared restored at 8 p.m. (Oklahoma Historical Society). The Guard both helped end the killing and participated in the roundup of the massacre’s Black victims, and the sources do not reconcile those two halves.

State duty: disasters, civil emergencies, and Blackwell

The Guard’s state mission is where most Oklahomans actually encounter it: tornadoes, pandemics, and civil emergencies. The defining early example is Blackwell. After the 1955 Blackwell tornado — an F5 that touched down about eight miles west of Marland around 9:00 p.m. on May 25, 1955 — devastated the town, National Guard crews arrived with dump trucks to clear debris, martial law was declared, and fire and police departments from across the area converged on the wrecked town (National Weather Service; Blackwell Journal-Tribune). The Journal-Tribune counts 29 city blocks wiped out and $12.5 million in damage; the Weather Service’s survey puts about 80 blocks damaged or destroyed — the difference is destroyed versus damaged-or-destroyed, and this profile reports both measures rather than picking one (Blackwell Journal-Tribune; National Weather Service). The storm destroyed two of Blackwell’s main employers: the Hazel-Atlas Glass Company factory, which never reopened at a cost of nearly 200 jobs, and the Acme Foundry, which was destroyed but eventually rebuilt (Blackwell Journal-Tribune). The American Red Cross sheltered displaced residents, and by the end of the week the city’s phone, electrical, and gas systems were back online (Blackwell Journal-Tribune). The tornado killed 17 named Blackwell residents, with the toll later said to have risen to 21, and injured around 200; the Weather Service counts 19 killed in Blackwell plus one more northeast of town — a small discrepancy this profile reports rather than resolves (Blackwell Journal-Tribune; National Weather Service). The same storm system produced a second F5 that devastated Udall, Kansas — the 1955 Udall tornado — making the Blackwell deployment one half of a two-state disaster night (National Weather Service).

The pattern repeated for decades. Nearly 250 Guard members deployed to the Moore tornado zone in May 2013 for victim search and security, as the National Weather Service warned of additional tornadoes — a reminder that the Guard’s state mission can put hundreds of troops into a disaster area within days, under the governor’s command rather than the president’s (Government Executive). In the pandemic, the Guard delivered Oklahoma’s first COVID-19 vaccines on December 15, 2020, in cooperation with the Oklahoma State Department of Health, with courier teams carrying sealed ultra-cold containers to Oklahoma City, Enid, and Woodward (Oklahoma National Guard). And in January 2021 the Guard mobilized 392 members — including 32 Airmen — for security at the 59th Presidential Inauguration in Washington, D.C. (Oklahoma National Guard).

The 2021 vaccine-mandate standoff

In November 2021 the Guard became a national test case for who really commands a state Guard. Governor Stitt had written to the Defense Department on November 2 asking it not to enforce the COVID-19 vaccine mandate on Oklahoma’s Army and Air Guard members, saying 10% of the state’s troops had refused the vaccine and calling the mandate “irresponsible” (Army Times). The day after taking over from Maj. Gen. Michael Thompson — who had learned of his replacement via social media — Mancino issued a memo declaring, “No Oklahoma Guardsman will be required to take the COVID-19 Vaccine,” on the grounds that Stitt is the force’s “lawful Commander in Chief” when it is not mobilized by the federal government (Army Times).

The Pentagon pushed back — spokesman John Kirby said Secretary Lloyd Austin “believes a vaccinated force is a more ready force” — while a National Guard Bureau spokesman called the issue a “legal gray area” turning on the difference between Title 32 state duty and Title 10 federalization (Army Times). The stakes were material: Title 32 includes a provision under which noncompliant states forfeit federal Guard funding, though it was unclear whether the vaccine mandate met that threshold (Army Times).

Frequently asked questions

Is the Oklahoma National Guard part of the U.S. Army? Not exactly. It has an Army component and an Air component, and its units can be federalized into national service, but in peacetime it is Oklahoma’s state force under the Oklahoma Military Department, commanded by the governor unless mobilized by the federal government.

Who commands the Oklahoma National Guard? In state service, the Governor of Oklahoma is commander-in-chief, with the adjutant general — Thomas H. Mancino since November 2021 — as the senior uniformed officer. When the Guard is federalized, the president becomes commander-in-chief and the governor’s command ends.

What did the Guard do after the 1955 Blackwell tornado? After the F5 tornado struck, National Guard crews brought dump trucks to clear debris, martial law was declared, and the Guard helped secure the devastated town while the Red Cross sheltered displaced residents and utilities were restored within about a week.

What happened in the 2021 vaccine-mandate standoff? After an abrupt change of command, adjutant general Mancino issued a memo refusing to enforce the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on state-controlled troops, arguing Governor Stitt was their lawful commander-in-chief. The Pentagon and the National Guard Bureau disputed that reading, calling it a legal gray area.

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not state the Guard’s current end strength — no fully-read source in this research gave a verified figure. It does not assert an establishment date for the Oklahoma Military Department itself, which could not be verified from a fully-read source. It does not claim that the 2021 vaccine-mandate standoff ended in any particular outcome, since only the opening moves were verified. It does not present the Guard’s 1921 Tulsa role as settled history: the Oklahoma Historical Society’s account records both the restoration of order and the Guard’s participation in detaining Black residents, and this profile reports both rather than choosing between them. It does not duplicate the general U.S. Army National Guard profile’s account of Guard-wide structures and law; this profile covers the Oklahoma force only. Figures from the Guard’s own news pages (vaccine deliveries, inauguration mobilization) are uncontested operational facts, not independent verification of performance.