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July 28, 2004
The United States National Guard deactivated its last armored division, the 49th, and replaced it with the reactivated 36th Infantry division. The 49th Armored division was in Texas. The 49th never saw combat, and was organized after World War II as a way to make the National Guard useful if the Cold War got hot. The 36th Infantry division, however, goes back to World War I, where it was created in 1918. The division saw extensive action during World War II. As part of the south France invasion force, the 36th suffered 2,503 killed and missing during 226 days of combat (between August 15, 1944 and the end of the war.) The 36th remained a National Guard division until 1968, when it was deactivated. In 2005, a brigade of the 36th Infantry Division will go to Iraq. Thats a very different war, where divisions suffer maybe a dozen combat dead per month. During World War II, the 36th Infantry division suffered an average of 336 combat deaths a month.
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