Rhode Island ANG units are trained and equipped by the Air Force and are operationally gained by a Major Command of the USAF if federalized.

State missions include disaster relief in times of earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and forest fires, search and rescue, protection of vital public services, and support to civil defense.

[5] In 1939, with war raging on both the European and Asian continents, President Franklin D. Roosevelt increased measures to prepare the U.S. armed forces for an American involvement.

After American entry into World War II, the 152nd Observation Squadron immediately took up its primary mission of anti-submarine patrols along the Northeastern shipping lanes.

Assigned to the 15th Air Force, squadron pilots flew photo reconnaissance missions in northern Italy, southern Germany and the Balkans until the end of the war in Europe in June 1945.

Situations around the world produced a need for specialized units which could insert a small group of trained combat troops on land or sea anywhere at a moments notice.

During a three-year period starting in 1965, the U-10s belonging to the 143rd and other Air National Guard units were transferred back to the USAF for use in Vietnam, during which the U-10 was replaced by U-6 Beaver.

Flight and Ground crews of the 143rd assisted scientists and engineers of the Naval Underwater Systems Center, conducting studies of undersea acoustics, at Lake Tanganyika in Africa during April and again in August at Hudson Bay, Canada.

In 1975 as part of a general program to upgrade the countries Air National Guard units the 143rd was redesignated as a Tactical Airlift Group and assigned Lockheed C-130A Hercules aircraft.

Hard work and determination during the conversion paid off in the summer of 1990 when volunteers answered the call to provide support during Operation Desert Shield.

The first volunteers, in September 1990, flew out of Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany and provided backfill support for active duty personnel transferred into Turkey and Saudi Arabia in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Not since World War II had members of the Rhode Island Air National Guard flying squadron been called to Federal Service.

With the defeat of the Iraqi forces and the end of the Gulf War, members returned home in June 1991 and were released from active duty.

In 1998 the USAF formed the Expeditionary Air Force (EAF); smaller sized fighting units able to rapidly respond to regional conflicts.

A program of base infrastructure modernization and construction began in 2001 with the acquisition of adjacent land bringing Quonset to 42,800 qm (103.6 acres).

[7] After the September 11 attacks 2001, the RI ANG responded to the call again, deploying unit members to Ground Zero, to US bases for homeland security and implemented 24-hour operations at Quonset State Airport.

The RI ANG provided the 1st ever C-130J aircraft in a combat role by the USAF in December 2004 and continued to support the war effort with both the C-130E and C-130J until retiring the C-130E in 2005.

The location of Quonset being the easternmost C-130 base has become a "bridge" between Europe and the Continental United States in support of Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom.