National Guard units may function under arms in a state status, therefore they may be called up for active duty by the governor to help respond to domestic emergencies and disasters, such as those caused by hurricanes, floods, or civil unrest.

Note – Most of the information in this section is taken from Civil and Military List of Rhode Island, 1647–1800 by Joseph Jencks Smith published in 1900.

Three years later, on the night of June 10, 1772, now under Captain Abraham Whipple's command, the militia seized and burned the British schooner HMS Gaspée in Narragansett Bay.

In July 1777, Captain William Barton, with a hand-picked force, kidnapped British General Richard Prescott from Newport, Rhode Island and 3,000 enemy soldiers, in order to have someone high enough to swap to get captured American General Charles Lee back from the British.

Annual training was a six-day period initially at Oakland Beach in Warwick and later moved to Quonset Point in North Kingstown after a purpose-built camp for the Rhode Island Militia was developed there.

During the Spanish–American War, a regiment consisting of three battalions of four companies each was mobilized and called the 1st Rhode Island Volunteer Infantry.

In 1916, Light Battery "A", Rhode Island Field Artillery, was called into federal service on June 19, 1916, for duty with General John J. Pershing to fight against Pancho Villa during the Mexican Expedition.

During World War II, the majority of the Rhode Island National Guard units belonged to the 43d Infantry Division under General Douglas MacArthur for service in the Southwest Pacific, fighting in the New Guinea, Northern Solomons, and Luzon campaigns.

During the U.S. intervention in Vietnam, the Rhode Island National Guard had two units called into Federal service.

During this mobilization, individual soldiers from the 115th MP Company were "levied" and sent to serve in Vietnam to replace casualties.

The Great Blizzard of 1978, which occurred on February 6, 1978, caused the largest mobilization of Rhode Island Guard units since the Korean War.

A small public affairs unit of the Rhode Island National Guard was also deployed to Taszar in support of SFOR in this time frame.

Widely publicized and controversial interrogations of detainees were carried out by Joint Task Force 170 which was responsible for intelligence gathering at Guantanamo Bay.

The 115th MP Company received the prestigious Valorous Unit Award for its combat service in Fallujah in 2003.

In late August 2005, a composite company from the 43d Military Police Brigade was sent to New Orleans to provide security and humanitarian assistance to survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

From 2003 to 2011 every unit of the Rhode Island National Guard, with the exception of the 88th Army Band and the Joint Forces Headquarters, would be mobilized at least once for service in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

During the beginning of the pandemic Governor Gina Raimondo ordered the Rhode Island National Guard and the Rhode Island State Police to stop motorists with New York license plates, as well as move door-to-door to find people who may have traveled recently from New York, to ask them to quarantine.

[11][12] Mission: Provide well-trained, well-led, and well-equipped mission-ready units in support of the National Military Strategy and, as required, state and local officials.

Vision: A ready, relevant, and reliable force of Citizen Soldiers capable of conducting full-spectrum operations in joint and interagency environments.