During the Great Depression, the economy shrunk and prosperity for farmers and ranchers markedly declined. The Dust Bowl impacts also had a huge impact on the state's farming and ranching industry. Land values declined, demand for products decreased, and profitability fell. The two events resulted in many farmworkers finding themselves lacking job security or without income. Some of those farmworkers decided to join the National Guard as a way to work and earn a paycheck.
By late 1941, World War II began. There were, in fact, some members of the National Guard on duty at U.S. bases in the Pacific Theater even before the attack on Pearl Harbor Naval Base. Those soldiers - members of the National Guard 111th Cavalry, later incorporated into the 200th Coast Artillery - were sent to the Phillippines, then a U.S. territory, in 1940. Their mission was to defend Clark Air Field and Fort Stotsenberg.
A significant number of those members of the New Mexico National Guard were still at Clark Field when the military of the Japanese Empire attacked the base shortly after the Pearl Harbor incident. Many New Mexicans were forced by Japanese soldiers to participate in the Bataan Death March after the Japanese conquered the Phillippines. In fact, about 1,000 of the 1,800 or so New Mexico National Guard members stationed in the Phillippines died there.
Of all the 48 states then in the union, New Mexico had both the highest volunteer rate and the highest casualty rate.
