As planning for the organization got underway this year, ambitions for the group quickly expanded.
The original plan to field 200 volunteers with a budget of $3.5 million, proposed in late 2021, grew to 1,500 people and $108 million. The first-year budget includes $50 million for five aircraft and $2.7 million for boats — equipment that many experts say is beyond the budget of most State Guards.
When the initial boot camp began in June, Mr. Newhouse and six other volunteers who spoke to The Times said they were surprised to find that the training syllabus included such lessons as rappelling off buildings and learning to use a compass to navigate out of the woods, skills they said seemed better suited to training for war.
One of the recruits, who like most of the others did not want to be named because of fear of reprisals, described the training as more like a “military fantasy camp” than the practical instruction expected in topics such as how to respond to hurricanes.
The volunteers said the training seemed poorly structured, with an inordinate amount of time spent, as one of them described it, “marching in fields.” Some of the men said that as veterans with years of experience in the military, they were offended when they were yelled at by junior instructors acting like drill sergeants, who disregarded their previous ranks.
They said they had expected sessions on such things as how to set up distribution of water and other resources during disasters. But that training, a copy of the schedule shows, came only at the very end, after classes on marksmanship and the concealed carry of weapons as well as a “combatives” class on hand-to-hand combat.
Most State Guard units across the country, including large forces in states like New York, California and Texas, act as counterparts to the National Guard, a military organization whose members may also be called out by governors during natural disasters or other civil emergencies.
“The bureaucrats in D.C. who control our National Guard have also refused to increase the number of guardsmen despite our increasing population, leaving Florida with the second-worst National Guardsman-to-resident ratio,” Mr. DeSantis said when he announced the new State Guard last year.
