The 4th Guards Brigade was founded on 28 April 1991 as part of the formation of a
Croatian National Guard at the beginning of the
Croatian War of Independence. At first, the brigade was composed of young policemen (130 of them) who had left the police to receive military training for special purposes in
Kumrovec under the command of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A majority of them were from
Livno,
Tomislavgrad,
Kupres,
Široki Brijeg,
Trebižat,
Ljubuški,
Stolac and
Bugojno in Western
Herzegovina and Central
Bosnia. They arrived in
Split on 30 May 1991 and settled in Hotel Split. From Hotel Split they moved their headquarters to Hotel Resnik in
Resnik. There, the brigade's first
battalion was founded, under the command of Gento Međugorac, whose deputy was Ivan Zelić. Within the battalion, a first
company (named the "2nd Company") was formed from the first members of the brigade, under the command of Ilko Pavlović, while the commander of the second company (named the "1st Company") was Joško Macan. Soon afterwards, they received volunteers from
Kaštela and other places, which enabled the formation of a 3rd company commanded by Mario Udiljak. Part of the brigade went to
Imotski to form and reinforce the 3rd battalion, part of them went to
Vrlika and
Sinj to form and reinforce the 2nd battalion, and the other part went to
Metković and
Dubrovnik to form a unit in those two towns. The 2nd Company was, formally, without soldiers, who got an order to disband
Yugoslav People's Army, form a unit and go to their first task in
Kruševo near
Zadar. ==War==