What word means to defend or protect?

The word that means to defend or protect, on the USCIS reading vocabulary list, is Guard. To guard is to keep watch over, to defend from harm, and the verb captures a recurring duty in U.S. civic life: defending the Constitution, the country, and individual rights.

The Preamble to the Constitution lists providing for the common defense as one of the federal government's six core purposes, and the Constitution vests in Congress the powers to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, and to declare war (Article I, section 8). The President, as Commander in Chief, leads the armed forces in their guard of the nation. The Bill of Rights guards individual rights against federal and (through the Fourteenth Amendment) state interference.

The word also appears in the names of military and civilian institutions. The National Guard, descended from the colonial militias and established under federal law in 1903, is a reserve military force organized by state, with units in each state and U.S. territory. National Guard members serve part-time in their state's militia under the governor's command and may be federalized by the President to support active-duty operations.

The U.S. Coast Guard, the smallest of the six armed services, conducts maritime law enforcement, search and rescue, and homeland security; it sits within the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and operates under the Department of the Navy in wartime.

Citizens guard the country in many ways: by serving in the armed forces or National Guard, by participating in elections, by serving on juries, and by speaking out against threats to constitutional rights. On the reading test Guard may appear in a sentence about military service, the National Guard, or the duty to defend the country.