I am pretty sure there was militia training in JA1, although it has been like 6 years since i played it. I know it didn't have anything like the Regular -> Veteran -> Elite system in JA2 but you could train them and use them to defend sectors. If you regard training and recruiting as being different then you would be correct also.

Training militia doesn't really add much to the game so I am not too concerned they have dropped it, although it did make defending sectors that were constantly attacked a little easier.