Anonymous ID: bb5870 April 11, 2020, 9:14 a.m. No.8758810   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>8860 >>8904 >>8914 >>9012

More Than 25,000 Former Soldiers Have Now Volunteered to Return to Duty

 

It seems to me the invisible war is not just about what’s going on now

 

The Army asked its "soldiers for life" who are trained in medical fields to come back to do battle against the novel coronavirus pandemic. And to date, more than 25,000 have answered the call, officials said.

 

The service first sent out an appeal in late March to retired officers and enlisted soldiers from a targeted set of specialties, asking for volunteers to re-don the uniform and reinforce Army communities thinned by emergency field hospital and personnel deployments to regions hit hardest by the virus. It would ultimately expand the call for volunteers to recently separated soldiers in the Individual Ready Reserve and to "gray-area" soldiers – Guardsmen and reservists who have completed 20 years but haven't yet met requirements for retirement.

 

The field totaled "approximately 800,000," officials said, meaning that more than 3% of all former soldiers contacted by the Army responded to say they could help.

 

Now, the service is working to process the horde of volunteers, ensuring those it takes are properly qualified and certified, and – importantly – not currently working in medical care in a civilian capacity.

 

"If individuals are already serving in their local communities, we are proud of their service and want them to continue serving in those communities, as this effort is not to detract from current community support, but to enhance it," Brig. Gen. Twanda E. Young, U.S. Army Human Resources Command deputy commanding general and reserve personnel management director, said in a released statement.

 

The calls for volunteers went out to those who had served in specialties including critical care officer; anesthesiologist; nurse anesthetist; critical care nurse; nurse practitioner; ER nurse; respiratory specialist; and medic.

 

But soldiers in other fields also reached out to Human Resources Command to offer their services, officials said. And the Army does plan to consider them for service, too.

 

Planners are now working around the clock to process applications and determine where volunteers can serve, according to an Army release.

 

"This effort seems very simplistic – soldiers volunteer and we just bring them back on active duty, but it requires a specialized team of professionals knowledgeable in Reserve policy, which the Reserve Personnel Management Directorate provides," Young said. "We understand the urgency, thus we are working multiple shifts to sift through screening volunteers to get them at the point of need."

 

Once volunteers are screened and validated, they are sorted by specialty and matched up with Army personnel needs. No orders have been cut to date; all volunteers are still in different parts of the vetting process, according to the release. Orders are expected to be open-ended, and officials did note that volunteers will be given time and flexibility to put their lives in order before they report for duty.

 

The Army has not provided a precise timeline for when the first volunteer soldiers might be back in uniform, or how many volunteers it plans to accept in total. According to the release, new volunteers are still being accepted by HRC.

 

Army medical detachments are already deploying around the country to assist civilian providers with managing major virus outbreaks. Military doctors are now assisting in New York City hospitals, and the Army has deployed three mobile field hospital units, staffed by about 330 soldiers apiece.

 

One of those hospitals, deployed to Seattle, has already closed after just a few days, a sign that patient capacity has become more manageable amid extreme social distancing and protective measures.

 

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/04/10/more-25000-former-soldiers-have-now-volunteered-return-duty.html

Anonymous ID: bb5870 April 11, 2020, 9:19 a.m. No.8758846   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>9010

Watch an F/A-18 Super Hornet Pull Off an Insanely-Low Flyby for 'Top Gun: Maverick

 

you guys gotta watch this video

 

https://www.military.com/off-duty/2020/04/10/watch-f-18-super-hornet-pull-insanely-low-flyby-top-gun-maverick.html

Anonymous ID: bb5870 April 11, 2020, 9:29 a.m. No.8758917   🗄️.is 🔗kun

VA Gets New Acting No. 2 Official After Predecessor's Firing

 

More firings?

 

Pamela Powers, chief of staff of the Department of Veterans Affairs, has been assigned to take on the duties of deputy secretary, after the firing of predecessor James Byrne.

 

In a release Tuesday, the VA said President Donald Trump had directed that Powers, a retired Air Force colonel and Air Force Academy graduate, would have the role of VA deputy secretary while continuing as chief of staff.

 

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There was no immediate indication of whether Powers would eventually be nominated to the post or serve on an interim basis until a formal nominee is chosen.

 

Powers, who previously served as chief of staff to VA Secretary Robert Wilkie when he was under secretary of defense for Personnel and Readiness, began in her new post April 2, according to the release.

 

Pam has quarterbacked VA's historic transformation for the better part of the last two years" on a range of initiatives, Wilkie said in a statement. "Her deep experience and decisive leadership style will yield tremendous benefits for veterans and the department during this important time."

 

Byrne, who served in the Marine Corps and was an international narcotics prosecutor at the Justice Department, served as acting VA deputy secretary from August 2018 to September 2019, when he was confirmed by the Senate.

 

He was forced out by Wilkie on Feb. 3. Wilkie said he had a "loss of confidence" in Byrne, but gave no specifics.

 

 

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/04/08/va-gets-new-acting-no-2-official-after-predecessors-firing.html

Anonymous ID: bb5870 April 11, 2020, 9:39 a.m. No.8758984   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>9072

National Guard, Active-Duty Troops Are Assisting with Body Removals in NYC

 

I wonder why it’s usually 25 a day and now it up to 150 a day

 

About 170 National Guard troops and 49 active-duty soldiers have taken on the grim task of assisting New York City with the removal of the growing number of bodies of those who die alone during the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to Guard officials.

 

"They've been involved in, and continue to be involved, unfortunately, in mortuary affairs," Air Force Gen. Joseph Lengyel, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday. He was referring to the troops assisting the city's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) in the removal of "unattended" deceased.

 

"There is a capacity in the National Guard to deal with it," he said, as troops back up the overwhelmed ME's office by going into apartments and homes where someone has died without family or a doctor in attendance.

 

Lengyel said Maj. Gen. Ray Shields, adjutant general of the New York National Guard, told him that "on a normal, non-COVID sort of a day" about 25 bodies need to be removed from homes.

 

=•Those numbers are up significantly, and 150 people a day are needing to be taken" to the ME's office for examination of the cause of death, Lengyel said==

 

The brunt of the task has been assigned to 32 members of the Fast Search and Recovery Team (FSRT) of the Air National Guard's 107th Attack Wing, based at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, said Eric Durr, director of public affairs for the New York National Guard.

 

The FSRT, trained to assist in natural disasters and the recovery of personnel in chemical or biological attacks, has been assigned to assist the ME's office; they are backed up by another 140 regular Guard personnel now on duty in the city, Durr said.

 

In addition, 49 active-duty soldiers from the Army's 54th Quartermaster Company have been assigned to assist with mortuary affairs in the city, he added.

 

There is little sign that demand for National Guard assistance at the ME's office, which normally has a capacity of about 900 bodies in its morgue facilities, will taper off soon.

 

To deal with the overflow, the office has sent refrigerator trucks to local hospitals for temporary storage of the deceased.

 

At a news conference Friday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he is "cautiously optimistic" that the upward curve of new coronavirus cases in the state and city is flattening.

 

"The bad news is that we continue to lose a tremendous number of lives," he said.

 

Wednesday was the worst day in the state for coronavirus deaths, with 799 reported. That was up from 777 Thursday, the vast majority of them in New York City, Cuomo said.

 

New York's OCME prepared a plan in 2008 for dealing with an influenza pandemic, but the spread of COVID-19 appears to have gone beyond anything that could have been foreseen.

 

"The concept for managing deaths due to a [pandemic influenza] event is simple: The OCME will recover, process, and hold decedents from residential and healthcare facility locations until private sector entities are able to manage final disposition," according to the 2008 plan. But local funeral homes have been unable to handle the volume.

 

"The goal of this OCME response strategy is to honor life by respectfully managing one's death," the plan states.

 

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/04/11/national-guard-active-duty-troops-are-assisting-body-removals-nyc.html

Anonymous ID: bb5870 April 11, 2020, 9:54 a.m. No.8759089   🗄️.is 🔗kun

DARPA has a crappy new idea to help soldiers

 

Some might argue that DARPA has flushed plenty of cash down the toilet over the years, but the agency’s newest project hopefully won’t stink.

On Tuesday, DARPA pushed out an announcement of a new program known as ADAPTER (Advanced Acclimation and Protection Tool for Environmental Readiness), which aims to create a biological human “travel adaptor” to mitigate the worst effects of traveling abroad: number one, a lack of sleep caused by time change, and number two, the infamous traveler’s diarrhea.

The agency wants to develop a “a transient, non-genetic means of extending and enhancing war fighter readiness,” which will both quickly acclimate the sleep cycle to new time zones and eliminate the bacteria behind diarrhea.

 

“The goal of the ADAPTER program is to produce the therapies within the body itself. ADAPTER will manage a war fighter’s circadian rhythm, halving the time to reestablish normal sleep after a disruption such as jet lag or shift lag,” Paul Sheehan, the program manager, said in a agency announcement.

“It will also provide safe food and water by eliminating in vivo the top five bacterial sources of traveler’s diarrhea. Both will enhance the health and mobility of warfighters.”

 

It may seem a laughing matter, but the Pentagon can’t afford to be loose with the stomach health of its forces.

A study of 15,459 individuals who served in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003-2004 found that majorities (76.8 percent in Iraq and 54.4 percent in Afghanistan) suffered diarrhea while abroad, with 40 percent of those cases requiring medical attention.

 

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2020/04/08/darpa-has-a-crappy-new-idea-to-help-soldiers/