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Vermont's Great Experiment:A few weeks ago, National Guardsmen in the state got an impossible assign
Vermont’s Great Experiment
A few weeks ago, National Guardsmen in the state got an impossible assignment. And then they pulled it off.
KATHY GILSINAN
APRIL 15, 2020
The Vermont National Guard converted a convention center in Essex Junction, Vermont, into a pop-up hospital in mere days.MASTER SGT. MICHAEL DAVIS / DVIDS
The call from his commanding officer came on a Sunday at the end of March, when Matthew Tatro was on his couch in front of the television. His life in small-town Vermont was already being reshaped by the coronavirus; for his usual job as a high-school music teacher, he’d been puzzling through how he could teach band remotely if and when the schools closed.
But now the governor was activating the National Guard, and Tatro, as a longtime guardsman, the bandmaster of the 40th Army Band, with 28 people under his leadership, had to mobilize himself and his fellow musicians to help get medical equipment to places in need around the state. Within days, the order came down from Brigadier General David Manfredi at the Vermont National Guard’s Joint Operations Command: Tatro and dozens of other guardsmen with day jobs, including teachers, master’s students, and at least one dental hygienist, would have to help build a 400-bed hospital to prepare for a possible wave of new patients. State and military planners wanted it ready to provide care within four days after construction started—when the state’s modeling suggested that Vermont, with its limited intensive-care capacity, might start running out of room for the very sick. It was like a Habitat for Humanity blitzkrieg for the coronavirus era.
Tatro enlisted in the Guard 27 years ago. In normal times, his unit plays at concerts, parades, and welcome ceremonies for visiting dignitaries, including the presidents of North Macedonia and Senegal. But the National Guard in each state is also a force that the governor can activate to help in a disaster—and in Vermont, the 40th Army Band provides much of the quick-reaction capability. In the past, this has involved filling sandbags for floods and chainsawing the occasional tree branch to remove it from the road after a hurricane. But this was something else altogether.
[...]
A few weeks ago, National Guardsmen in the state got an impossible assignment. And then they pulled it off.
KATHY GILSINAN
APRIL 15, 2020
The Vermont National Guard converted a convention center in Essex Junction, Vermont, into a pop-up hospital in mere days.MASTER SGT. MICHAEL DAVIS / DVIDS
The call from his commanding officer came on a Sunday at the end of March, when Matthew Tatro was on his couch in front of the television. His life in small-town Vermont was already being reshaped by the coronavirus; for his usual job as a high-school music teacher, he’d been puzzling through how he could teach band remotely if and when the schools closed.
But now the governor was activating the National Guard, and Tatro, as a longtime guardsman, the bandmaster of the 40th Army Band, with 28 people under his leadership, had to mobilize himself and his fellow musicians to help get medical equipment to places in need around the state. Within days, the order came down from Brigadier General David Manfredi at the Vermont National Guard’s Joint Operations Command: Tatro and dozens of other guardsmen with day jobs, including teachers, master’s students, and at least one dental hygienist, would have to help build a 400-bed hospital to prepare for a possible wave of new patients. State and military planners wanted it ready to provide care within four days after construction started—when the state’s modeling suggested that Vermont, with its limited intensive-care capacity, might start running out of room for the very sick. It was like a Habitat for Humanity blitzkrieg for the coronavirus era.
Tatro enlisted in the Guard 27 years ago. In normal times, his unit plays at concerts, parades, and welcome ceremonies for visiting dignitaries, including the presidents of North Macedonia and Senegal. But the National Guard in each state is also a force that the governor can activate to help in a disaster—and in Vermont, the 40th Army Band provides much of the quick-reaction capability. In the past, this has involved filling sandbags for floods and chainsawing the occasional tree branch to remove it from the road after a hurricane. But this was something else altogether.
[...]
5 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Last edited Sun Apr 19, 2020, 01:07 PM - Edit history (1)
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/national-guard-military-vermont-hospital-coronavirus/610045/
