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Team of Airmen ride the highs and lows of COVID-19 response
By Sgt. 1st Class Wayne Woolley
Over the past few months, they’ve been called Task Force Vineland, Task Force Edison Task Force Millstone and now, most recently, Task Force Atlantic City.
But by any name, this group of New Jersey National Guard Airmen has found itself in the center of the state’s military response to COVID-19. It’s been a three-month journey that’s sent their emotions from the highest highs to the lowest lows and everywhere in between.
“It’s been quite an experience,” said Chief Master Sgt. Harry Johnson, as he stood in the cavernous Atlantic City Convention Center floor where members of his team were working on their latest mission, breaking down a 250-bed facility that was part of a temporary statewide coronavirus treatment network.
The mission for this diverse group of about two dozen Airmen from the 177th Fighter Wing began with their mobilization in May to help with patient needs at the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs Veterans Memorial Home in Vineland. From there, the group, whose military occupational specialties run the gamut from logistics, to maintenance to transportation, headed to the state’s Field Medical Station in Edison to break down the 500-bed temporary medical facility that handled overflow COVID-19 cases in the spring. From there, the team headed to Millstone, where they dismantled a temporary morgue that was one of three the state established as the virus peaked in the Spring. The temporary field hospital in Atlantic City has been the most recent stop.
For Senior Airman Julian Alicea, a communication specialist, the mission in Vineland was the most gratifying. Nearly everything the Airmen were asked to do was directly related to helping residents cope with the isolation created by the coronavirus. The Airmen arranged for “window visits” where they could safely get close to the family members they couldn’t actually tou
| Date Taken: | 07.13.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 07.15.2020 10:09 |
| Photo ID: | 6275279 |
| VIRIN: | 200713-A-RA421-672 |
| Resolution: | 4153x3378 |
| Size: | 3.5 MB |
| Location: | ATLANTIC CITY, NJ, US |
| Web Views: | 22 |
| Downloads: | 3 |
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Team of Airmen ride the highs and lows of COVID-19 response
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