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The Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has changed the way millions of Americans work every day. Board meetings have been replaced with Skype calls. The daily commute has change from driving on the interstate to walking down the stairs to the home office.
For Washington National Guardsmen, the COVID-19 pandemic also changed how they conduct their monthly inactive duty training in April.
Call it “Tele-Drilling.”
While some units decided to move their drill days to another month, for the soldiers of the 56th Theater Information Operations Group, Col. Gerald Dezsofi and his command teams made a decision to drill from home during the first weekend of April.
“This was a great chance for us to not only catch up on administrative requirements, but we are also testing our soldiers to work, think, plan and act in a unfamiliar environment,” said Dezsofi. “It forced them to adapt to a new environment with unexpected challenges.”
One of those units that adapted and overcame the challenges was the 341st Military Intelligence Battalion. Similar to February and March, linguists were asked to continue translating COVID-19 related messages for the Washington Emergency Management Division and the Department of Health.
“We were very successful in this mission; our linguists are trained and had a plethora of resources to utilize during the drill,” said CPT Pawel Pucilowski, the state’s Command Language Program Manager.
Guardsmen translated fact sheets about the virus in Arabic, French, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian, Thai, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Korean.
Another unit teleworking for their drill weekend was the 141st Air Refueling Wing located at Fairchild Air Force Base. In the monthly Jet Gazette newsletter, Col. Larry Gardner describes the challenges and how he wanted his leaders to overcome them.
“These challenges must be met with fundamental change on how we operate and a resolute discipline and timely led-turn to meet the next set of challenges not yet encountered,” said Gardner. “We must lead with compassion and understanding; our number one priority is our airmen and their families.”
There are guard soldiers and airmen in the field, helping at testing sites and working critical missions at food banks. But the mission is just as important with soldiers following Gov. Jay Inslee’s orders to stay home and stay healthy. Teleworking helps them follow those orders.
| Date Taken: | 04.09.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 04.10.2020 12:45 |
| Story ID: | 367041 |
| Location: | CAMP MURRAY, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 48 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Guard units find way to drill while practicing social distancing, by Joseph Siemandel, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
