Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Laura Berry | MILFORD, Mass., — Spc. Lionel Courturier and Spc. William Casey, combat engineers...... read more read more
STEEL DRAGON
Story by Sgt. 1st Class Laura Berry
MILFORD, Mass — Sixty Soldiers from the Massachusetts National Guard — The Nation's First have been activated by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker in support of Operation Honest Pay to assist the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Department of Unemployment Assistance with processing the overwhelming unemployment claims due to the COVID-19 pandemic here from June 1, 2020 until Aug. 31, 2020.
The task force calls themselves “STEEL DRAGON” and is now providing about 51% of the state’s efforts which includes about 9,800 cases a day, with about 6,000 done by the Massachusetts National Guard. The 9,800 cases are pandemic claims and are separate from the normal work load of the DUA.
“The reality of what they are doing on the ground is we are helping the American people to get the money that they deserve, to help their families — their daily, monthly cost of living during these challenging times,” said Maj. Charles Huynh, Brigade Intelligence Officer for the 151st Regional Support Group and Officer-in-charge of TF Steel Dragon.
The 60 Soldiers are a melting pot of MOSs (military occupational specialties) including military intelligence, truck drivers, combat engineers, mechanics and a variety of others. There are 12 units that are represented in the task force.
“Basically, they run the gamut,” said Staff Sgt. Daniel Bottego, a mechanic with the 1060th Transportation Company and the non-commissioned officer-in-charge of TF Steel Dragon. “We have got a little bit of this and a little bit of that.”
The group was originally supposed to be on orders until June 30th, but they have since been extended until Aug. 31st.
“When we recruited everybody for this mission, our priority was to have Soldiers that were unemployed or underemployed,” said Huynh. “Now with this extension, they are more than happy to continue because, you can tell, they are happy to be here. “
Steel Dragon was activated and in-briefed on Monday, June 1st. Within 48 hours they received training from the Department of Correction’s subject matter experts on the DUA programs and were in full operation by Thursday, June 4th.
“The Soldiers here have kept an open mind,” said Huynh. “They continue to move forward and take on that learning curve challenge. I kept the environment as collaborate and open as possible, because we need continuous feedback. You never know what is going to come at you. The best way to keep tabs on that is to always get feedback from the ground up.”
None of the Soldiers have had experience using this system they are working on or analyzing IDs until this activation.
“Every week has been something new,” said Huynh. “We started out with simply ID verification. That’s just the minimum requirement for us to adjudicate to accept the claims of the American people to get their benefits. Then DUA wanted us to start helping with self-reported fraud claims, that’s when American claimants call into unemployment and say ‘hey this is not me.’ That was last week.” This week they have learned to look for fake ID trends.
Many of the Soldiers speak more than one language, including but not limited to Spanish, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, some African dialects and Chinese. This has proven to be very useful in processing some of the claims that have come in with documents not in English.
Steel Dragon has had to be in constant contact with the other members of Operation Honest Pay, including the Chief of Staff of the DUA and the technical experts of the operational system there, the Massachusetts DOC and State Police.
Huynh says keeping a positive atmosphere is key to keep the moral up. Two Combat Engineers, Spc. Lionel Courturier and Spc. William Casey, 182nd Engineer Company (SAPPERS) have designed a logo and t-shirt for the team.
“Steel Dragon, that’s our name for this task force, thanks to Col Fiorentino (TF Victory commander),” Huynh said. “The slogan — ‘Steel Dragon! Lead the Way!’ — I have that announced every day when we have a meeting, at the end. They love it. Our goal as leaders here is to always set a positive atmosphere and when you see Soldiers take the initiative to make a t-shirt designed for a task force like this that means you know that they feel like they are part of a team and so you’re doing it right. I will continue to try to keep the atmosphere that way.”
Huynh and Bottego make it a priority to ensure squad leaders - and everybody - are constantly engaging and communicating with each other. The Soldiers sit in in the cubes and they could easily just get bubbled into their little cubicle.
“We have soldiers that have been autonomous about going out to teach their other fellow buddies. They really take the initiative,” said Huynh.
The constant engagements also helps them share knowledge with each other and keep a continuing flow of information. Bottego said the Soldiers that have picked up the processes quickly are really stepping up to help anyone who needs it.
“There’s at least one in every squad that will walk anyone through it,” said Bottego.
Since the start of the mission, TF Steel Dragon has worked on about 38,000 cases.
“It’s a nice hodge-podge of different units. We are working together well,” said Huynh. “Just goes to show, that in the Army, no matter where you come from, what unit, you are able to communicate on the same wavelength.”
| Date Taken: | 06.25.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 06.25.2020 12:36 |
| Story ID: | 372822 |
| Location: | MILFORD, MA, US |
| Web Views: | 365 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Mass National Guard supports Operation Honest Pay to help with unemployment claims, by SFC Laura Berry, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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