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National Guard Uniforms
Members of the Maryland Army National Guard prepare to set up a triage tent outside an emergency room on March 19, 2020, in Silver Spring, Maryland. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
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As the coronavirus continues to spread across the United States, you may see National Guard members arrive in your city.
From California to New York, Wisconsin to Texas, the National Guard is now active in every state and territory of the United States to help local governments deal with the surge in Covid-19 cases.
If you see a member of the National Guard, you're understandably in two minds: seeing people in military uniforms driving around in big military trucks and walking around your neighborhood can be a little unsettling at first glance. But if there's a National Guard near you, that means your state's governor thought it best to have some of your neighbors help civilian agencies respond to the crisis.
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So if you fear looming martial law, the good news is that it won't happen where you live, or anywhere else in America. National Guard members are "our fellow citizens, not Imperial Stormtroopers," said Kori Schake, an expert on civil-military relations at the American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington.
What the members of the National Guard do is not so scary. Among other things, they disinfect public places, deliver food and help conduct driving tests for Covid-19, the official name for the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo opened the state's first mobile Covid-19 testing center in New Rochelle on March 13, 2020. Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
They work under the authority of the state governor and provide personnel, vehicles and other equipment for the response effort. In some cases Garda members may carry out some law enforcement duties, but this is always under the direction of the local police.
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Together, the National Guard will help fill the gaps identified by civilian leaders, not implement a military takeover. "The National Guard is called in when local resources are insufficient to meet the need," Lindsay Cohn, a National Guard expert at the Naval War College, told me.
Here's a guide to what the National Guard can and is doing to fight the coronavirus where the Guard is already deployed, and what that might mean for your hometown.
Air Force Gen. Joseph Lengyel, head of the National Guard, explained to reporters on March 19 why his forces should be called in to help during the coronavirus outbreak.
"With Covid-19, it's like we have 54 hurricanes in every state, territory and District of Columbia," he said. "When a disaster happens, we don't have to mobilize from some base. We make lunch, we go to work, because we are already there in the communities where these events are happening. We live there, we can respond faster." "
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This is a critical point to understand: A state's National Guard is made up of people from that state. National Guard members include farmers, miners, doctors, lawyers, teachers, postal workers, grocery store clerks, and others. Sometimes, mostly on weekends, they will train with their unit. However, most of the time the guards are doing their day jobs.
"The National Guard comes from the community and knows the community," Christine Wormuth, the Pentagon's top official from 2014 to 2016 at the RAND Corporation, told me.
Governor Andrew Cuomo addresses the National Guard at the Jacob Javits Center in New York on March 23, 2020. The Guard will turn the Javits Center into a temporary hospital to help treat cases of the coronavirus. John Minchillo/AP
When a crisis like the coronavirus occurs, the governor mobilizes the state's National Guard to assist civilian agencies in their response. This means that the person in charge of them when they are drafted is the governor, so the elected leader is still in charge, not the military. In rare cases, the president can federalize the Guard and bring it under his control along with that of the Secretary of Defense. However, this only happens in exceptional cases.
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Governors can also use what's called an emergency management assistance compact if they feel they need more resources to address their state's problems. Broadly speaking, it allows governors to request that another state send some of its National Guard members, police officers, firefighters and other critical personnel to help.
So if there is a large outbreak of the coronavirus in California, for example, while Wyoming has far fewer cases, the governor of California can request that members of the Wyoming National Guard be temporarily sent to California to work at his address.
As for what the National Guard can actually do, retired Army Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, who served as head of the National Guard from 2003 to 2008, told me that the unit can perform many missions, but four in particular stand out:
The personnel and vehicles available to the Garda - both on the ground and in the air - make it a huge asset in a crisis. For example, if medical offices in Michigan are overwhelmed, the state's National Guard can use its trucks and planes to deliver medicine.
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If people are struggling to gain regular access to food, the same can be done to distribute pallets of emergency rations, usually normal foods such as rice or soup. And if hospitals fill up, National Guard members can build new field hospitals or upgrade existing facilities, such as stadiums or hotels, to serve more patients.
National Guard units can help control crowds, make sure products get where they need to go, and support law enforcement when needed. In the latter case, members would work to get local police leaders to provide more manpower, not take the law into their own hands. Some members will be armed as requested, but not all will carry weapons.
The National Guard has advanced communications systems – large radios, teleconferencing equipment and more – so local, state and federal government officials can stay in touch even in the most remote areas.
One such system, called DIRECT, allows National Guard members to have access to cell service even in disaster areas, or when tons of people are trying to connect at once. This allows them to maintain smooth communication even in the worst situations.
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And if electricity is needed quickly, such as during a power outage while treating severely infected patients, National Guard members can set up and use generators to keep the lights on.
The National Guard has doctors who can help with the medical part of the coronavirus response. If some hospitals require more doctors to treat the increased flow of patients, the Garda could provide that assistance.
While paramedics are not needed, National Guard members can help drive traffic to testing facilities, allowing civilian medical personnel to focus on their own test administration.
For all these reasons, Blum says seeing the National Guard in your town "should be a comforting factor, not a cause for concern."
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Democratic and Republican governors in every state and territory have called on their National Guard members to help with their response to the coronavirus so far. Two of these missions in particular are useful examples of what the National Guard could do if it comes to your hometown in the coming weeks.
Let's start with New York. On March 10, Gov. Andrew Cuomo activated members of his state's National Guard to create a "containment zone" around New Rochelle, the New York suburb most affected by Covid-19.
According to a press release at the time, Cuomo directed the Guard to "deliver food to homes and assist in cleaning public spaces in the closed zone." This makes sense: New Rochelle has about 80,000 people, and it would be very difficult to ensure that those in a closed area are adequately served by the city's civilian government alone.
National Guard soldiers help prepare food to be distributed to local residents in New Rochelle, New York. John Moore/Getty Images
English: Uniforms Of The National Guard During The Interregnum (1862 63) After The Ousting Of King Otto. Officer Of The National Guard (center) And Officer Of The University's National Guard (right). Circa 1910
The National Guard sorts food at a community center in New Rochelle, New York. John Taggart for The Washington Post via Getty Images
On March 12, about a half-dozen National Guardsmen appeared in a one-mile cordoned-off zone and began unloading pallets of food: bags of rice, cans of cream of mushroom soup and more. He was taken to one of the city's community centers, where volunteers helped with sorting
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