Fort Jackson Supports Local Community With COVID-19 Testing

Aug. 6, 2020 | BY Alexandra Shea , Fort Jackson

Fort Jackson, South Carolina, supported the Midlands' pandemic efforts by hosting drive-thru COVID-19 testing just outside of the post's Palmetto Falls Water Park.

Historically, the installation provides millions of dollars to the local economy when thousands of family members flock to the post each week to witness Basic Combat Training graduations. Fort Jackson trains roughly 50% of all soldiers and more than 60% of all women entering the Army each year.

Army Training Center and Fort Jackson Commander Brig. Gen. Milford H. "Beags" Beagle Jr. recently spoke with Columbia Mayor Stephen K. Benjamin regarding COVID-19 mobile testing opportunities on Fort Jackson. They agreed that hosting a mobile testing site would help reduce stress for off-post testing sites and ensure accurate testing results to help battle and contain the spread of the virus.

"We are all-in to be good community partners," Beagle said.

The post coordinated with the Medical University of South Carolina, to offer those with access to the installation two days of testing free of charge. Roughly 800 total tests were administered at the event. MUSC supplied the medical providers and resources for its mobile testing site.

Fort Jackson currently allows retirees, veterans with Veteran Health identification cards and their beneficiaries to access installation only on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday to help protect soldiers from virus exposure, as part of a "protective bubble," officials said.

Each day of testing was geared for specific groups. Testing was held for soldiers, their family members and the civilian workforce July 8, and testing was available for others with installation access July 10.

"It's extremely important for [retirees and beneficiaries] to come on and get tested," Beagle said. "It's not a 'me' thing, it's a 'we' thing. We need to do the right thing so that we can help protect others."

Trainees were not tested at the mobile sites. Each trainee is tested and quarantined for 14 days upon their arrival to Fort Jackson as they in-process at the installation.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control has reported a surge in positive test results in the state the past month. DHEC also recently stated that asymptomatic patients, or those who have the virus but show no or minimal virus signs and symptoms, are also on the rise.

"About 20% testing positive for coronavirus are symptomatic," said Dr. Curtis Franke, president of Doctors Care, the firm that performed the testing for MUSC. He added that about 7-10% of positive tests at similar events across the state are asymptomatic.

People tested at the mobile testing site were able to access their test results online in five to seven days through a link provided by email during the application process. All participants who tested positive were contacted directly by MUSC staff.

Aerial Refueling Crews Stay Safe Amid COVID-19

Aug. 6, 2020 | BY Air Force Senior Airman Mary Begy

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the 507th Operations Group at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, has ensured that aircrew members and maintainers stay safe by implementing new operating standards for daily missions refueling aircraft from Alaska to Texas.

Air Force Col. Kenneth Humphrey, 507th Operations Group commander, said the ability to conduct the refueling mission is integral to the nation's defense. However, the concerns over COVID-19 and its tendency to spread in close quarters prompted the 507th OG to adapt.

"Human nature and the closeness of our personnel make it difficult to ensure proper safeguard measures are adhered to in the aircraft, briefing rooms and crew transportation," Humphrey said. "The aircraft poses multiple challenges due to the close confines and required interaction of personnel."

With the help of the 507th Air Refueling Wing safety office, the Air Force Reserve Command logistics directorate, and mission partners at the 730th Air Mobility Training Squadron at Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, the operations group implemented new flight operating standards to ensure a clean and safe environment to meet mission requirements.

Rigorous sanitizing measures and the use of personal protective equipment were put in place. The new procedures include wearing masks, minimizing nonessential crew contact during preflight inspections and limiting the number of personnel on board the aircraft to reduce the chances of exposure. 

"Contamination across the flight line can easily be spread across the base and city," Humphrey said. "Our [U.S. Strategic Command] and conventional missions remain a top priority. Additional crews have been designated and assigned that could be used in the event primary aircrew come down with the virus."

Pilot and crew training and currency requirements are a priority. The ability to adapt and overcome has facilitated the ops group's ability to maintain readiness. "Our local flying schedule has been sufficient to meet these requirements ensuring we have safe, qualified aircrew to perform the mission and keep the jets flying," Humphrey added.

Air Force Col. Miles Heaslip, 507th ARW commander, said he thinks the members of the wing have done an outstanding job making sure all missions run safely and effectively. "The measures implemented by the ops group once again prove we can overcome anything," he said.

(Air Force Senior Airman Mary Begy is assigned to the 507th Air Refueling Wing.)

CIO Says Top-Level Leadership Helped DOD Navigate COVID Crisis

Aug. 6, 2020 | BY C. Todd Lopez , DOD News

Clear guidance early on from Defense Secretary Dr. Mark T. Esper ensured the Defense Department would be able to continue operating through the COVID-19 crisis, the department's chief information officer said.

''Our secretary of defense did a great job of making it perfectly clear what his expectations were,'' Dana Deasy said yesterday during a discussion with Martin Giles of the Forbes media company. ''Very early on, he said, 'Protect our employees.' I took that to mean from an IT standpoint that anybody and everybody who needed to work outside their normal environment could do that without any failure. Failure was never going to be an option for us.''

Esper also emphasized that the mission must be protected as well and that the department could not fail in its responsibility to protect the United States, Deasy said.

''That means Protect our country,''' Deasy said. ''That means anywhere around the world, any mission that needed to be done, there could be no interruption. From a technology standpoint, that simply meant [that] while we were driving a lot of people outside the Pentagon and to home, we need to somehow to make sure those same people that were now working from home were going to be able to support the mission.''

Protecting the workforce and keeping the mission on track involved significant involvement from the CIO workforce — in particular, with implementing telework capability to a large number of employees, Deasy said.

Before COVID-19, he said, about 80,000 to 90,000 people per day were teleworking across the department. The numbers of people who would need to be able to work from home once COVID restrictions were put in place weren't known at the time, the CIO noted. ''We now know it was a 10 times growth,'' he said. ''We are supporting somewhere between 1 and 1.2 million people concurrently, all working from home at the same time.''

A big part of making that happen, Deasy said, was the department's implementation of the  ''Commercial Virtual Remote'' tool, which allows teleworking employees to form teams and collaborate online. Within two weeks, he said, about a quarter million employees were connected with the CVR. Within 90 days, he said, that was up to a million. 

The defense secretary also emphasized the department's commitment to contribute to the whole-of-government effort to combat COVID-19, Deasy said.  From the CIO's perspective, that involved providing IT and networking support to a variety of missions, including the Army Corps of Engineers setting up field hospitals in convention centers, National Guard efforts in local communities, and Navy hospital ships in New York and Los Angeles.

Deasy also discussed efforts to evaluate how the department's digital modernization strategy might be accepted by the DOD workforce — in particular, the service members at the tactical edge who might be affected by changes.

The department's digital modernization strategy touches on cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and cloud computing. All are common factors in similar modernization plans for private-sector companies, but Deasy pointed out that a unique focus of DOD's strategy is command, control and communications, or C3.

''What I think was quite fascinating was how we went about actually testing whether that strategy was going to make sense to the warfighter,'' he said. 

In his first six months as the CIO, Deasy said, he traveled to Afghanistan to meet with warfighters and commanders who might be most affected by DOD's digital modernization strategy. 

''I [talked with] the warfighters that were going out every night on a mission — whether that was to a village, whether it was in caves, the side of the mountain — and actually have them show me how they were using the stuff we were putting into our digital modernization strategy,'' he said.

Service members are not shy about sharing their opinions, Deasy said, and they made it clear the strategy was good.

''They're very clear to tell you how they feel about your digital monetization,'' he said. ''They were in environments where they were constantly getting degraded, they were getting denied by the adversary. So the C3 strategy was actually validated by looking about what you could and could not do.''

Field Training

U.S. Military Academy cadets learn how to conduct fire missions during field training at West Point, N.Y., July 21, 2020.

Chopper Formation

A Marine Corps AH-1Z Viper, Navy MH-60R Seahawk and two MH-60S Seahawks conduct amphibious task force training during Exercise Trident Storm at San Clemente Island, Calif., July 30, 2020. During Trident Storm, Marines worked alongside their Navy counterparts focusing on long-range strikes and air-to-ground support.

Crew View

Marine Corps Sgt. Tanner Olsen, a helicopter crew chief, observes his surroundings during Exercise Trident Storm at Marine Corps Air Station Camp Pendleton, Calif., July 30, 2020. During Trident Storm, Marines worked alongside their Navy counterparts focusing on long-range strikes and air-to-ground support.