Guard has been state’s Swiss Army Knife in virus pandemic
On a recent sunny morning, a line of vehicles inched up to a large white tent in a mall parking lot where people dressed like Apollo astronauts extended long Q-tips through windows and into countless nostrils.
The people inside the cars and vans wanted to know if they were infected with the contagious virus that has rapidly spread throughout the world.
The people in the moon suits were artillery officers, medics, tank drivers, hazardous materials handlers and more. All had been freshly trained as specimen collectors.
It’s safe to say that most of the folks
waiting to get tested at a free site on Milwaukee’s north side had never before interacted with Wisconsin National Guard soldiers and airmen.
And it’s also a good bet that the troops calmly guiding vehicles, writing down contact information and collecting nasal swabs never imagined one day they would be on the front lines of a pandemic that has sickened and killed so many in Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin National Guard has deployed thousands of troops since March in a variety of tasks ranging from collecting test specimens and working at the polls on election day to packaging personal protection equipment and even transporting dead bodies.
Wisconsinites used to seeing troops handle flooding and natural catastrophes, or deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq, are likely surprised at just how critical the multi-faceted National Guard has been in the state’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.
They’re learning that the National Guard is Wisconsin’s Swiss Army knife.
“This is the first time I’ve been involved and certainly most in Wisconsin are seeing them in a different light,” said Tony Evers, who as governor is the National Guard’s commander in chief.
“I’ve heard people say to me ‘I didn’t know the National Guard did this,’ “Evers said. “It gives people I know all across the state an opportunity to see how important the National Guard is and how much as Wisconsinites they care so much about their friends and neighbors.”
When thousands of poll workers were needed to replenish the ranks of mostly older election volunteers who were reluctant to work, Evers turned to the National Guard.
As the numbers of COVID-19 cases began to mount and testing ramped up in jails, nursing homes, and in cities and villages throughout Wisconsin, it was the National Guard that swung into action and brought their own gear.
When large shipments of protective gear were delivered from the federal stockpile, it was soldiers and airmen who worked in warehouses to repackage and send masks, gowns and face shields to medical facilities around the state.
And when the Dane County Medical Examiner’s office needed help handling an influx of bodies, troops with training in mortuary affairs assisted.
“There’s no way we would be anywhere near as successful as we have been without the guard,” said Evers.
The first troops volunteered in March to drive Wisconsinites who had been quarantined on cruise ships to their homes, from Volk Field near Tomah where they had been air lifted.
Among them was Cpl. Tony Acevedo of Milwaukee, a CBRN specialist trained to handle chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats.
“I just felt like I wanted to lend a hand. So many people are being affected by this pandemic,” Acevedo said, while working at the Midtown testing site in Milwaukee where he has been helping collect test kits.
A major transformation
The National Guard has undergone a radical transformation since the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Before 9/11, they were considered weekend warriors who trained one weekend a month and two weeks each summer.
But as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dragged on, National Guard troops were increasingly called upon to deploy overseas and became an integral component of the U.S. armed forces. Many served multiple deployments.
In the mid to late aughts, the joke was that there were only three types of
National Guard members — those who were in Iraq or Afghanistan, those who had just come back and those who were on their way to war zones.
Though the combat tempo has slowed a bit from a decade ago, Wisconsin troops continue to be deployed overseas. At the time the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S., approximately 700 Wisconsin National Guardsmen were stationed in other countries, including Afghanistan and Ukraine.
Now Wisconsin troops are battling a microscopic foe at home.
“This is what we train for — emergency response,” said Lt. Col. Erin Lutterman, a nurse in her civilian job handling inpatient care management for United Healthcare in Wausau, and a nurse in the 115th Fighter Wing Medical Group.
“I volunteered because I wanted to be a part of this event in history.”
By early May, some 1,400 Wisconsin
National Guard members had been called up, mostly for testing duties, eventually splitting into 25 collection teams spaced out across the state. Other guard members are staffing a call center in Madison, where they call those who had tests to provide the results. The effort is aimed at relieving some of the stress local health departments are facing.
For the April 7 presidential primary, 2,400 guard members dressed in civilian clothes worked at election sites in every county in the state, except Florence County. For the May 12 special congressional election in northern Wisconsin, another 160 guard members worked at the polls.
Staff Sgt. Clint Kramer has spent a dozen years in the military, with the last nine years in the Beloit-based 1158th Transportation Company. He lives in Milton and volunteered to be a poll worker April 7 in his community’s city hall.
“I just thought it was a good experience,” Kramer said. “Plus we needed to be safe as possible during the election. They needed us.”
On a recent day, Kramer and dozens of other soldiers and airmen sat on the carpeted floor of an empty office near the testing site at Midtown in Milwaukee and ate from sack lunches as they rested while taking turns collecting samples.
Boxes were stacked on the floor, with sheets of paper taped to the walls with scribbled labels for “test kits,” “gloves,” “surgical masks” and other equipment.
Like everyone on test collection teams, 1st Sgt. Cyle Coppinger underwent three days of training and passed a certification test. He’s a member of the Wisconsin National Guard’s 132nd Army band. His main instrument is bassoon.
He volunteered as the non-commissioned officer in charge of a 29-person test collection team because it’s “something new and different. There was a need for this,” said Coppinger, from Waukesha.
He and his team were collecting test specimens in Ashland the previous week.
“The people we’ve been helping are very appreciative that we’re here,” Coppinger said.
Maj. Roger Lovelace is a physician’s assistant both at Marshfield Clinic and in a medical detachment based at Volk Field. He was reactivated for the coronavirus response in mid-March, 10 days after returning home from a fourmonth deployment to Egypt.
Wearing a Badgers ball cap and sweatshirt as he looked after his troops at the Midtown testing site, Lovelace explained that he was happy to get the call to serve.
“This is exactly why a person joins the National Guard. It’s for stuff like this — flooding, storms, pandemics,” said Lovelace. “I’m helping my family, I’m helping my friends, I’m helping my neighbors.”