COVID-19, Civil Unrest: Have Too Many Homeland Missions Damaged Trust in the Military?

Thanks for the share

Army North has the mission to protect N America from enemies and assist in disaster relief operations. One AAR comment from Hurrican Katrina recovery operations was the military understood it would support civil authorities but nobody said in what capacity. Now Army North has many expert staffers from various fields to advise the commander of Army North. It is a forward leaning orgnaization that keeps apprised of the current and changing environments. It is incumbent upon Army North to determine how it can facilitate disaster relief operations and to prepare to execute quickly.

Now I will paint the picture. In February 2020 DHS should have given overarching leadership to all the Federal Cabinets, Agencies, entities, NGOs, DOD, FEMA, HHS to support the states. This was not accomplished, hence there was no plan. When there is no plan, how do the states know what kind of assistance the federal government will give, and how does the federal government understand how to support the states? FEMA was told to plan in March.

Army North was the competent agency as it conducted internal planning to meet the changing environments. Who gets the tasks in the military? The competent people get the tasks. Army North got tagged because they were competent. The military also has unique capabilities like using her planes, people, ships, logistics, and expertise. The Army Corps of Engineers visited 700 potential makeshift hospital sites.

So perhaps if the Federal government can get there shit together to plan for national disasters, more civilian agencies will execute tasks and alleviate the burden on the DOD. It's obvious the author of this article does not understand the big picture.