From ABCnews.com
More than 9,000 retired soldiers have responded to the U.S. Army’s call for retired medical personnel to assist with the response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, as hundreds of active duty soldiers deploy to support Army field hospitals in New York and Seattle.
Earlier this week, the Army sent a notification to more than 800,000 retired soldiers to gauge their willingness in returning to service in a volunteer capacity. In a Pentagon briefing on Thursday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville called the initial response “very, very positive.”
Army Surgeon General Scott Dingle told reporters that these volunteers will “fill those holes” in military medical treatment facilities across the nation where some staff are now deployed to field hospitals, leaving vacancies in their traditional assignments.
“What we’ll do is even though we get many volunteers, we then will walk through the process of certification, making sure that all certifications and credentials are straight,” Dingle said. “Then once we do that, we will plug them into all of our medical treatment facilities as required in support of the mission.”
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