On Sunday the Secretary of Defense Mark Esper issued guidance on the wear of face masks to protect personnel from the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Effective immediately, to the extent practical, all individuals on DoD property, installations, and facilities will wear cloth face coverings when they cannot maintain six feet of social distance in public areas or work centers (this does not include in a Service member’s or Service family member’s personal residence on a military installation)…
The memorandum applies to the following groups:
-Military Personnel
-DoD Civilian Employees
-Family Members
-DoD Contractors
-All other individuals on DoD property, installations, and facilities
Read the full release here.
“Effective immediately, to the extent practical, all individuals on DoD property, installations, and facilities will wear cloth face coverings when they cannot maintain six feet of social distance in public areas or work centers (this does not include in a Service member’s or Service family member’s personal residence on a military installation),” according to the memo. This includes all:
All-in-all, an understandable move, until Sec Esper mentions that the Department will not issue masks and directs service members to make their own.
This is unacceptable. This is a force protection issue and should be taken seriously and rectified with the utmost urgency.
While I know that many in our industry have pivoted their efforts to manufacturing PPE for the medical community, I encourage you to liaise with military organizations in order to provide masks to our military personnel, civilians who contribute to our national defense, and their families.
In compliance with CDC guidance, these do not need to be N95 masks for medical use, but we do need to cover their faces to help staunch the spread of the virus amongst those whose duties to not allow social distancing.
The Navy has stated it plans to procure masks but has issued interim guidance to wear medical or construction masks or alternatively, bandanas and scarves.
Hopefully, other organizational commanders will have the foresight to purchase PPE for their personnel. But regardless of whether or not military leaders decide to protect their personnel, please consider donations to our troops.
Like many of you, this is personal to me. Some of my children currently serve in uniform and others work in the defense industrial base.
Eric M Graves
Editor