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NATIONAL GUARD ON-THE-RECORD TELEPHONIC MEDIA ROUNDTABLE

MAY 05, 2021

TOPIC SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS

Healing Highlights of the National Guard –

Guard Reaches 10 Million Shot Milestone

§ Army General Daniel R. Hokanson, Chief of the 

National Guard Bureau

§ Air Force Maj Gen James Eifert, the Florida 

National Guard adjutant general. His Guard 

members have made significant contributions to the 

fight against COVID.

§ Air Force Maj Gen Steven Nordhaus, the National 

Guard Bureau’s director of operations. His team has 

overseen the Guard’s response efforts since COVID 

began.

§ Air Force Maj Gen Jerry Fenwick OR Army COL 

Larry Fletcher, director of the National Guard 

Bureau’s Office of the Joint Surgeon. His team has 

been instrumental in the Guard’s vaccination efforts.

§ Army SSG Shavonne Santiago, a Massachusetts 

National Guard combat medic, who recently 

vaccinated her grandmother. She has some unique 

observations about supporting this mission.

Background:

National Guard vaccination teams surpassed 10 million shots administered to people in the communities 

where they live and serve. They are responsible for meeting 10 percent of the President’s goal for 

vaccinating the American population.

Opening Statement:

I’m General Dan Hokanson and I want to thank you for the opportunity to update you on the National 

Guard’s continued efforts to defeat COVID-19. 
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National Guard Soldiers and Airmen recently vaccinated our 10 millionth person. That’s 10 million 

moms, dads, grandparents, friends and neighbors our Guard members administered lifesaving shots to in 

the communities where we live and serve. 

As I speak, almost 2,200 Guard members are giving over 135,000 vaccines a day at 805 static and mobile 

sites across the country. They a part of the 32,000 National Guard Soldiers and Airmen – over 7% of our 

force -- who continue to support vaccination efforts, food banks, testing and screening sites, and other 

COVID-related missions. 

Wherever and whenever the National Guard is needed, our people left their jobs and families, to serve 

their communities. I’m very proud of the compassion and commitment our National Guard men and 

women have demonstrated throughout this response. 

We are also grateful to our DOD, state and federal partners who have been in this fight with us to defeat 

COVID-19. It takes a whole-of-government approach to achieve the results we’ve seen.

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the 20,000 National Guard, and thousands of other DOD 

and partner-country service members, who are serving in harm’s way overseas today. Make no mistake, 

the investment America has made to ensure the National Guard is ready for its combat mission, is paying 

dividends in our homeland response. More than ever, the National Guard remains ... Always Ready, 

Always There. 

Dialogue:

[Name] [QUESTION/RESPONSE]

Maj. Matt Murphy Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for our media roundtable. We’ll 

take a second just to make sure everyone has good comms. Thank you for 

joining us for our media roundtable: National Guard reaches 10 million shot 

milestone. I am Air Force Major Matt Murphy and I will be your moderator 

today. Army Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau; 

is joined by Air Force Major General Steven Nordhaus, the director of 

operations for the National Guard Bureau; the adjutant general of Florida, 

Air Force Major General James O. Eifert; and Army Staff Sergeant 

Shavonne Santiago from the Massachusetts National Guard. This roundtable 

will last approximately 30 to 45 minutes. Just as a reminder, questions should 

be focused on the Guard’s vaccination efforts. If you have other questions for 

the General and his guests outside of this focus, please send them to the 

media desk. We only have time for one question each, so please ask your 
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best question first. With that, I will now turn the time over to General 

Hokanson, 

GEN Daniel Hokanson I thank you and I know folks have a pretty busy schedule today, so I’d like to 

get over some opening remarks and really get to any questions that you have, 

because we have some great folks here. And also we have Major General 

Jerry (Doctor) Fenwick, who runs our Joint Surgeon’s office, he’s really 

been involved in this since the beginning. 

[Opening Statement}: I am (Army General) Daniel Hokanson and I want to 

thank you for the opportunity to update you on the National Guard’s 

continued efforts to be to defeat COVID-19. National Guard Soldiers and 

Airmen recently vaccinated our 10 millionth person. That’s 10 million 

Moms, Dads, Grandparents, friends and neighbors in the communities where 

we live and serve. 

As I speak, almost 2,200 Guard members are giving 135,000 vaccines a day 

at 805, both static and mobile, sites across the country. They’re part of about 

32,000 National Guard Soldiers and Airmen, over 7% of our force, who 

continue to support vaccination efforts, food banks, testing and screening 

sites, and other COVID-related missions. 

Looking back, it was over a year ago on March 5, 2020 that a California 

National Guard Pave Hawk crew delivered COVID test kits to stranded 

passengers aboard the Grand Princess Cruise ship. Today, those same 

helicopters and crew members are serving overseas supporting the warfight. 

Since that first mission in March of last year, National Guardsmen and 

women have served over 7.6 million days dedicated to COVID support. 

Wherever and whenever the National Guard is needed, our people leave their 

jobs and families to serve their communities and nation, I’m very proud of 

the compassion and commitment of our National Guard men and women and 

what they’ve demonstrated throughout this response. 

We’re also grateful to our DOD, state and federal partners who have been in 

this fight with us to defeat COVID-19. It takes a whole of government 

approach to achieve the results we’ve seen. 

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the 20,000 National Guard 

members, and thousands of other DOD and partner-country service 

members, who are serving in harm’s way overseas today. Make no mistake, 

the investment America has made to ensure the National Guard is ready for 
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its combat mission is paying dividends in our homeland response. More than 

ever, the National Guard remains -- Always Ready, Always There. 

And since we’ve already introduced our other guests, I’d like to thank you 

again for joining us. And we look forward to any questions you have. 

Maj. Matt Murphy Thank you, General Hokanson, I’d like to go ahead and start off with Lolita 

Baldor from the Associated Press. 

Lolita Baldor, AP General, thanks for doing this. I have one question. How long do you see 

this mission continuing? Is there any sense that it appears to be slacking off 

in some states? Are you shifting around to deal with those shifts? And just a 

very brief second, what is your sense of the number of National Guard 

members who have been vaccinated? Can you give us a picture of that? 

Thank you. 

GEN Hokanson So Lita, thank you for the question. When I look at the missions, we actually 

don’t know how long that they’re going to go. Obviously, when you look at 

the number of vaccination stations we have around the country, we will 

continue to support those, but as the numbers continue to go down or they 

become more available in the other markets or other organizations, we will 

be there as long as we’re needed, but not longer than we’re needed. Also, we 

look at some of the other missions that do require support -- the food banks, 

logistics support. We work very closely with our governors to determine the 

length of the mission. And we’ll continue to do it as long as we’re needed. 

With respect to the number of vaccinations, I’d say generally over half of our Guardsmen are vaccinated 

and we continue to work on that. And, of course, we drill one weekend a 

month. So that number fluctuates every month, depending on our drill 

schedule. We continue to monitor that very closely. 

Maj. Matt Murphy We’ll take the next question from Luis Martinez, ABC News. 

Luis Martinez, ABC News General, good to see you and everybody else. Just following up on Lita’s 

question. As we’re seeing some states scaling back individually, the National 

Guard mission is going to have to adjust accordingly, based off what the 

governor states. Is there something, across the board, the National Guard is 

recommending to states about as far as they draw back; whether it’s prudent, 

whether they should be following CDC guidelines, or ultimately, is it just 

really up to the governor to determine how their Guardsmen are going to be 

used? Thank you. 
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GEN. Hokanson We hand you over to (Air Force Major General) Steve Nordhaus, he’s our 

Director of Operations. 

Maj. Gen. Steven Nordhaus Sir, thank you very much for the question. Yes, it’s up to the governors 

throughout the states, as they know the best fit within their state. From the 

beginning, this has been federally funded, but locally supported and 

managed. Because at that point of need at the local area, they know what’s 

best. What we’re seeing from the states is just like we’ve seen throughout 

this response -- the states will increase or decrease based on the needs of 

their citizens and at the direction from their governor; supported from their 

adjutants general. We do have General Eifert (Florida Adjutant General) on 

the line. Maybe you would like to add comments about what you’re seeing 

from the state of Florida?

Maj. Gen. James Eifert, Thank you, Spock (Nordhaus’s call sign). This is General Eifert, the TAG of 

Florida. I can tell you our current status: we have about 2,000 Guardsmen on 

duty right now. They’re entering the middle of their 14th month of this nonotice deployment, basically away from their employers and families. 

They’ve been supporting the governor since the beginning of this pandemic. 

Right now, we’re mostly supporting vaccines and a lot of testing. We are 

also supporting logistics readiness centers, and every manner of other mobile 

vaccination and mobile testing team the Department of Emergency 

Management in Florida can throw at us. So we’re still really busy. We’re 

anticipating some drop off in the vaccine demand within the state. And as 

that demand signal diminishes, we expect the governor will probably look to 

release our forces back to their families and their employers. But at this 

point, we don’t have any specific schedule of decreased tasking for our 

National Guard. 

Maj. Matt Murphy Thank you, Generals. We’ll go ahead and take a question from Eleanor 

Watson, CBS News. Nothing heard. We’ll go to Ellie Kaufman from CNN. 

Nothing heard. We’ll go to Lillian LaCroy from Fox News. Nothing heard. 

Amanda Macias from CNBC. Alexa Corse from the Wall Street Journal. 

Alexa Corse, WSJ Hi, Alexa here. I wanted to ask about the strain on the Guard; dealing with 

this massive COVID response, in addition to social justice issues and all the 

other things you’ve dealt with. And do you have a sense of how much the 

COVID mission has cost? 

GEN. Hokanson That’s a great question when you look at the impact it’s had on our 

organization. If you look at last year, actually on June 6th, we had 120,000 

National Guardsmen on duty -- that was really our peak. And that’s the most 
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we’ve had mobilized since World War II. That was really the confluence 

between the peak of our COVID-19 response and also our civil disturbance 

operations. When we look across the board, we have met every one of our 

requirements. Every single one of our overseas deployments we were able to 

meet on time. We conducted our training, and we also met every requirement 

the governors have asked us to do. 

With respect to the total cost, I don’t know the exact number. I’ll hand that to 

General Nordhaus shortly, but what I’d really like to do is have Staff 

Sergeant (Shavonne) Santiago give you a quick perspective from somebody 

who is on the ground helping, and talk about that impact. So, Sergeant 

Santiago, if you don’t mind joining in, please. 

SSG Shavonne Santiago Not at all, sir, thank you. To answer your question, Miss Corse, in regards to 

the possible strain that this mission is putting on the soldiers: I would have to 

say not much, to very little at all. For the most part, we all volunteered to be 

here. We volunteered for this mission, with a very good understanding on the 

severity of the situation. I mean, not just our country, but our world is in this 

pandemic -- and it’s still very much active. So to be able to get our boots on 

the ground to administer as many vaccines as possible to help save lives, and 

get our communities back, and get back to our families. There’s an incredible 

amount of passion that is brought into these buildings, and into these 

soldiers, and into the patients that come and see us. So I would say very little 

strain, and much more pride and compassion. 

GEN. Hokanson Thank you, Shavonne. Spock, anything you want to talk about the funding? 

SSG Santiago Sir, I don’t have exact numbers on the funding, so we’ll have to take that up. 

Major Murphy, if you’ll take that so that we can get back to Alexa with the 

answer. 

Maj. Matt Murphy Yes, sir. With that, we’ll go ahead and move on to Melissa Stewart from the 

Reserve and National Guard Magazine. Melissa, do you need to unmute? 

We’ll go ahead to Howard Altman from Military Times. OK. Nothing. We 

will go to Libby Howe from Defense One. 

Libby Howe, Defense One Hi there, no question. Thanks. 

Maj. Matt Murphy Thank you. And moving on, we’ll go to WUSA Channel 9. Nothing. Will go 

to NBC News. OK, I think we’ve gone through everybody. Does anyone have 

a follow-up question? 
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Abraham Mahshie, Washington Examiner This is Abraham Mahshie, the Washington Examiner, on 

the telephone line. I’d like to ask a question for General Hokanson. 

Obviously, this 10 million number is a really positive news story -- a lot of 

goodwill generated. It comes on the heels of an announcement that a fourth 

service member from the Wisconsin National Guard was arrested related to 

the Capitol riot. So is that affecting the goodwill and the positive reputation 

that the Guard has across the country? I wonder, General, if you could speak 

to that? Thank you. 

GEN. Hokanson When you look at the positive impact we’ve had across the nation, and I 

can’t really comment on any law enforcement or pending investigations, but 

in any organization, the goodwill of the majority and vast majority of those 

and what they’re doing in their communities, I think it has had a really 

positive impact. And so we really try and do everything we can within the 

National Guard to support not only our nation when it comes to our war fight 

mission, but also our communities and anything our governors or 

communities need to really make a difference. We really like to focus on 

that, and make a difference whenever and wherever we can. 

Tracy O’Grady-Walsh Hey, this is Tracy O’Grady here, we specifically invited Florida to join us 

here because we believe they were the first state in our entire nation that was 

able to open up vaccines to 100 percent of their citizens. Florida, can you talk 

to us a little bit about the logistics of being able to open up earlier than 

anyone else? 

Maj. Gen. Eifert, FL TAG It’s a big team effort, from everyone in our county health departments, our 

civilian retail partners, and all of the different pharmacy stores and grocery 

stores everywhere. We’re (the National Guard) just a small piece of that 

overall team puzzle, really. We do a lot of the logistics response for the state, 

though, with our logistics resource center in Orlando, where we’ve been 

basically managing a lot of the distribution of resources, PPE, and test kits, 

and that kind of thing throughout the state. So that’s a big part of what we 

played. Mostly, we really assist our contract nurses and emergency 

management and county health department personnel with the actual data 

gathering and logistics support for the vaccination response. We’re just 

supporting them in the different walk-up centers and drive-through centers, 

and mobile testing busses that we have every imaginable way to get out into 

the community to both our long-term care facilities and our under-served 

populations -- we’re just a part of the big team. Florida has vulnerability, 

because a significant part of our population is elderly. We’ve been all-in on 

just helping the governor, and the Director of Emergency Management, and 
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the state’s Attorney General, and getting to every person that could possibly 

want a vaccine. 

Maj. Matt Murphy Perhaps we could have Major General (Jerry) Fenwick speak to the overall 

operation picture with all of the medical staff. 

Maj. Gen. (Dr.) Jerry Fenwick, NGB Surgeon General Thanks for allowing me to answer some 

questions. I would like to say, as a physician, just how proud I am of all of 

our National Guardsmen and women for their tireless work literally over the 

last year-and-a-half. The work they’ve done really can’t be understated. 

Early on, our office began efforts to coordinate with all 54 states and 

territories to design both static and mobile vaccination teams. This occurred 

in concert with our testing abilities and our testing teams and in agreement 

with the state medical leadership. Our state surgeons, we allowed and 

encouraged them to tailor these mobile and static vaccination teams to meet 

the needs of the missions -- and that included both large cities, rural areas, 

and underserved populations. I should note; we allowed and encouraged the 

expansion and contraction of these facilities in order to tailor make to the 

demand signal. So we’ve been very successful in this, as noted by the 

number of vaccinations we’ve given. 

Maj. Matthew Murphy Thank you, General. Luis Martinez from ABC. You had a follow up 

question?

Luis Martinez, ABC News Yeah, I have two actually. One on Florida, because we’re now approaching 

the new hurricane season again. Given the resources that you’ve had and 

continue to provide, how are you going to have the available resources to 

meet the hurricane season? And then a follow up to NGB: the question about 

the maintenance of health care professionals, doing the vaccinations in some 

states. Has there been a drag, as far as you’ve seen, impacting the civilian 

sector, or was it just a force multiplier in many of these states?

GEN. Hokanson Gen Eifert, I’ll hand it over to you first to talk about the hurricane season. 

Maj. Gen. Eifert, FL TAG Yes, sir. So we're laser focused right now, which is a blessing, as we look at 

the potential for us to start downsizing our COVID mission. As I mentioned, 

with the long deployment, over a year-long that our Guardsmen have already 

been on, we’re letting them off just in time to reset and get ready for 

hurricane season. In fact, this week, we have our hurricane exercise going on 

within our state, so that we’re recalibrating our readiness and retraining our 

people to be ready for hurricane season. And we’re hoping to have a lot more 

Guardsmen off COVID duty as we prepare them all to respond (to 
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hurricanes). In the case of a big hurricane season, we’re prepared for it. 

We’re looking at it hard. We’re hoping for the best -- with the improving 

COVID situation, we won't be in a scenario where we’re trying to work both 

missions simultaneously. 

GEN. Hokanson Related to your second question about the merit of our health care 

professionals, I’ll hand it over to General Fenwick, as a doctor himself. We 

stay in very close contact with our adjutants general -- they really have the 

pulse for the communities from which they draw their medical professionals 

from. They find that balance. We’re very careful not to overtax the health 

care system, while best utilizing medical professionals for the entire 

community. That said, let me hand it over to Jerry Fenwick. 

Maj. Gen. Fenwick, NGB SG Thanks for the question. You know, so far we have not seen significant 

degradations in the civilian health care sector from our folks actually 

providing the vaccinations. I should note that obviously the vast majority of 

our providers and our health care folks come from the civilian sector. So as 

we as we move toward some of the missions that’s decreasing, particularly 

with vaccinations, we’ll probably be able to coordinate more efforts to try to 

get these people back in the hospitals, if they need to be. I should note also 

that we keep in very close contact, as General Hokanson mentioned, with our 

state surgeons, our state Air surgeons, and our state medical leadership. And 

we have weekly calls with this group of people and ask them this very 

question: do you have enough resources and are you seeing any degradation 

in facilities or any degradation in the ability to provide the mission? And so 

far, it’s always been positive. 

Maj. Matt Murphy Perhaps, Sergeant Santiago, can talk about your colleagues in regard to that 

question? 

Maj. Dyana Allen I'm sorry, Mr. Murphy, just to let you know, our team here in the Pentagon 

has to drop off. And General Hokanson, did you have anything that you 

wanted to add from your side? 

GEN. Hokanson I really want Sergeant Santiago to give her perspective, because I think it’s 

really important here. Unfortunately, we’ve got Congressional engagements, 

so I’ve got to go. But, thank you all for the questions and for the opportunity 

to share this very important milestone and the support for National Guard 

across the country. It’s Guard men and women trying to find that balance 

between their civilian career, their military career, and their family. But all of 

them standing up, making a difference, when they know what’s really going 

to be helpful to their communities. So thank you, Matt. We’re going to drop 
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off, but I’m certain Santiago’s got some great experience she’d love to share 

with everyone. 

Maj. Matthew Murphy Thank you, sir. Appreciate your time. Sergeant Santiago.

SSG Santiago Over on our end, we have a plethora of medical practitioners here, so we 

have an OIC (Officer-in-Charge) who’s a physician He has his own practice 

in internal medicine. His Captain is also a PA (Physician’s Assistant), he’s 

on our team as well. We have a critical care nurse. We have myself, as a 

medic. So we have a lot of very good individuals here. So as numbers have 

increased, and we needed larger teams, we recruited other individuals who 

are outside of the medical practice or outside the medical field, such as MPs 

or even engineers. That said, it’s incredible how quickly we could get classes 

like CLS and other EMT classes up and running to train these soldiers and 

give them the capabilities to keep up with the rising numbers of vaccinations 

being given. So whether they are able to be hands-on with their vaccines, or 

screening patients, or drying up the medications, or documenting all their 

information in the computers -- wherever we need them, it’s incredible how 

quickly we’re able to find and train them to keep up with the demands. 

Maj. Matt Murphy Thank you, sergeant. General Eifert, do you have anything to add about the 

medical personnel in your state? 

Maj. Mat Murphy No, not unless there are any further questions for me. 

Maj. Matthew Murphy OK, I just wanted to double check at Mosh Gaines, are you on the line, NBC, 

did you have any questions? 

Lolita Baldor, AP Hey, Matt, can I ask one other question? 

Maj. Matt Murphy Yes, ma’am. Go ahead.

Lolita Baldor, AP I’m wondering if you have heard from many of your other TAGs in and 

around the hurricane region. Are they also starting to look toward the shifts 

to the hurricane season? Are any of them still sort of overwhelmed with 

COVID? Are seeking help for the hurricanes? What is the general sense of 

the entire region? 

Maj. Gen. Eifert, FL TAG That’s a good question. You know, the last time I saw other TAGs was about 

a month and a half or two ago at our first in-person conference. So with 

COVID, we’ve all been kind of operating out of our own little fiefdoms and 

not as communicative as we would normally be. So I actually haven’t spoken 
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to any of them recently about hurricanes. We just finished an All-Hazards 

conference that is not attended by the TAGs, but by our domestic ops 

representatives and our joint staff. And they’ve been working effectively, as 

they always do every year, to create a game plan where states can offer one 

another assistance through what’s called Emergency Management Assistance 

(mutual aid) Compacts. Through what we call EMAC agreements, we look 

internally at the problems that we have for this coming hurricane season. For 

example, in Florida, I have almost 2,000 soldiers that are going to be 

deployed overseas for a variety of different missions, primarily in the Central 

Command area. That means I may have some vulnerabilities within my 

formation that I will need other states to help out with. So through these AllHazards working groups, we talk about what our needs will be based on 

degrees of hurricane activity. Something like a Category 4 or CAT 5 

hurricane, will certainly require Florida to request assistance through these 

EMAC agreements with other states. In the past, we’ve had support from as 

far away as Alaska. Believe it or not, if they had the resources that were most 

suited for whatever missions that we had needs for assistance. So all the 

TAGs get briefed after those All-Hazards working groups on what is 

available through our neighborhood to be able to assist one another in the 

case of a serious emergency in our state. So that’s been going on as 

scheduled, and I haven’t gotten the full out brief on the details t, but I’m 

anticipating that everybody’s going to be pretty able to support one another --

assuming we don’t have another significant spike or increase in cases and 

responses that are required by the Guards in the region. But I think we’re 

looking pretty good, especially in Florida. We’re anticipating some offramping of our commitment in our domestic response arena. I expect if 

another state needs us, we’ll be able to assist them. 

Maj. Matt Murphy Thank you, General. We'll go ahead and open it up to all the media on the 

line if you have another question. 

Alexa Corse, WSJ I’ll jump in. Alexa, with the Wall Street Journal here. Is 

there a goal to get all eligible Guard members vaccinated or to hit a certain 

threshold? Is there a timeline? 

Maj. Matt Murphy General, if you could address that about your state. 

Maj. Gen. Eifert, FL TAG There is no mandatory requirement for Guardsmen to get vaccinated or for 

anybody in the Department of Defense to get vaccinated, for that matter. So 

it’s a completely voluntary, personal decision as to whether Guardsmen 

accept the vaccination. Every one of them is already, especially my state, 

eligible to receive that. Those who want them, have already gotten them. 
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Those who may want them in the future, but are still on the fence can get one 

whenever they want. So other than that, until the president makes a decision, 

and the Secretary of Defense decides to make the vaccine mandatory, it will 

continue to be an individual personal decision by the Guardsmen like it is for 

everyone else in the country. 

Maj. Matt Murphy Thank you, General. Sergeant Santiago, can you talk about the feelings from 

yourself and maybe some of the discussions you’ve had with your colleagues 

about it? 

SSG Santiago It’s not mandatory for us. However, we are out here and we’re vaccinating 

individuals. So for us on our end, it’s important to understand and respect 

and trust the science of the vaccine. That way, we can properly educate those 

in the community and reassure them in their decision to be vaccinated. 

Maj. Matthew Murphy Thank you, any further questions from the media that are on the line? 

Hearing none. Sergeant Santiago, since you’re still out there, do you have 

any final remarks? 

SSG Santiago I do not, Maj. Murphy, but thank you for having me. 

Maj. Matt Murphy Thank you. And General Eifert, do you have any closing remarks? 

Maj. Gen. Eifert, FL TAG No, happy to talk to the press. And thanks for sponsoring this roundtable, 

appreciate it. 

Maj. Matt Murphy And to all of our media colleagues, thank you so much for your time. If you 

have any follow up questions, please feel free to send them to the media desk 

or give us a call. We’ll be sure to answer any additional information that we 

can provide. We really appreciate your time. Thank you for joining us today 

and have a great afternoon. 

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