{"id":4046,"date":"2020-04-15T19:03:14","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T19:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/?p=4046"},"modified":"2020-04-15T19:11:01","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T19:11:01","slug":"unmasking-marylands-citizen-soldiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/2020\/04\/15\/unmasking-marylands-citizen-soldiers\/","title":{"rendered":"Unmasking Maryland\u2019s Citizen Soldiers"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”4047″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1586977881152{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-right: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;margin-left: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-right-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;border-left-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-right: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;padding-left: 0px !important;}”]By: Sgt. Devon Bistarkey, 29th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment<\/span><\/p>\n

BALTIMORE, Md. (April 14, 2020) – As front-line personnel around the country provide services during the COVID-19 response donning protective equipment often obscuring their identity, a movement to portray the person behind the mask aims to bring comfort to the communities they serve. The Maryland National Guard is working to reveal the service members behind the mask.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As neighbors helping neighbors, each hidden face is a citizen-soldier serving alongside state agencies to ensure each Marylander receives the care and services they need. For many, like Spc. Daniel Boback, a healthcare specialist with the104th Medical Company Area Support, that meant putting school on hold to serve his community.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very rewarding being able to help out during this crisis and also being able to have a job because a lot of people don’t have that security right now,\u201d said Boback.<\/span><\/p>\n

Originally from Annapolis, Boback is a full-time student at Towson University studying business marketing and management, currently assisting with COVID-19 testing at the Pimlico Race Course testing site in Baltimore, Maryland.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Boback is working with Sinai Hospital health care professionals and local agencies to get people set up and ready for COVID-19 testing. While his training as a combat medic prepares him for the task, his two years in the MDNG has instilled in him the ability to adapt when needed during this somewhat unprecedented time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMost importantly in our training, we learn to stay flexible, we are a good team and morale is up – everyone takes care of one another.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sentiments echoed by <\/span>Boback and many of the other <\/span>nearly 2,000 service members activated to support Maryland\u2019s response to COVID-19 is that the time away from home is challenging but <\/span>rewarding.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am glad that I can help in any way. I think we\u2019re all looking for things returning to a sense of normalcy,\u201d said Boback. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of time spent working here, long days, and not being able to see your family because you don’t want to put them at risk.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The MDNG is working in close coordination with the many agencies to support civil authorities to augment civil agency capabilities including medical augmentation, transportation support, food distribution, and more.<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As front-line personnel around the country provide services during the COVID-19 response donning protective equipment often obscuring their identity, a movement to portray the person behind the mask aims to bring comfort to the communities they serve. The Maryland National Guard is working to reveal the service members behind the mask.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":4047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[909,911,907],"class_list":["post-4046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-covid19nationalguard","tag-covid19","tag-mdngcovid19response"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4046"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4054,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4046\/revisions\/4054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}