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COVID-19: AZ National Guard to ease grocery shortages

Will help move supplies to stores
Posted at 7:55 PM, Mar 20, 2020
and last updated 2020-03-20 22:55:54-04

TUCSON, Ariz. - Governor Ducey's calling out the Arizona National Guard to help with the Coronavirus response.

One of real anxiety producers right now is when you go to the grocery store and a lot of those shelves are cleaned out. Help is on the way and a good share of it is going to come from the Arizona National Guard.

The modern military depends on its equipment---ammunition and a wide range of supplies and depends on units like the National Guard’s 2220th Transportation Company to deliver the goods.

Now the National Guard will be delivering the goods to help keep us all going.

They'll use their ability to deliver supplies in tough environments like hurricane aftermaths, to help replenish supplies to places like grocery stores hard hit by Arizonans stocking up since the coronavirus.

In Phoenix, Major General Michael McGuire joined Governor Doug Ducey packing supplies at a food bank.

General McGuire says the Guard is still counting on civilian volunteers to play their part in getting supplies where they can do the most good.

He says, "With only eight thousand of us, we can't stock every store in the state. So we need people to go out and get to those folks, look for opportunities for jobs, look to pivot to help in volunteer groups, non governmental groups, and one of the most challenging things we face in a time like this is synchronizing all those efforts.

Most Guardsmen live lives as civilians until they're called to duty. The state will consider their civilian jobs in deciding who to activate, so Guardsmen who work in critical fields like medicine or law enforcement will not be pulled away from civilian jobs essential to the COVID response.