CTAT mission comes to a close

by Spc. Joaquin Vasquez-Duran
California National Guard Public Affairs

LONG BEACH, Calif.-- California National Guard service members assigned to Joint Task Force, completed COVID-19 operations in Southern California after their activation in early January to support community testing sites.

 The task force, composed of over 300 Soldiers and Airmen from a dozen units and wings, completed after successfully administrating 310,00 tests across 65 COVID testing sites. 

 “The success of this operation was greatly in part because of the quick response from all Guardsmen.” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Leroy Cisneros, the tsk force commander.

 Cisneros is no stranger to COVID-19 missions having been the commander to lead the COVID-19 vaccination site at California State Los Angeles in 2021. 

 “I personally, could not be more prouder of the excellent work they accomplished during the course of this daunting task.” Cisneros said.

 While the COVID-19 activations have brought service members with a wide variety of duties to assist the pandemic, the most active have been combat medics.

 U.S. Army Spc. Jenny Rafailov, a combat medic with the 670th Military Police Company, has been on COVID orders for two years. Rafailov says she is extremely proud of the work she and her fellow combat medics have done over the past two years.

 “The COVID activations went from the most difficult to least difficult. The first one was the hardest in terms of what we saw with COVID. It was so difficult and hectic the first year, now working with patients when you’re vaccinating or even testing it is a lot different.” Rafailov said.

 “It’s not just fires, or domestic response missions,” Rafailov explains, “it’s also humanitarian relief like what we are doing now.” 

 Rafailov has said she is extremely grateful to be able to help the community.

 “When the community comes in, they see service people in uniform, it becomes a little more official. When they see people in uniform, there's definitely more respect.”  Said Vivian Del Mar, the lead operation at the Boeing Long Beach COVID-19 testing site.

 Del Mar has had a unique experience in being supported by uniformed service members while being a civilian.

 Without a solid team, things wouldn't have fell the way they did. Every single person that put in their work here made this flow so easily.” Del Mar said.