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20-572
The Medical Readiness
and Training Command
Analyzing the Response to a Global Pandemic
BG Lisa Doumont, CG, MRTC LTC Robert Garcia, S3, 3MTB, MRTC
Juanita Krueger, Booz Allen Hamilton, MRTC Craig Hayes, CALL Analyst
November 2020
Foreword
I
n business, a pivot signies a strategic change to
speed up growth, address increased competition,
or enter niche markets. To do this, a business must
know itself; its industry; and the abilities and skills
of its smaller, independent subsidiaries and divisions.
In basketball, a pivot by a player allows freedom to
maneuver, considers possibilities, and makes space
for execution. Organizations that maintain good
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
(SWOT) analyses can pivot when the environment
changes and an unexpected challenge presents itself.
Organizations that do not maintain SWOT abilities
may miss chances to provide rapid-response evaluation
and implement capabilities for an emerging need or
threat. This document outlines the Medical Readiness
and Training Command’s (MRTC) seamless pivot
from planning and performing large-scale medical
collective training events to leveraging core
competencies to continue to enable the Department
of Defense’s (DOD) ready medical force through
observation, analysis, and entry of lessons learned
into the Joint Lessons Learned Information System
(JLLIS). Recommendations from
the MRTC
include operational and strategic improvements.
Some of these improvements are newly learned
as a result of MRTC’s response to COVID-19,
while others exercise and implement policies and
procedures that are in place but have been neglected.
The worst lessons learned are those that are lost.
Lessons Learned
“Those who cannot remember the lessons of
the past are doomed to repeat them.” (George
Santayana, The Life of Reason: Reason in
Common Sense, Scribner’s, 1905, page 284).
This lesson comes from George Santayana, who
understood that studying history is necessary to avoid
repeating mistakes. Capturing lessons learned from
all aspects of military operations and applying those
lessons to future missions are key aspects of Army
doctrine. The Army seeks to avoid repeating
mistakes made in training and in real life through
this formal process. The MRTC captures lessons
learned from Army Reserve medical units
during annual training events and provides those
lessons in a repository in JLLIS for all within the
DOD and federal agencies to view.
In the spring of 2020, the MRTC was preparing for
five major training events to be conduced over the coming
summer months. These training events were to take
place at key United States Army Reserve (USAR)
training sites and included thousands of Soldiers,
Joint partners, and multinational countries across all
Components (COMPOS) of the Army. The three
Army COMPOS include the Active
Component, the Army National Guard, and the
Army Reserve.
As the year progressed, a virus was detected in China
and began spreading to other countries around the
world. By the end of the second quarter, fiscal year
2020 (FY20), the virus became a worldwide
pandemic and forced the closure of multiple cities,
states, and countries. As a possible postponement
of the USAR's annual training exercises and a
growing USAR medical response to the
pandemic, the MRTC’s priority of planning leaned
toward exercise support but then pivoted to
pandemic response.
