 I'm Colonel Dale Jackson, I'm the State Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officer for the Defense Coordinating Element assigned to FEMA Region 5. As emergency preparedness liaison officers within the state, we're essentially LNOs and the goal between to ensure communication and coordination between FEMA, our Defense Coordinating Element which falls under Army North and USNorthcom and whoever the supporting DOD element and in this circumstance it's the U.S. Air Force Vaccine Detachment which is on the ground here. So whenever there is a disaster declared in the United States of Presidential Disaster there's always a lead federal agency that's put in charge of coordinating with local officials to respond because it's important to underscore the reason that we come in is it's on invitation. So something's going on in the state at the local area that there's a demand, there's a capability that they can't meet. They turn to FEMA and say is there a federal agency that can help meet this demand, meet this capability or has this capability that we don't have within the state. And FEMA looks around, does essentially a mission analysis, looks at the other federal agencies that are available and when appropriate after discussing it with us, discussing it with the Defense Coordinating Officer we can determine together, yeah that's something that we as the DOD can accomplish, it's appropriate. And then what we call the mission assignment and process and allocating a DOD resource to carry that out starts from there. In a mission like this, the Department of Defense will never be the lead federal agency will always be supporting in support of FEMA or another civilian federal agency that's been tasked depending on the mission. As the state EPLO or emergency preparedness officer, I'm the liaison to the lead FEMA individual on the ground which in this case we call them the branch director. And we're simply here to do what LNOs do so a lot of planning and operations which requires a lot of communication and coordination and crosstalk that's multi-agency. So we help turn all that emergency preparedness language and military language and crosstalk and coordination that needs to occur into a common language and common platform and we bring all the different components that are required for DOD to engage in a synchronous manner into the operation together. As EPLOs we are board selected for our position based on our background and unique skill sets. So I'm a medical officer but we also just like the rest of the military we have engineers, we have pilots, aviators with not only the professional background but the personal skill set in order to do this mission. This is a very rewarding mission for someone who's in the Army Reserve to partake in because we seldom have an opportunity to support the homeland directly, to support the people of the United States directly within the borders of the United States. So it's very exciting, it's very rewarding to be able to work in an environment that's primarily civilian. So for me particularly I'm an emergency physician. In my civilian role I'm the medical director for EMS and emergency management for the Sparrow Health System which is located here in the capital of Michigan. So myself and several others who are here on ground we've been engaged in the COVID fight from the very beginning. Primarily in my civilian role so I still see patients, I do emergency shifts throughout the month and when I'm not doing that I'm doing my administrative duties to have the opportunity as an Army Reservist to be called in my state EPLO role and to be activated in my own home state and come on active duty to support what essentially is a whole of government effort in the Ford Field COVID vaccination center is a rare rewarding opportunity that we don't often get and in other other type of Army Reserve or or activity assignments that we can have. What's unique to me in this role is because I'm a physician who happens to be an EPLO in the middle of a pandemic I'm called to active duty and I'm working with individuals who I know in my civilian role and I have to cross into a federal status and work with them in uniform and and two two persons in particular the the medical director for this mission is a physician who I highly admire and respect Dr. Rockoff from the Henry Ford Health System who's the medical director of the site. We've known each other and worked as colleagues for 10 years and we've been although we're different health systems we've been right there a side-by-side fight in COVID from the beginning. The the other thing that that definitely touches home is my wife works as the system director for quality safety and emergency management for Henry Ford system so here I am in a federal status activated to support my hometown working side by side with with FEMA, the Michigan State Police, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, my spouse and a dear physician colleague of mine and that is a rare opportunity and one that has been seamless professional and one I think we will all cherish knowing that we all played our very special role in killing the virus together years from now as we look back on all of this.