CLEVELAND — With a tweet, President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he would be extending the Title 32 orders of the National Guard through mid-August, thus assuring the troops would receive benefits they were about to miss out on and states the needed resources to combat the new coronavirus.
Earlier it had been announced that the deployments involving nearly 40,000 troops nationwide would be coming to a hard end on June 24, 89 days after the initial federal order which would have left them one day shy of the number of days needed for additional retirement and educational benefits under the G.I. Bill.
Earlier this week, Governor Mike DeWine announced that he would be using some of the state’s troops to assist with testing at the state’s nursing homes. Ohio senators Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown were part of a bi-partisan push to extend the date.
"They are doing all of these things to fill in for what the rest of us aren't doing," Brown said of the tasks they had been carrying out in the state since being called up in March especially related to testing and helping at food banks.
"Their volunteers are mostly retirees, a number of volunteers decided they shouldn't volunteer anymore because of COVID 19, because they couldn't get the protective equipment they needed,” said Brown.
In all, around 500 members of the Ohio National Guard have been part of the statewide effort.
