Ebola Returned at the Worst Possible Time | Command Post Live

Summary

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Bulwark Takes: "Ebola Returned at the Worst Possible Time" | Command Post Live

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Date: June 3, 2026
Hosts: Ben Parker, Mark Hertling
Guest: Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher (ret.), Former U.S. Army Surgeon General
Episode Theme:
A deep dive into the resurgence of Ebola in the midst of global uncertainty, focusing on the military's role in public health crises and how interagency cooperation is vital yet currently fraying. The episode also covers recent news on politicization of military promotions and major international conflict zones before moving into an extended expert interview on pandemic response and bio-threats.

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Episode Overview

This episode opens with a fast-paced news roundup covering military promotions, Iran-Gulf region tensions, and the war in Ukraine, then pivots to a thoughtful, in-depth conversation with retired Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher. Together, the team illuminates how the U.S. military supports public health efforts during crises like Ebola outbreaks, the erosion of interagency structures since the last major Ebola epidemic, and the national security stakes of global health threats.

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News Lightning Round

1. Politicization of Military Promotions

[02:17–08:18]

• Discussion Point: Secretary of Defense's recent intervention in the military promotions process, blocking the advancement of officers—disproportionately Black and/or women—outside of established protocols.

• Key Insights:

  • The traditional process involves promotion boards with congressional oversight; secretarial intervention is unusual unless for clear-cut reasons (e.g., misconduct).
  • Bypassing this system undermines professionalism and the apolitical nature of the military.
  • Forced retirements due to these blocks can prematurely end careers of highly experienced service members.
  • Mark Hertling: “To be pulled off without knowing why, beyond potentially a DEI memo, it just seems contrary to what we believe is the apoliticalization of the military.” (05:17)

• Quote:

  • Ben Parker: “When personal preference trumps professionalism and merit, trust breaks down.” (02:23)

2. Iran Region Conflict Escalation

[08:18–11:31]

• Discussion Point: Breakdown of US-Iran negotiations, renewed combat, and Iran’s strategy of attacking regional neighbors.
• Key Insights:
  • Recent strikes on Kuwait International Airport underscore the danger to U.S. allies and the persistent threat from Iran, despite American messaging suggesting the conflict is “over.”
  • The region remains unstable, with Iran leveraging asymmetric warfare through proxies like Hezbollah.
• Quotes:
  • Mark Hertling: “The war is far from over.” (11:13)
  • Ben Parker: “You can’t decide by yourself the war is over. The enemy also gets to choose if the war is over or not. And Iran has said, no, it’s not over yet.” (11:13)

3. Russia-Ukraine: Ukrainian Attack on St. Petersburg

[11:31–13:50]

• Discussion Point: Major Ukrainian drone strike on the Kronstadt Naval Base during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
• Key Insights:
  • The attack targets both military (Baltic Sea Fleet) and energy infrastructure, with strategic timing during a major event attended by international figures.
  • Strikes are both tactical and psychological, highlighting vulnerabilities in Russia’s air defense and embarrassing the regime.
  • Reference to historic Russian sensitivities about air defense, dating back to WWII.
• Quotes:
  • Ben Parker: “It also sends a message right—you can have a major event in Russia’s second largest city and Putin’s home city. We can go and make it embarrassing for you.” (12:34)
  • Mark Hertling: “[Zelensky and his team] are messaging extremely well to anyone that feels like they can team up with the Russians and help them out of this conflict.” (13:20)

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Main Interview: Ebola Crisis and Military Response

Introducing Lt. Gen. Shoemaker Schumacher

[14:33–16:14]

• Mark Hertling introduces Dr. Shoemaker as former Army Surgeon General, key to military health reforms, and an instrumental leader in coordinating health missions during the Global War on Terror and public health emergencies.

The Army Surgeon General’s Role

[16:14–19:11]

• Responsible for health care of ~10 million beneficiaries, advising Army/DoD leadership, and commanding the Army Medical Command (then 85,000 personnel).

• Major health system reorganizations are underway, affecting military and VA cooperation.

• Quote:

  • Shoemaker: “The motto of the Army Medical Department is to conserve the fighting force, to make sure there are healthy, medically ready and psychologically prepared soldiers to be committed to force.” (20:50)

The Scope of Military Public Health Missions

[19:11–24:12]

• Continuous state of preparation for both domestic and global health threats.

• Interagency planning, especially with CDC, WHO, and civilian organizations.

• Example: During OIF, addressed risks such as anthrax attacks.

• Quote:

  • Shoemaker: “…all of the agencies of the executive branch, the Department of State, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, [and] the Department of Defense… work as a collaborative group.” (23:23)

Operation United Assistance: The 2014–16 Ebola Response

[24:12–31:51]

• The military, often led by non-medical officers, is tasked with building infrastructure and supporting civilian health agencies during outbreaks.

• Daryl Williams, then a Maj. Gen., was ordered by President Obama to build response infrastructure in Liberia—showcasing the military’s agility and logistical might.

• Ebola: 2013–2016 epidemic infected ~28,000 people, killing 11,000; efficacy of prior vaccines now in question with new strain.

• Quotes:

  • Shoemaker: “What the US military do, what we do best: logistics… What Daryl brought in was the ability to bring in infrastructure, to rapidly build field hospitals there, protect healthcare workers and the like.” (30:54)

Coordinated Response: Military, NGOs, Global Agencies

[31:51–41:57]

• Multi-agency coordination is essential: USAID leads, DoD plays support role (logistics, command/control), WHO and NGOs are key partners.

• “Fusion cells” bring all stakeholders into joint operational centers.

• On-the-ground heroes: Dr. Boris Lushniak (Public Health Service), Dr. Cliff Lane (NIAID) provided essential on-site care and vaccine development.

• Legal and ethical responsibility: Host countries control access; U.S. has historically taken in Ebola patients as part of global moral leadership.

• Quotes:

  • Shoemaker: “We are not in charge. And that’s very important: the establishment of who is in charge and who’s in support is critical in these kinds of things.” (33:43)
  • Shoemaker: “If you can provide… care on site, it does great things for their morale, for this nation. Boris [Lushniak] is a hero in that regard.” (40:16)

Then and Now: Erosion of U.S. Public Health and Diplomatic Capacity

[41:57–44:22]

• The robust interagency ecosystem that enabled the 2014–16 Ebola response—USAID, CDC, State, WHO—has been gutted:

  • U.S. has left WHO, USAID is weakened, State is losing career diplomats.
  • The disaster assistance response (DART) teams and leadership exemplified by programs like PEPFAR are now “in shambles.”
  • Building back cooperation (“rebuilding is the name of the game”) is essential for preparedness.

• Quote:

  • Shoemaker: “This is a very delicate ecosystem that… has been profoundly disrupted, and it would really take rebuilding… from the ground up in order to reconstitute what needs to be done…” (42:31)

What’s at Stake Today?

[44:22–46:49]

• Ebola is not the same as pandemic flu; less prone to global catastrophe due to limited transmission vectors.

• The U.S. risks losing both its global moral leadership and “muscle memory” for coordinated response.

• Routine training and interagency relationships are keys to future readiness; these are atrophy due to lack of ongoing, lower-level training and drills.

• Quote:

  • Shoemaker: “We’re also losing our muscle memory as to how this goes.…You want people to have worked out through sand table exercises and crisis exercises that we do all the time well in advance of the big challenge. And I think we’re losing that.” (45:50)

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Notable Moments & Quotes

• “The enemy gets a vote all the time.”
  — Mark Hertling, on why wars (and by extension crises) aren’t over just because the U.S. says so (11:29)
• “We have to shed… our single corps. We become corporate… leaders. We are here to serve the entire organization.”
  — Shoemaker, highlighting how senior military officers must transcend specialty to serve service-wide (26:15)
• “Nothing compares to what nature can do to us.”
  — Shoemaker, on why infectious diseases matter as a national security threat (36:14)
• “Keeping [sick patients] offshore has never been part of our history and never been part of our ethos.”
  — Shoemaker, on American willingness to treat Ebola patients domestically (39:45)

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Key Timestamps

• [02:17] Politicization of military promotions explained
• [08:18] US-Iran conflict re-escalates
• [11:31] Ukrainian attacks in St. Petersburg detailed
• [16:14] Lt. Gen. Shoemaker Schumacher introduction & Surgeon General role
• [24:12] Operation United Assistance & military role in Ebola response
• [31:51] Fusion cell coordination in public health emergencies
• [41:57] Weakening interagency/public health infrastructure today
• [44:22] Risks for the U.S. if Ebola spreads, loss of global moral and operational leadership
• [45:50] The value of preparedness and “muscle memory”

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Episode Takeaways

• The U.S. military’s apolitical professionalism is under direct threat, with real implications for trust and effectiveness.
• Iran and Russia remain active, evolving security crises with global consequences.
• The military’s unique contribution to pandemic control lies in logistics, infrastructure, and force protection—but crucially, always in support of lead civilian agencies and in cooperation with partners like WHO and NGOs.
• Since 2016, critical U.S. capacities for global health leadership and interagency response have sharply eroded, undermining readiness for the next pandemic or outbreak.
• Global health security is national security—the current fragility in international cooperation is both a moral and practical risk.

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For listeners wanting a sophisticated, pragmatic breakdown of military leadership, global conflict, and the intersection of public health and national security—this episode offers timely warnings, expert insight, and a call for urgent rebuilding of America’s leadership and preparedness mechanisms.

Transcript

[Safeway/Albertsons Announcer]

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[Ben Parker]

Hi, I'm Ben Parker from the Bulwark

[Mark Hertling]

and hi, I'm Mark Hertling. Ben, partner's partner from the Bulwark.

[Ben Parker]

Welcome back to another episode of Command Post. We have a bunch of things. We're going to start with a lightning round because there's so much to talk about this week and then we are going to welcome on our very special guest to talk about Ebola virus and how the military responds to public health crises and bio threats around the world. We're very excited for our special guests. But first, okay, we have to start with a reminder. The book club for your book General is coming up. It's in just a few days. It's the Bulwarks Book Club hosted by our very own Monona Charon. The first book club is about if I don't return A Father's Wartime Journal by our very own Lieutenant General Mark Hertling. The live book club show is Monday, June 8th. I guess it's five days away. We're on June 3rd, so it's five days away. Monday, June 8th at 7:00pm Eastern Time. If you are a Bulwark plus member on Substack or YouTube, you can join the live chat. You can also go to the post on the Bulwark website or leave a comment on YouTube for your question, your comment, whatever you want to contribute to the book club. And I think there's still time to read the book because you can get it and Amazon I think will get it to you in a couple days and then once you pick it up, you won't put it down. So there's still time if you haven't read it yet. Highly recommend.

[Mark Hertling]

Well, if I can quickly insert something, Ben, you know this is this was a surprise when Mona reached out to me to ask me to do it and I thought she was just doing it because I'm part of the Bulwark team, but she said no, no, no, I've read the book and We've got to talk about it because it's a lot more than it appears to be by the COVID So I'm really thankful for Mona doing this. And I'm looking forward to doing the Bulwark, the very first inaugural Bulwark Book Club with Mona Sharon.

[Ben Parker]

Yeah, that's going to be great. I can't wait for it. Now we have to talk about news. We got reports, two reports over the last two days. Yet again, the Secretary of Defense is reaching down into the military promotion system to decide on his authority alone who can and cannot be a general after the normal process has already been completed. He did this with about nine naval officers who were who had been selected to become admirals and a few other Air Force officers who'd been selected to become generals. You wrote a piece for us, an article for us. It's on the Bulwark homepage this morning. Playing politics with military promotions. When personal preference trumps professionalism and merit, trust breaks down. So this is bad. Partially. It's bad because it appears yet again with another Pete Hegseth personnel issue that a disproportionate number of the people he's blocking are black and or women. And so in the name of fighting dei, he is denying these people the. He's not only denying these people the promotions that they have earned according to the merit system, but he's also denying the military their services, the services of the people who the military has judged are best equipped to take on these leadership roles. But you point out there's another problem with this, too. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what you say in the piece.

[Mark Hertling]

Well, there's a bunch of things that are at issue with this, Ben. And what I try to do is give my personal experience sitting on promotion boards. I had the privilege of sitting on two one star promotion boards and a two star promotion board during my active military military career. And if you understand the process that occurs during this, you'll understand how one person interjecting themselves without any rationale. I mean, it would be very different if the secretary said, hey, the reason I'm pulling this person off the promotion list is because they committed a crime or they had a DUI or whatever. Then you'd say, okay, got it. And that happens all the time. But it's a congressional mandate that Congress is the one that really approves and disapproves. Promotion list across the board and individuals being pulled off is certainly under the purview of the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of One of the services who also reviews these promotion lists when they're conducted by the 18 board members that I sat alongside. But it seems really bizarre that there have been four army officers, as you said, seven naval officers, and now over a dozen Air Force officers who, it was just reported last night by the Wall Street Journal that were pulled off these lists. This is something that I think the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee ought to look into because it's way beyond control for a Secretary of defense to determine who should and should not be promoted. That seem without reason. The other thing I'd suggest, Ben, that most people didn't know, that I didn't include in the article, is many of these officers are probably approaching their 30 year mark in the service. That's a mandatory retirement date. You have to retire at 30, unless you get an exception to continue your service when you become a general officer. That can extend into beyond 30 years, all the way up to. We've had recently some generals serving up to 42 and even 43 years of service. So these are individuals who spent a lifetime giving selfless service of the nation. And to be pulled off without knowing why, beyond potentially a DEI memo, it just seems contrary to what we believe is the apoliticalization of the military.

[Ben Parker]

Yeah. One of the details you had about the way the process is supposed to work is that the, the generals who are on these promotion boards like you were back in the day, get instructions from the service secretary about, you know, here's what you should look for. So if it's a matter of we want people with this kind of experience or we want people think like this, or people with these particular skills, Hexif could give those instructions and say, you know, I think it's really important that we have more people who have experience with autonomous weapons or have more people who have experience with tech, or more people who have experience in East Asia, whatever he wants, he can say to the normal promotion boards, you should emphasize this. And that's a way of making sure that the right people are getting promoted. He's not doing that, as far as we can tell. He's just letting the promotion boards make the decisions and then picking off individual people and saying, these people don't get to be promoted and in some cases they have to retire. And then when he's asked about it, he says, oh, well, I don't want to discuss personnel decisions. That's not fair.

[Mark Hertling]

Yeah, well. And as you point out, I'll make the difference. The service secretaries of each Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines give the dynamics of what the boards of military officers should be looking for and the kinds of things they need to do. Like, hey, we need a foreign area specialist for China, so we need someone that speaks Mandarin. So find someone on your list to make sure they're promoted a one star for the position. Those are the kind of things that the service secretaries give. Or, hey, we need more infantry officers or more armor officers because we're creating more brigades. You know, that's the kind of stuff that can come from the secretary of Defense, but it usually doesn't because the service secretaries are concerned about their services. Now the Secretary of defense can say, hey, include this in your memorandum of instruction for board members. That's not what's happening. He's waiting for the boards to convene to be executed, for the service secretaries to give their guidance, to have the post board scrub, which is something that's conducted. And then he's pulling people he doesn't like or feels shouldn't be on there because of whatever issues that he doesn't want to name. And that seems contrary to what Congress wants to happen and what our Constitution says that Congress controls under Article 1.

[Ben Parker]

Yeah, I think it's absolutely the kind of thing Congress should look at. All right, moving on. So we get through all of our topics where we talk to our guest, Major combat around the world again. So we'll start with Iran because the negotiations seem to have just stopped, just broken down between the United States and Iran. We're trading fire again and Iran is back to its strategy, which I'm not convinced is very smart of just attacking all of its neighbors at once. It's not a very good way to make friends. But we, I think producer Mat Matt got us a clip of this from the Kuwait International Airport after it arrived. It is, I mean, you've been through that airport many times. You were saying you've had a lot of American service personnel to that airport. It's, you know, as you can see, it's a big, very modern terminal. And maybe if anyone speaks that dialect of Arabic, they can tell us what this guy is saying. But, yeah. General, what do you make of this renewed combat in the, in the Gulf region?

[Mark Hertling]

Well, the Iranians have been striking several facilities. They seem to have ordered some of their proxies, specifically Hezbollah, to continue their actions to drive a wedge, I think, further between Israel and the United States. And we saw the results of that when the president talked to Prime Minister Netanyahu a few days ago and seemingly through reports, lost his CO a little bit. And it's a disconnect with the one ally we have that's helping us in this conflict because the president did not basically coalesce other alliance members to contribute to any of this fight. Didn't even tell what was going on. But you're seeing Iran conduct asymmetric warfare by striking those that are our most valuable allies in the Gulf. Kuwait is one of those. To hearken back to 1991, when we as the United States and a lot of allies went into Iraq to counter Saddam Hussein's move of trying to occupy Kuwait. Kuwait has been a strong ally of the United States because we defended them. Now they're striking their airports. We are using part of Kuwait as kind of a basing area right now for many of the forces, many of the air defense troops that are in the area. And Kuwait International, a beautiful airport, as you said, I've been through many times, has been struck, and it certainly is going to contribute to an economic shortfall within the country of Kuwait. So this is all part of the plan on Iran. They're saying they are still in the fight. They still have munitions to strike. Even though the Secretary of Defense and the President and the Secretary of State have all said, hey, we've obliterated their capability and reduced their ability to attack, it's obvious they're still attacking. So the war is far from over.

[Ben Parker]

Yeah, I think it was just yesterday or the day before Secretary Rubio said, it's okay, the war is over. And how many times have we said this? We keep on repeating ourselves. You can't decide by yourself the war is over. The enemy also gets to choose if the war is over or not. And Iran has said, no, it's not over yet.

[Mark Hertling]

Yep, the enemy gets a vote all the time.

[Ben Parker]

Speaking of that is as true for our enemies as it is for Russia's enemies. Producer Matt has also gotten us some clips of what St. Petersburg looks like right now, because right before the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which has. Yeah, look at that. That's the Kronstadt Naval Base, Russian naval base right outside St. Petersburg. Right as the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is hosting a bunch of kooks and crazies, including from the United States, Candace Owens is there. The Ukrainians have launched a major drone strike. They are attacking not only the naval facilities there. It also looks like they're attacking oil and energy facilities. This isn't just a strike that gets at sources of Russian power, both the Black Sea Fleet and their energy infrastructure. It also sends a message right you can have a major at a major event in Russia's second largest city and Putin's home city. We can go and make it embarrassing for you. We can go and attack anywhere we want at any time. And the last thing I'd point out here is that air defense has been for decades, for basically a century, air defense has been a neuralgic point for the Russians because they have a lot of area to defend and it's really hard and they get really spooked when they can't defend their airspace. A lot of this goes back to, you know, when the Germans invaded during World War II and that kind of stuff. And so I imagine this has a lot of people in the Russian military feeling very poorly right now. What do you think?

[Mark Hertling]

Yeah, I think it's not only the strike itself, Ben, but it's also the messaging. As you said, the Russians have the Russian Economic forum going on in St. Petersburg right now. And as members were arriving to include several Americans just a few 100 yards away, those strikes hit some of the port facilities and other infrastructure requirements of the Russian black Baltic Sea fleet. Excuse me, not the Black Sea Fleet, but the Baltic Sea Fleet. They're also allegedly striking ships within Kaliningrad, where their Baltic Sea Fleet headquarters are. So what we're seeing is President Zelensky and his team are doing not only excessive kinetic strikes and taking the fight to the enemy, but they are messaging extremely well to anyone that feels like they can team up with the Russians and help them out of this conflict.

[Ben Parker]

Yeah, I wouldn't want to put my money on the Russians right now. I know which side I'd bet on.

[Safeway/Albertsons Announcer]

This week at Safeway and Albertsons, 6 to 16 ounce selected varieties of strawberries, raspberries or blackberries are $1.99 each. Limit 3 member price with coupon and extra meaty pork back ribs or St. Louis style spare ribs. Bone in previously frozen are $2.99 per. Limit four member price with coupon plus medium avocados, colored bell peppers or English cucumbers sold by the each or tomatoes on the vine or sweet onions sold by the pound are $0.99 member price. Visit Safeway or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.

[Ben Parker]

All right, any last lightning round topics before we welcome our very special guest who I'm really excited to talk to.

[Mark Hertling]

No, this. I think we've covered most of the things that are happening on. We could spend a show on each one of those things, Ben. But. But I want to get to a dear friend of mine by the name of Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher. He was at one time the surgeon general of the United States Army. He also commanded Walter Reed Medical Facilities, Army Medical Facility. He was very involved in transforming the medical corps during the early stages of the global war on terror as we were fighting in two different theaters. Eric is just not only a great physician and a great doctor and a great medical commander, but he's also a hell of a guy and a wonderful soldier. And we thought as we're talking and seeing some things happening with Ebola, Eric gave up retired from the army about the same year I did in 2013. So both of us missed by about a year major army activities and military support to civilian Authorities during the 20142015 Ebola crisis in West Africa. So we're going to Eric a few things about that to give our listeners some insight into what the military does because it's a command post to support civilian authorities in times of these kind of pandemics. So, Eric, welcome to the show and thanks for joining us. I'm going to ask the first question. Can you briefly describe what the Army Surgeon general does, who you are and what you do when you're in that role?

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

Well, thank, thanks, Mark, and thanks for inviting me, both you and Ben for inviting me to the Bulwark. You look great, by the way. I have to say I'm unsolicited advertisement for the Bulwark. I think I'm going to have to join the Bulwark because you have you have done far better as you can see, than I have. But you look pretty rested and pretty good. Yes, the Army Surgeon General is in the all of the medical services of the of the uniformed services are in a period of great dynamism right now and reorganization, reconsolidation of military health care and uniformed health care. The uniformed services provides care for about 10 million beneficiaries in the country, about the same amount as the Veterans Administration, which is a separate, as you know, Cabinet office. So together the US military and the VA serve about 20 million beneficiaries of health promotion and health care, which I separate into two different roles. People like you and I, Mark, are both veterans who can get veterans care through the va. And because we're retirees, we can get military health care as well. But the majority of those 20 million are partitioned into one of the two sectors. The army Surgeon General is at the time I was in there and before the recent organization and consolidation was dual hatted as both the senior advisor under the so called Title 10, Title 10 of the US Code is the title which dictates the organization and is the law that underlies how you and I and all of us in uniform are organized and what our roles and missions are. And my role and mission as a surgeon General was as the principal advisor in health and health care for the leadership of the army and the DoD and as dual hatted. As a commander, I commanded the United States Army's medical command, which at the time had about 85,000 personnel, about half of whom were in uniform. Doctors, nurses, administrators, technicians, veterinarians, dentists and the like. And in that role, I had about 600 medical units that were in brick and mortar facilities, dental clinics, laboratories, doing biomedical research around the world and around the country on all kinds of threats to the forest, as well as our hospitals and medical centers like the Walter Reed Army Medical center, which was one of the. A number of those. The Air Force and the Navy also have similar responsibilities, but as I said, they're being consolidated at the time. Yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead.

[Mark Hertling]

I was going to say, you know, you bring up a very good point because, you know, it was interesting for me as a. As an operational commander, you being an operational commander for the medical bureau, we would often come together in major meetings and conferences to talk about a variety of things which I don't think most Americans realize we talk about. And one of the things, for every single mission the military does, you're the subject matter expert for health care, so you insert yourself. So what I'm going to ask, in terms of your staff that work for those 85,000 people that fell under your command, what kind of contingency plans were you involved in beyond combat roles? Things like humanitarian relief operations, the kind of things that the army does does that a lot of American citizens don't think about. And specifically, I want to guide you toward pandemics because I know that was something that you worked very closely with the cdc, the WHO and other organizations in the civilian sector in terms of making sure that our, not only our countrymen were safe, but also our military were safe in various operations. Can you talk about that a little bit?

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

Sure. I'd be more than happy. And the simple answer is we are in a continuous state of preparation for both domestic and global health threats to the force and to our allies. I mean, remember our responsibility, my responsibility as a healthcare provider and as a health promoter. And I don't want to pass up that first element of health promotion. You know, Washington, George Washington, as the commanding general of the Continental army, was a unique Commander in that in 1777, he inoculated the Continental army against smallpox. He recognized that smallpox was killing more soldiers in the British and in the Hessian army and had a great potential to devastate the Continental army because they were at higher risk for smallpox than continentals coming out of Europe. And so he took. Took this very, at the time, risky ploy to inoculate with live smallpox virus Continental armed soldiers and probably save his army against devastating. Because in every conflict, Mark, and you know this, in every conflict, disease, mental health problems far exceed combat losses for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, coast guards and space cadets, all of the above. So our responsibility is, quite frankly, the motto of the army medical department is to conserve the fighting force, to make sure there are healthy, medically ready and psychologically prepared soldiers to be committed to force. And so you and I and others like us will. We're always in discussions about what are the domestic risks, what are the global risks. I was a Fifth Corps surgeon at one time and also had a medical BRIGADE in the 5th Corps in Europe right before OEFOIF. Scott Wallace, then Lieutenant General Scott Wallace was the commander of the 5th Corps. He had 65,000 soldiers. He was deploying into the Mid east for OIF. And he very smartly. And you did. And others who are well informed on the war fighting side turned to me and said, eric, you know, they could incapacitate us by poisoning our water or by spraying our neighborhoods, you know, with contagious anthrax or the like. What do we do to protect our soldiers?

[Mark Hertling]

So, prick, you were talking at the time when we were still in Europe. Not even when we were in Europe.

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

Exactly when we were in Europe, you know, what is it going to mean? All you'd have to do is have a commercial sprayer go over a neighborhood, and you'd have 24 hours to diagnose that this was anthrax and start them on ciprofloxacin or a similar drug. And they could incapacitate the army by taking us down through threats of that kind. So we're always in discussions across the interagency. And that's probably the next thing I need to talk about, about, and I hope you direct toward is this is an interagency, a cooperative thing. And by interagency, what I mean is all of the agencies of the executive branch, the Department of State, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, we all work as a collaborative group to approach this. We all have our strengths and we all have our shortcomings in law and as well as our capacities. And you see that, Vola, I am

[Mark Hertling]

going to direct you toward that. And then I'm going to let Ben ask some questions, because he's one of the smartest guys I know. But you and I Both retired in 2013. You went off in your retirement role to be the dean at an organization called the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences usis, which very few people know about, but which I know really contributes all the doctors and nurses and veterinarians and dentists to the military. It's up in Maryland. But you were there when President Obama ordered our mutual friend then at the time, Major General Darrell Williams, to establish something called Operation United Assistance, which was later headquartered in Liberia, to basically build the infrastructure for the combating the Ebola breakout on the African continent. What I think is fascinating about that is you're a medical guy. I'm a tanker. Darrell Williams, who worked for me on several occasions as a colonel, is an artilleryman. And he was commanding at the time the Southern European task force in Vincenzo, Italy, that had a bunch of airborne troopers under him. And the president called him up and said, basically, daryl, get to Africa and establish support infrastructure for the Ebola fight. And I know as a tanker, that would have probably boggled my mind. Darrell is an artilleryman, is probably smarter than I am, but he went down there. And can you tell a little bit about the story of the establishment of that military support for civilian authorities and the medical doctors that, you know that came into West Africa for the Ebola mission?

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

Sure. And I'm going to insert one thing before that. Hey, Mark, you're no longer. You're no longer a tanker, and you know that I'm the brother of a tanker of an armor officer, and he's. He's no more an armor officer anymore than. Than I am.

[Mark Hertling]

I can show you my cavalry hat. It's right behind.

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

Oh, no, no, I understand, you know, and I understand all of that culture of armor, but it relates to something you said earlier during your quick updates. General officers, admirals, flags of all uniformed services. We're no longer specialists in our single corps. We become corporate, in a sense, leaders. We have to shed. In fact, the typical military uniform of a flag officer has no core designation. It's a reminder to us that. That we are here to serve the entire organization in whatever role. And I was privileged to work with. With Daryl and, you know, you. There's. I'm the son of an artillery career artillery officer. There's nobody better in. In the midst of what we faced in army medicine around a common combat actually care than an artilleryman who's all about precision, right about follow through. You know, you're, you're off, you're off just a little bit on, on a round going down range and you hurt people. And so, yeah, Daryl was a phenomenal, phenomenal leader. And I was so pleased to see him not only go beyond 2 stars, but to 4 stars. Even being the commandant of West Point at one point. He's a remarkable, remarkable man. So what he brought and what the army brought, what the US Military brought, because it was not just the army. He was tasked as a task force commander by the president that really included all of the services and included the U.S. public Health Service. You know, incidentally, I have a nephew at the time was an air force pilot. He was, was. He was in, he was in Guinea. He was flying C130Js. He'd just been trained and he was in guinea to learn French so he could be a subject matter expert for the air force in West Africa. And wham, Ebola hit, he calls me, you know, uncle Eric. What do I do? I said, wash your hands, don't get a Ghanaian girlfriend, eat MREs, you know, stay clean. And he flew logistical support to Sierra Leone, to Liberia and Guinea. Those are the three countries. We've had about 20 incidents of Ebola in Africa since 1976, when it was first, when it first appeared. It appears to live within a variety of species, especially fruit bats in Africa. That is its natural reservoir. They don't die from it, they don't have symptoms from it. But when we invade their space, when we cut down trees, when we harvest them or hunt them and turn them into what's called in West Africa bush meat. I've had stews made of bush meat. You never know what that meat is. It could be anything. Bats are one of them. If they're not, if they're poorly cooked, you can get infected with it. Of the truth, 20 or so incidents, we all know that one from 2013 to 2016 because it infected about 28,000 people. It killed 11,000 of those people. There are six species of this virus called Ebola. These viruses for we all know about COVID 19 virus and some others. These are very unusual creatures which are just really short chains of genetic material. A bowl only has seven genes in a long chain, and its whole job is to invade our cells or the cells of hosts and to hijack the mechanics of that cell to make viruses. It has no capacity to make a virus on its own. But in attaching to our cells and are specific cells they attach to which then get diseased, they then can hijack what the machinery of that cell is to make new viruses and spread it. And in doing that, they kill the cell and they begin to cause damaged organs. So the hantavirus infection, which was raged on the cruise ship, that's another virus. We first encountered that in Korea during the Korean war. We had 3,200 Allied soldiers infected with a hantavirus. Hanta is actually named after the Hanta river in Korea. Ebola is named after the Ebola river in the Congo. So there are six species of this virus. Four of them are pathogenic to humans, in fact, humans. The other, not so much or not at all. And of those, three of them have been the most. The one that infected West Africa in 2013-16 is a different species than the one that is now affecting the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And for that reason, the vaccine that was developed very rapidly for the 2013-2016 epidemic does not seem to be working on the one that we have now. What the US Military do, what we do best. Logistics. Yeah, but what. What Daryl brought in was the ability to. To bring in infrastructure, to rapidly build field hospitals there, protect healthcare workers and the like.

[Mark Hertling]

Yeah, let me. Let me interrupt you there because I want to get. Allow Ben to ask a question, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna ask you to address one more thing, Eric, if you don't mind. So let me talk, because I've studied what. Eric, what. What Daryl did. And what he did is. First, he established a joint headquarters in Monrovia, where no one was at the time. He built Ebola treatment units, what he called ETUs throughout Liberia. He constructed a Monrovia medical unit for infected healthcare workers. Workers. He created logistics hubs in five different countries. He provided the medical personnel, like the enlisted medics from his own headquarters, bringing them down from Europe, who started to train thousands of local healthcare workers in this infection control process you were just talking about. But now I want to talk. I want you to talk about what the doctors did, because you told me you gave me some names of some doctors that did some miraculous work. Military doctors from the Navy and the Air Force. And then I think I ought to let Ben ask some questions because he's just soaking all this in right now, and he's probably got a whole bunch of things. But can you talk about the coordinated military, usaid, World Health Organization, non governmental officials, and host nation efforts in the fusion cell you put together to really, you know, make sure there weren't more than thousands of people that were killed during this thing.

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

Yeah. And let's be clear. I mean, Ben, did you have a question for me or.

[Ben Parker]

No, go ahead. I'm saving them up. Don't worry. You'll hear from me.

[Mark Hertling]

Okay.

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

Well, I mean, and in all candor, and we need to keep this in mind, the lead US Agency for that effort and for efforts like that is usaid. ID it is not dod.

[Mark Hertling]

Right.

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

We are not in charge. And that's very important. The establishment of who is in charge and who's in support is critical in these kinds of things. And Daryl was a task force commander, but USAID led the effort. And what we've lost from people I know quite well. George Court, for example, former army, army doc who then went on to work in the biodefense area. He used to command the hot zone when I was at Fort Detrick, commanding for Dietrich and the United States Army's Medical Research and Material Command. He commanded our infectious disease laboratory, which we all know as the hot zone. He went on to do to work within the Health and Human Services and eventually became the Acting Assistant Secretary of HHS Health and Human Services for Preparedness and Response. The aspr. And the ASPR has oversight over a multidisciplinary, multi agency team which goes out called the DARC team, the Disaster Assistance Response Team, that goes out in the first 24 to 48 hours to these hotspots that carry subject matter experts from all of of the agencies to assess what's going on, what's needed, what do we. What do we propose to do? And it includes DOD members. Now, you just outlined what DARA was able to do. Logistical hubs, command and control. Hey, wait a minute. Doesn't this sound like war? Isn't that exactly what we do? Yeah, and that's our competency, and that's what people were so complimentary of, of the US Military there.

[Ben Parker]

General, that's exactly the question I wanted to ask because it seems like this would be kind of complicated. You tell the military we have a human enemy, it's a terrorist group, or it's a state conducting war, we want to go defeat them. That's something we know about. How do you think about this when the enemy is a microbe? How do you think about the distinction between protecting the military itself and protecting civilians? Protecting foreign civilians, protecting America? It seems like this all gets, like, a little bit complicated and murky. How do you think those things through?

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

You know, Ben, you're young enough that you don't remember the era of infectious diseases.

[Ben Parker]

Well, I remember Covid pretty well.

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

Well, you remember Covid, you don't remember polio?

[Ben Parker]

No.

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

Many of us of my age remember you didn't go to the swimming pool in summer. You didn't drink out of a public fountain. And every class you had in elementary school always had a kid or two who was crippled because he had had, or she had had polio as a kid. Your mother and father were terrified if you got a summertime cold because that's how polio presented until there was a vaccine for it. The same was true of measles. There were always a couple kids that were bl, that were deaf or unable to speak because they had acquired intrauterine German measles or measles. Excuse me. So you know, I always just say that we were very afraid, and rightfully so, for Saddam Hussein to use, for example, chemical weapons on us. That's how he won the ten year war against Iran, is by using chemical weapons on them and choking up their logistical and their medical chain. But nothing compares to what nature can do to us. In Philadelphia, during the constant Constitutional convention in the 1790s, almost shut down the city because of a yellow fever epidemic. New York City struck by yellow fever, the Gulf coast by yellow fever brought in from Africa by slaves in the 15th and 16th century and spread throughout the Caribbean and the Gulf. And that disease which was transmitted by, by mosquitoes, had about a 30% mortality. So nature throws at us these diseases that are in some respects far more devastating than what man can do him or herself. And the US military has always been involved in that. You're familiar with the name Walter Reed. Walter Reed is important in history because after the Spanish American War many more people died from yellow fever. More near soldiers died from yellow fever, fever and dysentery even on the, on the docks in, in Tampa, Florida than did from combat in Cuba or in the Philippines. And so the Surgeon general at the time, George Miller Sternberg, sent Walter Reed, a young major in the army down to Cuba to find out how is this transmitted. The Brits were doing the same thing with malaria in India. And the consequence of that is army medicine crack the, you know, cut the Gordian knot on how this was transmitted. We drained swamps by the time we built the Panama Canal. The French lost 40 to 60,000 people trying to build the Panama Canal. We drained the swans and treated mosquitoes and didn't lose anybody from yellow fever or malaria. And so the military has Always been involved in protecting its, its force and protecting others in the world. That may lead to deterioration, to economic crises, to violent conflict. And stabilization of those places is part of the role that we play in a multi agency effort to go out and harvest and harness rather our potential. And we're assisted as well. Not assisted, were led in many respects by like the World Health Organization, international organizations which have the role and have the expertise to assist in these roles. The other thing not to forget is the host nation is the lead here. They decide who can come in and who can't come in. They decide, you see right now that there's major conflict occurring with, within Kenya over whether they're going to allow a health facility to be established in Kenya to take care of anybody who is infected or exposed to Ebola virus rather than bring them back to the country. Wait a minute. We have great capacity in this country to take care of ebola patients. In 2013, 2016, there were several people, including a nurse that got infected. She infected two other people. And that's the news of one of my, my friend, my other friends who was in West Africa at the time. And we lost nobody. We have facilities in Washington D.C. we have them in Omaha, Nebraska and other places to take care of sick patients. Keeping them offshore has never been part of our history and never been part of our ethos. So the people that I know of, Mark one is Boris Lushniak. Boris was a two star general, a deputy Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, one of the uniformed services. He spent time at that facility in Monrovia taking care of sick health care workers. Because think about this in terms of the morale of people going into the care of patients who have a disease with anywhere from a 40 to a 90% mortality. If you can provide them care on site, it does great things for their morale for this nation. Boris is a hero in that regard. Cliff Lane, who is the clinical deputy for Tony Fauci for over 40 years. A very close friend and actually a classmate of mine from the University of Michigan. As an undergraduate and as a medical student, Cliff has worked at the National Institute for Allergy Infectious disease for over 40 years. He's responsible for great improvements in HIV AIDS and discoveries in HIV AIDS around the world. He's highly regarded and has worked on pandemic flu. He's worked in Ebola. He's worked on virtually every one of these and was on site in West Africa helping to develop the vaccine and treatments for Ebola. Unfortunately, he was one of the first people fired by the Secretary of hhs.

[Ben Parker]

General, I think we have time for about two more questions. So that's the last thing I wanted to ask, and then I'll let our general have the last question. But how are things different now? We were talking about World Health Organization, which I believe we pulled out of. We're talking about usaid, which is now a smoldering ruin, talking about the State Department, which is laying off foreign service officers left and right. I'm sure you're still plugged into the people who are doing this stuff now. How is it different? What does this Ebola response look like this time compared to last time, when this interagency effort you were talking about was actually functioning?

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

Well, I mean, from my perspective, it's really a layman, because I'm not an expert in this, and I have to be careful to point that out. But from contact with friends who know a lot like George Courts, like Boris Lushniak, like Cliff Lane and others. Others. This is a very delicate ecosystem that I've described. The military being part of that larger ecosystem, led in the case of an Ebola epidemic by USAID and the like. That ecosystem has been profoundly disruptive, and it would really take rebuilding that almost from the ground up in order to reconstitute what needs to be done, starting probably with these DART teams and working closely with WHO and the like for that. This is, I think, a very strange time for all involved. And I think what's happening is more responsibility and more of the resources are then falling to other people in the world than for the US which has historically had such an important and dramatic lead in this. I mean, the President's Emergency Program for Relief of AIDS in Africa, pepfar, what an amazing achievement. That was, again, assisted by the. By the Department of Defense, but led by USAID and others, cdc, and that's. That's in shambles as well. So I think there's. There would have to be a systematic reconstruction pulling people like those that I've just described and others back into the fight to say, okay, how do we go after this and rebuild this very important ecosystem that's required to go after. Does that make sense?

[Ben Parker]

It does.

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

Yeah.

[Ben Parker]

Rebuilding is the name of the game.

[Mark Hertling]

Yeah. If I can add to that, Eric, and we'll probably have to close it with this question, what kind of danger are we in as a nation in terms of the spread of this disease? I mean, I'm just, you know, not. Not West Africa, lean out of that. But because of not stopping a disease forward and getting it at its location, and eminence, what kind of a danger does it put us in for our healthcare within the United States, within our own shores?

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

Well, I, again, I'm, I'm not an expert in this field. I don't think, think that Ebola is going to be the pandemic flu that will kill tens, if not hundreds of millions of people globally because of its transmission and the fact that you can isolate more effectively. It's not communicated, it's not spread as easily by respiratory raspberry as others in the past have been, for example. But I think what we're losing, Mark, besides the moral battle of the US not being a leader in humanitarian efforts around the world to stabilize those countries and those peoples who have, who rely on folks like us to assist the global community of health and healthcare and research, is a shared brother and sisterhood. And I think we're losing that moral authority. We're also losing our muscle memory as to how this goes. You know, Tony Fauci used to say the best way to prepare for a pandemic flu is how we treat routine flu every year. When you get that down, when you get the muscle memory down, when you get people accustomed to this, then. And then when the big one comes, you're prepared. And people, as we all used to say, Mark, when people like you and I would work together, the crisis is not when you want to get the first time the business card. You want people to be on your Rolodex. You want people to work out through sand table exercises and crisis exercises that we do all the time well in advance of the big challenge. And I think we're losing that.

[Mark Hertling]

Yeah. Eric, I gotta tell you this. You know, Ben and I talked about what we present on command, issues of military importance, but also things that the US Citizen that's never worn the uniform might understand better. This has been extremely enlightening in a unique area, a subject that neither one of us were capable of presenting on our own. So we just want to thank you very much for bringing your expertise and the history of what happened back in the 2013 through 2016 timeframe to a similar problem that we may be facing today that truthfully hasn't hit the media as much as it probably should. We've had a couple of our Bulwarkians, I think that's the term we're using, write articles about this who are medical mavens. But, you know, your experience really has proven to be insightful. So. So thanks so much for joining us today.

[Lieutenant General Eric Shoemaker Schumacher]

My pleasure. And don't ever hesitate to ask in the future, Mark, you know that, Ben. I'm here to assist in any way. We're. We're public servants for life.

[Mark Hertling]

Exactly. Thanks, Eric. Appreciate it. And God bless you. Okay. Thank you so much.

[Ben Parker]

Yeah. Thank you so much, General, Dr. Shoemaker, for joining us. And I also was told by our producer Matt that this was not the most convenient time for him. So we appreciate it extra. And thank you to everyone for watching Command Post. We'll see you again next week.

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