Photo Provided Larry Barnes, commander of the St. Clairsville American Legion, welcomes Barbara Pubal Baird as Veteran of the Month. Baird served as a nurse with the U.S. Army Reserves.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The current COVID-19 pandemic is a matter that relates to the experience of St. Clairsville American Legion’s Veteran of the Month Barbara Pubal Baird, who served in the Army Nursing Corps.

In 1989 she was commissioned into the U.S. Army Reserves.

“I went in when I was 39 years old and I was in there for almost 21 years,” she said. “I was on the combat support side of the military.”

She was stationed at Fort Irwin in Pittsburgh.

“I was stateside, and I was with the 339th Combat Support Hospital throughout my time in the military” she said. “We did a lot of things in the local … seven-state region.”

Her duties included immunizations, screenings and vaccinations. She saw returning troops and screened them for health and post-traumatic stress disorder issues.

“We saw people before they deployed and after they came back from deployment,” she said. “Those are all the basic screenings that all soldiers go to.”

She provided health screenings, briefs, and immunizations to soldiers who deployed to and returned from the Middle East.

“Nurses in the military do what civilian nurses do: take care of, screen, and teach people. Not much action like in the movies. But every soldier going into danger wants assurance that medical staff is quickly available,” she said.

The nation experienced SARS, a different coronavirus, during her service, and she was assigned to write the pandemic response for the installation. This was then expanded to other western installations.

“There was no pandemic happening. SARS had happened two years before that, and everyone was concerned if this happens again, and it always happens again, it will happen again after this COVID-19 is over, is how should we handle it? The CDC had that in place before this pandemic ever happened. There had been a pandemic working group that had a lot of this in place, but it was not utilized as this unfolded across our country.”

“We’ve had epidemics in humanity for hundreds of years, that is not anything new. We have had in the past, previous pandemics, that is not a new thing. When I was in Fort Irwin, one of my tasks was to write the pandemic response plan for that installation because we had just gone through SARS, so it is a critical time. We need to pay attention. We need to listen to what the CDC physicians, what the pandemic response physicians, the infectious disease specialists are saying. We need to follow the directives that they give us. That is the safe way to get through this. Otherwise, the deaths are going to be continuing the way they have in these past two, three months.

“What the CDC director recommends, we should follow those guidelines. That is the safe way to work through that kind of pandemic,” she said.

“We need to follow the physical distancing. We need to stay isolated for those few weeks to allow the virus time to quiet down, until there is time there is a proven treatment, until there is a vaccine manufactured, and that just takes time. There is no magical thing that is going to make it go any faster.”

She praised the responses of Germany, New Zealand and South Korea.

“The way they did it is the way we should have done it, the way we should be doing it now,” she said.

“The Earth is a quilt of microbes scattered everywhere. They evolve, mutate, adapt, and change far more rapidly than humans. As the human population grows and co-mingles, the opportunities for pathogenic microbes multiplies. This coronavirus, COVID 19, depends on humans to spread and survive. When people are close together in an enclosed space, they help the virus to spread and infect other people quickly,” she said.

“The CDC guidelines minimize the opportunity for COVID 19 to spread. Testing and tracing are inadequate so we don’t know who has this virus. There is no proven treatment and no vaccine yet. The best way to prevent illness is to prevent exposure,” she said.

Baird comes from a military family, with many relatives native to the area. She is a third-generation Army member, with her grandfather serving in World War I and father, uncles and two half-brothers in World War II. Her first husband served in Vietnam.

“They grew up in Belmont County,” she said, adding the tradition was an inspiration for her. “I think our family serves our country well. We’re a patriotic group.”

After 20 years, she retired as a lieutenant colonel.

Baird grew up in Midway and graduated from St. Clairsville High School. She lives in Rayland.