PENTAGON — As the omicron variant rages, National Guard units have been called up to serve as school bus drivers, substitute teachers, food bank employees, and now, cover down on the entire Department of Defense.

“When General Milley tested positive for Coronavirus, we were worried at first,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. “But then we found a guy named Randy in Nebraska who was able to come out here on TDY to backfill him as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.”

Duffel Blog has learned that Randy is Randy Smith, a General in the Nebraska National Guard who was happy to take the assignment, especially after the Papa Johns he works at eliminated his job as a delivery driver. Sources report that Randy was happy to use up his Annual Training days as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, so long as he didn’t have to take a PT test any time soon.

“It’s been a crazy year,” Airman 1st Class Tara Richardson, a dental hygienist with the New York Air National Guard told Duffel Blog. “First I got called up to work in a nursing home, then to guard the Capitol building, and then back over to Jersey Mike’s Arena to administer COVID tests. Now I’m the skipper of the USS Alabama, an Ohio Class ballistic missile submarine for the next week or two.”