The US has over 2-million in uniform, commmitted to giving their lives in time of danger. They’re trained and well-equipped for mobility and logistics, and could quickly set up field hospitals.
It’s hard to hit only the virus with a bullet.
Soldiers usually have no medical training, so they aren’t much use. Besides the big issue isn’t lack of personnel, but lack of ventilators and test kits.
Because you can’t shoot it.
They have set up field hospitals. What else would you have them do?
The number of American soldiers who are specifically good at this isn’t two million. It’s a small fraction of that.
So do you deploy them? Well, the thing is, they exist to serve the other soldiers. What happens if those people have to deploy? If there’s a war? They need their medical support team.
Because Trump. 
It’s so crazy it just might work! If they shoot all the people sick with Coronavirus, the number of Coronavirus deaths could plummet overnight!
Not just that, a lot of people with training in science and biology could be helping too at things like manufacturing tests, interpreting tests, working on therapies, but they really can’t find opportunities to help.
However I don’t know how much help the military itself can do. The job of the military is to use overwhelming force to take over geographic areas, and the average soldier is barely into adulthood. A pandemic calls for a different response.
It is being handled the way republicans handle a war.
After all, Democrats won 2 world wars. The republicans lost Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
As others have said, the U.S. military is really, really good at dealing with things you can shoot, bomb, or fire a missile at. In recent memory we beat the government of Iraq twice and the government of Afghanistan once. But then you look at our bungling in Somalia- the fundamental problem is you can’t shoot a famine.
Our problem at the moment isn’t lack of beds, it’s lack of protective equipment and testing kits. Maybe the military could stage a commando raid on the Malaysian factory that make most of the world’s gloves?
I never knew Saddam Hussein was the ruler of the U.S. now that we lost the Iraq war.
What no love for Eisenhower?
Also a lot of the military with medical backgrounds are reservists with civilian jobs, so they’re already on the front lines addressing the crisis. And also the military health system (like those hospital ships) is really set up for trauma and battlefield injuries, not a pandemic.
The military could enforce curfews and even social distancing. It could also bar travel, like section off NYC. It’s the wheat and weeds parable, harm to the progress of the virus will be harm to the people. The powers that be haven’t seen the reason to raise it to that level.
No, you are correct. Iraq was a smashing victory for the USA. Bush even said so!
You also left out our bungling in Iraq and Afghanistan.
National Guard and State Militia troops could be mobilized by the governors to do that, but I’m pretty sure involving the US Army, Marines, etc. to enforce laws would violate the Posse Comitatus and/or Insurrection Acts.
I think the real question is, why do we maintain an army of >1 million soldiers ready to fight a war, but not an army of doctors ready to fight a pandemic?
I mean, of course we have lots of doctors, but we only have enough to provide medical care during non-pandemic times. We don’t have doctors, nurses and paramedics in reserve, being paid just to train for future disasters and wide-scale emergencies.