SHADDADI, Syria (AP) — In the searing 108-degree heat, far from his Louisiana health care business, Army Col. Scott Desormeaux and his soldiers are on a dusty base near Syria’s northern border, helping Syrian rebel forces battle Islamic State militants and keeping an eye on Russian troops in the region.

It’s tough duty for the soldiers. But their deployment to the Middle East last November is just a small part of the blistering pace of missions that members of the Louisiana National Guard and America’s other citizen-soldiers have faced in the past 18 months.

Beyond overseas deployments, Guard members have been called in to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters and protests against racial injustice. For many, it’s meant months away from their civilian jobs and scarce times with families. While Guard leaders say troops are upbeat, they worry about exhaustion setting in and wonder how much longer U.S. businesses can do without their long-absent workers.

Back home in Louisiana, Sgt. 1st Class Bray Harris has been living in hotels around Baton Rouge since March 2020, helping provide COVID-19 testing and the vaccine to residents. He’s only been able to race home to Lake Charles — two hours away — a few times, including to evacuate his mother during one of the major storms that hit the state.

Nearby at Camp Beauregard, Capt. Michael Switzer has been sleeping in his office. Over the past 15 months, he and his soldiers have juggled security and work at virus testing sites with road clearance and emergency supply deliveries during the storms and then distribution of the vaccine. For Father’s Day, his wife bought him a cot and a 5-inch-thick foam mattress to replace the air mattress he’d been using.

Since March 2020, Guard units around the country have been lurching from one national crisis to the next. They were tapped almost immediately when the pandemic broke out to help conduct testing, build field hospitals, provide health care and, eventually, deliver vaccines. But at the same time, many — like those in Louisiana — were also facing a record year of storms and hurricanes while taking weeks off from their regular jobs to protect their communities during the race riots. More than 26,000 Guard members deployed to Washington, D.C., to secure the president’s inauguration.

“This past year was an extraordinary one for the National Guard,” said Gen. Dan Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau. Does he worry about exhaustion setting in? “That’s something I’ve been very concerned with right from the start.”

After a summer of loosened pandemic restrictions, military bases in communities where the contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus is exploding among unvaccinated Americans are requiring masks again -- even for inoculated troops.

Fort Bragg, North Carolina, one of the Army's largest bases and home of the 82nd Airborne Division, implemented a strict mask policy Friday for all civilians and service members, regardless of vaccination status, in all the installation's buildings, including gyms and child care centers.

"Effective immediately all personnel; soldiers, civilians and beneficiaries; must wear a mask indoors on Fort Bragg regardless of vaccination status. Additionally, unvaccinated personnel must wear masks in outdoor public spaces," a base-wide memo from the XVIII Airborne Corps said. "Vaccination is safe and remains the most effective prevention against COVID-19, to include the Delta variant."

The new mandates come after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week recommended that Americans return to wearing masks indoors, especially in settings where the virus can spread more easily.

"Getting vaccinated and wearing a mask are our only pathways for bases to return to normalcy," Brig. Gen. Jason Woodworth, commander of Camp Pendleton, California, said in a video to the force Friday.

Unvaccinated troops have had to wear masks during most of the pandemic, and commanders have the authority to order an unmasked service member to provide their vaccination status. However, it's unclear how many commanders have been enforcing mask mandates or how well they can protect troops from the virus in training. During the Arkansas National Guard's recent rotation to the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana, at least 115 soldiers were infected.

Most U.S. bases are reverting back to mask mandates, including Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Fort Carson, Colorado; and Fort Hood and Fort Bliss in Texas. All of those installations are in parts of the country the CDC has identified as having high risk of COVID-19 transmissions and death, which includes all states where the rate of vaccination is below the national average.

In Texas, which is home to Fort Bliss and Fort Hood, at least 239 people have died from COVID-19 in the past week, according to CDC data. Fort Hood is mostly in Coryell County, where only 37% of the population has received one dose of the vaccine, far below the national average. As of Monday, 57% of the U.S. has received at least one dose.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Monday expanded its efforts to evacuate at-risk Afghan citizens from Afghanistan as Taliban violence increases ahead there of the U.S. military pullout at the end of the month.

The State Department said it is widening the scope of Afghans eligible for refugee status in United States to include current and former employees of U.S.-based news organizations, U.S.-based aid and development agencies and other relief groups that receive U.S. funding. Current and former employees of the U.S. government and the NATO military operation who don’t meet the criteria for a dedicated program for such workers are also covered.

The State Department said the move will mean that “many thousands” of Afghans and their immediate families will now have the opportunity to be permanently resettled in the U.S. as refugees. It did not offer a more specific number of those who might be eligible for the program.

“The U.S. objective remains a peaceful, secure Afghanistan,” it said in a statement. “However, in light of increased levels of Taliban violence, the U.S. government is working to provide certain Afghans, including those who worked with the United States, the opportunity for refugee resettlement to the United States.”

The creation of a “Priority 2” category for Afghans within the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program is intended for Afghans and their immediate families who “may be at risk due to their U.S. affiliation” but aren’t able to get a Special Immigrant Visa because they did not work directly for the U.S. government or didn’t hold their government jobs long enough.