DIY Face Mask: DoD Guidelines to Make Your Own T-Shirt COVID Mask

The Department of Defense (DoD) released guidelines earlier this week for all service members to cover their faces using a DIY face mask in certain situations; those where six feet of social distance just isn’t possible. The suggested solution was using a T-shirt or cloth in place of an actual mask. Think of it as a nice little arts and crafts project while you claw at the walls in quarantine.

A DIY Face Mask for Everyone!

The actual memo reads: “Effective immediately, to the extent practical, all individuals on DoD property, installations, and facilities will wear cloth face coverings when they cannot maintain six feet of social distance in public areas or work centers (this does not include in a Service member’s or Service family member’s personal residence on a military installation).”

The plan received some criticism right off the bat.

“While I applaud DoD for taking the initiative to order this action, you can’t help but wonder how the most powerful military in the world seems to be making up a response to this pandemic as they go each day,” retired Army officer Fred Wellman told Newsweek.

Might not seem like the greatest solution, but it’s well-intentioned and the CDC recommends cloth face coverings. Why can’t service members get actual N95 masks? Well, those are being reserved for health care workers. Ultimately, they’re the ones on the front lines.

How To

Finding legitimate face masks anywhere is relatively tough at the moment. There is that guy dealing them in the alley down the block from your apartment, but he wanted something other than cash in return, so making your own doesn’t seem so bad. So how do you actually do it?

The Marine Corps Combat Service Support Schools out of Camp Johnson, N.C., posted the “tutorial” in the photo above earlier this week on Facebook. It’s pretty much idiot-proof. Having said that, it took us one trial-and-error run before we got it right.

Follow the step-by-step picture at the top of this post. Also, make sure you’re using a clean T-shirt for this. Don’t grab the shirt off your back that you’ve been pouring sweat into all day; that’s disgusting, even for our standards. If you actually make your own , share the results with us on Instagram—tag @SkillsetMag in any photos you post. We’d love to see what the #SkillsetFam puts together