[lelio]

I think protecting the USA is better than a checkout job at Kroger...

You're always free to send a check to his wife and kids to support them in the meantime.

What employer in their right mind would hire a reservist now, knowing that instead of weekend trips and maybe a couple of months away, reservists are told to go away for 6 months of training and then a year in Iraq? What small business can keep a job around for 1.5 years?

[SunStar]

You're always free to send a check to his wife and kids to support them in the meantime.

Thanks for the offer, but I have my own to worry about.

[AndyJackson]

What employer in their right mind would hire a reservist now, knowing that instead of weekend trips and maybe a couple of months away, reservists are told to go away for 6 months of training and then a year in Iraq?

How about its the f'in law.

[Criminal Number 18F]

Small businesses are not affected by the law, only ones large enough to be under all the usual Federal labor crap.

Most of our guys who had problems were professionals with individual practices or very small firms. My own business folded without me. We lost a couple of our best guys on return because their businesses couldn't survive another deployment, and another deployment is a certainty.

We did have some individuals who had very anti-military superiors (most of them for some reason lawyers, teachers, or working for municipalities) that tried playing games. One Federal agency has directed one of my guys to quit or be transferred to the agency's worst hellhole "and we never had this conversation." Of course, we are in a very liberal, anti-military area of the nation and a lot of our guys were "in the closet" about their other jobs before the deployment came.

OTOH, some employers came through marvellously. I know two guys who were paid their whole civilian salaries the whole time they were on active duty. (One was a state policeman).

The guy who lose his cop job (in the article) because of his combat wounds, ought to be on VA disability. That said, I have found the VA to be worthless and indifferent. If you are a phony with an outlandish PTSD claim or a 500-pound blob claiming your diabetes is related to your two months in the Army in 1973, they are all over you, but if you've got injuries from combat you get the impression you are messing up their coffee break.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F