He served in Iraq, loses job back home
You're called up, you do your duty, you come home. By federal law, a soldier in the National Guard or Reserve cannot lose their job because of their active duty service. Of course, the law is an @$$, and many employers just simply don't get it.
Dana Beaudine was wounded in a mortar attack near the town of Basra in Iraq. But after he came home a decorated war veteran, he found himself facing a fight of another kind.
For the past six months, Beaudine has been trying to get his job back with Securitas Security Services USA, the nation's largest private security firm, which counts among its clients the federal government.
Beaudine, 34, worked as a guard at the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building in downtown Seattle before he was called up, serving in Iraq as a corporal in an Oregon National Guard infantry unit.
Wounded in action, Beaudine also was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, an ailment that alarmed Securitas but which Army psychiatrists said does not prevent him from returning to work.
Since 9.11.2001, almost 3200 returning Guard and Reserve soldiers have filed job-related complaints with the US Labor Department- this in spite of these citizen-soldiers being protected by federal law. What's worse is that this number will likely swell when troops begin returning from Iraq en masse. Even if a soldier returns with a disability, the Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to find a job that can be performed by someone with a disability. It's the right thing to do by those who have served their country.
Thankfully, most Guard and Reserve soldiers will return to their jobs and lives and, after an initial adjustment period, things will probably return to what they were. This is as it should be. Regardless of how you feel about the war, the soldiers involved in it's conduct are only doing their duty. They left their families and careers behind to serve their country when called up to do so. In most cases, they did not ask to go to Iraq, but they recognized and accepted their duty. Such is the nature of the National Guard and Reserve. These soldiers at the very least deserve to come back to the careers they left behind, and indeed federal law requires this.
No soldier should return from serving his country only to face another battle- this one to get his or her job back. They deserve better.
