Oregon or Bust

Standing out here in the desert
Trying to protect an oil line
I'd really like to do my job but
This ain't the country that I had in mind
--Twenty, Robert Cray

That's what the Guard is all about ...
We're there for the communities.
Helping inside our borders is really
where the rubber hits the road.
For some of these soldiers, it is the whole reason
they may have signed up for the National Guard
--David Harrell

It's time we looked after our own backyard ...
We cannot do this as long as we continue
to make Iraq the 51st state
--Max Cleland
__________________

Veterans of the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars suffer a 27% unemployment rate, but the Oregon National Guard 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team has a 50% unemployment rate, almost 5 times the national levels; the unit has been back for almost one year.

When we slap on our magnetic ribbons declaring our love of the troopies, do we ever consider their plight? Further, do we even think of those vets who won't even be included in these dismal figures because they are never going to be physically and/or mentally able to work again? (But that's another ball of wax.)

The nation wants to fight wars on the cheap, so Reserve Forces soldiers are called to Active Duty on a regular basis these days, just as though they were a permanent part-time employee of the U.S. Armed Forces. The Reservists suffer the consequences of their multiple deployments in a different way than regular Army soldiers upon return stateside. From an ABC report earlier this year:

"In the future, if they deem that this service is too detrimental to the long-term productivity of this individual," [Gen. Alexander] Burgin said, "whether they have to legally take them back is one thing, it's how do they take them back and what's their future in that organization?

Although federal law requires civilian employers to keep jobs open for reservists, there's no law that requires them to keep paying salaries, or insurance premiums, for that matter (Guardsmen are "Weekend Warriors" No More.)

If you were an employer, would you hire and train a Reserve Forces soldier, only to have to release them for voluntary or involuntary tours of extended duty? If you were hiring Police or Fire Department personnel, or any job requiring an extensive training and apprenticeship period, would you hire the Reservist or someone that you know will always be present for duty?

Federal law currently requires employers to reemploy returning Reservists, but to my knowledge there is no state law requiring their re-hiring in the public sector, or at the same level at which they left.

Army Times reports the new goal of the Army is one year of deployment every six years. The goal -- not yet policy -- means that the Army will expect Reserve Force soldiers to spend at least three years on Active Duty in order to complete 20 years of Reserve service.

This proposed 1:6 year ratio does not include annual training requirements nor the one weekend per month required unit attendance. Bear in mind that Reservists, like Active Duty soldiers, have military educational requirements that are often fulfilled by extended Active Duty stints. Some employers require Reservists to take annual leave to perform their annual active duty unit training -- usually a 17-day field exercise. While a violation of Federal law, it is a commonly known fact.

Active duty soldiers have 30 days annual leave, while most unit level Reservists go years without ever having an actual vacation (unless they go on Active Duty.)

The Department of Defense has used the Reserve Forces for the last decade; this pattern will not change. In a recent ABC news report, a female soldier said that after a year of being unemployed she was going on full time regular Army duty, but what happens when the wars end and the military institutes an inevitable reduction in force (RIF)?

What happens when the Army is their choice of last resort? What does this say about our society?

Those well-intentioned temporary bumper stickers won't make a dent in this endemic institutional problem.