Guard and Reserve deployments
The Army will reduce it’s strength by 12,000 more jobs this year, meanwhile deployments are on the rise. The Wisconsin National Guard is sending troops to Iraq and Kuwait to augment the 101st Division, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The Arizona National Guard is sending two helicopter units to Europe and the Middle East according to the Tucson News. The Stars & Stripes reports that more than 6,000 Reservists and National Guard soldiers deployed to Europe last year and that number is expected to increase this year.
Last month, the commander of US Army Europe, Lieutenant general Ben Hodges told the Fayetteville Observer that he doesn’t have the forces that he needs in Europe, that he is going to depend on Guard and Reserve rotational deployments to hold back the Russian hordes.
On paper, that almost makes sense, however, how many people are going to enlist for the Guard and Reserves when the new enlistees are looking at endless rounds of deployments to slog through mud at Grafenwoer or Hohenfels. It was one thing to expect them to deploy to a war like in Afghanistan or Iraq, quite another to deploy reserve troops to Germany or Poland. How forgiving will employers be? Honestly, would you consider hiring an employee who will disappear every few years to Europe?
I don’t think anyone thought this thing through.
Category: Army News, National Guard
‘I don’t think anyone thought this thing through.’
Of course, they didn’t. Why would they? These peoples’ lives outside the Guard or the Reserves don’t mean anything. They’re the people in the holding pen, while the others are on deck, waiting for their turn.
They aren’t supposed to have real lives outside the Guard or the Reserves.
Does that pay anything? I could use the cash. Of course, my cat would have to go along as a dependent, because he’s 15 and underage, and still unable to clean up after himself.
Here we go with B. Hussein 0bama & Company taking a page out of “Blowjob Willie”‘s playbook, cutting the number of Personnel while sending them to as many places as possible, and equipment maintenance? NOPE, that money is much better spent on welfare flunkies, illegal aliens as well as perks and luxuries for politicians and kickbacks like the subsidies for wind and solar farms.
Of course they didn’t think this one through, Jonn. Those running the 5-sided asylum only rarely do.
There are 62 law enforcement Officers in my area that were deployed in the last years and I personally know 18 that did not have jobs when they came home in 1990-92?
The crap they hire, we’ll handle the emergency. Waiting for them to get out of the car, a person could bleed out..no joke
It’s a rare employer who can’t take advantage of the temp employment agencies to cover for a deployed Reservist employee. There is no reason an employer can’t hire people in the Guard or Reserves.
I am not, however, excusing the mismanagement of our military and the improper use of our Guard and Reserve forces.
HA!!!!!!!!!
Yes, indeed, some junior enlisted can be replaced with temp agency hires. And plenty are students who can put school on hold, and plenty are under-employed in this economy. But I’ve served in the Reserves with a ton of professional, salaried employees – off the top of my head, I remember a computer network tech, a child psychologist, a long-tenured shift supervisor at a factory, a guy who managed a couple hundred shift workers at another factory, a guy who ran the entire logistics shop for a major retailer, a muckety-muck at an insurance company, lots of cops/firemen/EMS types, and personally, I spent the better part of a year working directly on migrating systems and training other folks to pick up my slack so my company could do without me for 15 months away for an Iraq tour…I love ya, Pinto, but your impression of the Reserves is dated. It’s probably half the employers of my current unit who will be noticeably impacted by having to back-fill for their soldier-employees when we mobilize.
Whether they can and whether they will are different things, though.
Think about a personnel manager at a company, looking at two nearly identical resumes for a professional position:
Candidate 1 has outstanding education, experience and references, and also serves in the RC, where he may at any moment get called up to serve for an extended period of time, requiring the company to replace him while he’s gone and put him back in his position once he returns.
Candidate 2 has similar credentials but is not in the RC.
Yeah, yeah, the RC candidate has rights under USERRA, and the Nation will graciously thank the employer for their patriotic sacrifice, yadda yadda.
But from a purely pragmatic standpoint, doesn’t it make more sense to hire candidate 2? Patriotism don’t pay the pickle man.
I have had prospective employers flat out tell me that my being in the Guard is a problem. The racket I want to change my career to involves being on the job 7 days a week for several months at a time (refinery turnarounds etc…), and they do not want the job held up because one of the welding inspectors wants to go play army, thank you for your service, but come back when you are done with all that.
yup, especially when they can hire the guy who did four years and got out. Then they are not discriminating, just picking the “better” candidate who happens to be a Vet also.
Really? Tell that to the small business owner who has two key subordinates (say, two of their four shift managers) in the same Guard or Reserve unit – and who both get deployed at the same time. He’s looking at losing half his supervisors for 3 months to a year. A temp filing in will neither know the business or the people he’s working with/for when they show up; they’ll just about have learned that when they depart. And the returnees will have a readjustment period before they’re fully “back up to speed”, too.
SSG E and Martinjmpr are both correct. While the business may be able to replace some of the junior employees reasonably easily with temps, some of the absences will hurt. Any key employees being gone will be among the latter.
No, by law the employers can’t discriminate against those in the Guard or Reserve in hiring or retention. But if you don’t think they will under these circumstances (if they aren’t already), you’re living in a fantasy world.
You are correct Hondo. Case in point: the PD I worked for never promoted me between 1990-1993. I did DS/DS and was gone for 8 months, I got out of the Guard in Sep of 93, got promoted in Oct 93, Aug 96 and June 97. I got in the AF Reserve in 99 and never got promoted again until I left on 02. It was all legal, but I know the promotion board was looking at the packages thinking “what if he leaves again” which I did after 9/11 and never went back. It sucks, but it definitely happens.
“Task force Smith” anybody?
and I do believe the Nevada army guard just sent a whole brigade to Da Sand Box a month ago
and to think the army is always trashing the NG not anymore
Don’t worry Skippy, they still do. As a former ARNG troop and retired AF Reservist I can tell you all active duty components trash their Reserve/Guard counterparts. Rightfully so sometimes.
The Army Chief of Staff announced last month that he’s thinking about boosting the guard training days from the current 39 to 75 or 100.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/12/14/army-plans-to-double-training-days-for-guard-units-chief-says.html
I’ve said this from the moment Korea became a deployment and not a duty station. There will be a guard battalion within 18 months, and a brigade within three years. Not to mention Bosnia, Kosovo, HoA, now Europe, evidently, the POTUS is talking Pacific Rim…
You make a guard guy do 100 days of drill, plus a three or 4 weeks school, and he might as well be active duty, deployments notwithstanding.
Ah, but the brilliance of the DoD beancounters is that they realize they can get the benefits of active duty troops without incurring the costs of active duty troops! Think about it, for active duty you need to build family housing units, schools, barracks, gyms, mess halls (sorry, “Dining Facilities”),and so on.
even for the period of time that they’re NOT deployed.
But activating RC (Reserve Component) troops means you can off-load those costs onto the civilian economy.
I served in RC units for almost half of my career and one thing I noticed was that there were a large percentage of “casually employed” folks who made up the core of most units. People with “professional” jobs would come in, stay in the unit for 5 or 6 months and then transfer back to the IRR as they realized that a full time, professional job was very difficult to maintain with the OpTempo we had (and this was even before 9/11.)
A large portion of our “regular” folks were either students or “guard/Reserve bums” who would do back-to-back 180-day tours of active duty or volunteer for other assignments that would put them on AD for a period of time.
I myself was a student for most of my RC time, and single as well. Those with the commitments of family and career had a much tougher time of it.
I know people who have only done active duty might laugh or rol their eyes at this, but having spent half my career in the RC and half on AD, I honestly think it takes more “commitment” to be in the RC because unlike AD which will “take care of you” (because they need you), in the RC you really have to take care of yourself while walking a very fine line between the military and civilian worlds.
I went into the TXARNG because I felt my country needed me, and I had enough time in USNR to make it worthwhile to finish out 20 years. Althoug I have no regrets, I have to say it fucked my civilian career to tears. Luckily, I managed to keep the same job for 16 years, but any upward mobility, or career change I had planned have been waylaid by the fact I have been away from my industry (and the industry I was changing over to). Every time I came off deployment there would be a whole new set of people at the place I worked asking me who I was. That, and technology changed faster than I could keep up with. That being said, I would love to go on another deployment before I get the boot, but I will be 58 next month and my hearing is shot blah blah blah. I would do it again.
Amen to that. I’ve got a fantastic employer, but I traded away my plans to retire early the day I raised my right hand. Wouldn’t change it for the world, and I’m not about to complain about having a great career when I see what my Joes (and officers in some cases) have to deal with, but there’s no way I’m going to be able to do 20 – I’ve already lost enough income to buy a small house in half that time, and I can’t justify doing that to my family for another 10. I’ll get out when I finish off this contract (hopefully after one more deployment) (unless, of course, the deployment gets scheduled for the year or two after this contract ends, and I extend) (and then I’ll be at 14-15, and will probably stick the fuck around anygoddamnway…)
What Army Times and the media “hype machine” omit is how the National Guard and Reserve aren’the deploying “mass” echelons of troops like they were 10 years ago. It’s 65 here, 44 there, or a dozen getting the deployment opportunities. The States are too broke to send an IBCT to Europe, and the USAR can’t afford to deploy an Engineer Brigade. We’re never going anywhere. -Officer in a Guard IBCT
State’s don’t pay for deployments
States don’t want to pay for anything. After 9-11 it was all waiting for the federally funded gifts of new trucks new TA-50/RRI and no schools for part time guardsmen unless it had federal funding approved ahead of time. Its now gone back to the buddy buddy system of old.
Yeah, its gonna get interesting. When I retired a year plus ago they were cutting Guard NCOES slots due to funding – I can’t wait to see how the system holds up after additional pressure is applied…
The term “round out” is being bantered about a lot.
Geez. “Back to the Future” time.
DAMN. Did they really use “round out”? Get the car Marty, we’re going back to the 80’s!
Yes indeed they did. The Guest speaker at the St Barbara’s Ball used that exact Phrase when he was telling the participants about the future of the 36th ID Field Artillery components.
There will be plenty of Guardsmen who volunteer for Europe or Korea to dodge a real deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Saw a lot of those in Kosovo(which I tried like hell to dodge so I could go to Iraq or Afghanistan)
A lot of us(retired) guardsmen would have volunteered just a get away from a 0600-1600 factory job.
Both of my kids are lucky in that their employers are more than accommodating with their ANG schedules and deployments. In fact, Vestas even hired my son knowing he was leaving shortly for a 3-month deployment. They’ve also offered a 6 month leave of absence so that he can do a temp tech position. They are beyond supportive of the military and prefer military hires. My daughter works for Home Depot and they’ve had no problem with her frequent orders, usually a week here and a week there, and her month-long deployment this coming summer.
However, they are both Air National Guard which usually has much shorter deployments than the Army version. But, by law, an equivalent job has to be held for them for 5 years.
Tell your kids to get everything they can from their employer regarding reinstatement, release for deployments, etc . . ., in writing, Common Sense. And tell them to be meticulous about keeping their employer informed, also in writing – and to keep a copy.
It’s surprising how many employers either don’t know what the law requires, or who try to avoid compliance. And government agencies at all levels are among those who sometimes try to pull a fast one.
Having the law on your side is good. But a 2-year court fight to get a job back is best avoided if possible. A paper trail can help prevent that.
I’ll add:
In reading USERRA cases, I noticed a lot of the violators were state and local government entities.
I never had to deal with them, but Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (www.esgr.mil) had a good reputation as a group to call if your employer doesn’t understand his obligations…I mean, at convincing him to do what he’s supposed to do without the 2-year court fight.
But as with every other kind of anti-discrimination law, I quite agree with Hondo and nbcguy that there likely to be invisible effects. If the law says you can’t discriminate against reservists…that means any reservist you hire is someone who can sue you for discrimination. Giving you an incentive to avoid hiring them in the first place, while swearing up and down it’s not your intent.
I had a TR who was employed by the Navy. I don’t know how they are now, but they were the worst employer I’ve ever encountered when it came to understanding the Federal Law. Hell their personnel handbook was in complete violation of USERRA and we had to get the AF JAG to explain that to them.
That’s great for those currently holding civvie jobs. My fear is that Guard/ Reserve status will hurt those applying for jobs.
I know “by law” companies can’t do that, but they can have “other” reasons for not hiring someone.
I don’t mean to be dismal, but with the cuts in funding and personnel, as well as the proposed increases in AD time for reservists, it almost seems that the DoD is heading toward having a part-time military, as opposed to full-time career-oriented people.
This doesn’t make any sense, except that there was something similar that happened (I think) between WWI and WWII. The military was seen as superfluous and not really necessary.
I’ll just leave this here. It seems apropos.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=30410
Any more it seems like being in the guard or reserve is like being the mistress of a jealous married man: He demands total commitment from you but isn’t willing to offer it in return.
When I was a platoon sergeant and later a detachment sergeant I had an initial counseling form where I let soldiers know that being in the guard or reserve was a serious commitment and one I expected them to honor – but that if they couldn’t, if their civilian job was demanding too much from them, then they needed to make a choice. I also let them know that I wouldn’t think less of them if they chose their civilian career instead of the guard or reserve.
Most of the time I was in the RC I was in school and working part-time security jobs that had me working nights and weekends. Of course, during drill weekends the supervisor would have to juggle the schedule since I couldn’t be there. I’m sure I’m not the only RC soldier who had to endure snide comments from my civilian co-workers and supervisors. “Hey, can you cover a shift on Saturday night? Oh, that’s right. You’re ‘playing Army’ this weekend. Never mind.”
It sometimes took a lot of self control to keep from saying “Yeah, you’re welcome, Asshole!”
Funny thing, though, I don’t think I ever heard those comments after about the 2nd week of Septemer in 2001. 😉
As has already been said, excessive mobilizations are going to make employers less likely to hire RC soldiers or to promote them to significant positions.
I’m assuming the military will try to cure this shortfall with bonuses, but IMO the bonuses are being paid to the wrong people.
Instead of paying the bonus to the service member (which has a very limited benefit), the bonus ought to go to the employer.
If employers knew they would get a bonus from the government for hiring and retaining an RC soldier, not only would it remove a detriment to hiring, it would provide an incentive. Then they would actively recruit RC soldiers and not only that, soldiers would be more likely to join the RC because it would give them a leg up when applying for civilian jobs.
As a drilling Reservest, i’ve got mixed feelings. I’ve lost two jobs because of mobilizations, nearly lost a third, and have been passed over for higher positions because in part of my Reserve BA’s and AT’s. Sure, an employer can hire a Temp to replace you, but if they wanted a Temp in the first place that would have been who had the position. When you are in a technical field, say IT Network Assistant Administrator, and get called up for 18 months, when you get back you’re now 18+ months behind in experience and training. For three months you’re working like crazy to get the new certifications and understanding of what has changed. In the mean time the person they hired to fill in for you has the required training to get that new position they created. Then you get told they are going to end the position you are working in three months but that there are other openings in the company you could apply for – but don’t have the certifications for. Or the new job you just got, three months in get told your unit is getting mobilized by you’re are in ARFORGEN Year 2 (year 3/4 is deployable) and are going away for a year. When you get back they have done layoffs in your department but are nice and place you in a new job you are not qualified for and give you time to train up. But after six months they point out that they are an At-Will employment state, that you have not managed to get the two years of training done and it would be better if you found new work, like a lower paid less responsible position with the company. (just to be fair as it is not your fault business conditions changed and your job went away but you could not meet the higher level conditions. They appreciate your service) When you get a job that pays well, your Reserve duty is unofficially held against you. You are applying for a higher level position, meet the requirements, but it… Read more »
Top: I think your experiences show that our current “model” of reserve duty is, perhaps, due for an overhaul.
I’m not sure what that would look like but given that we’ve had the same concept of reserve duty – one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer with possibilities of mobilizations for various reasons – for over 50 years now (since the end of the Vietnam war – not sure what reserve duty looked like before that) I think it’s safe to say it’s time for a bottom-up review of what works and what doesn’t.
We could possibly look to what other countries do with their reserve units.
For example, we could consider whether we get much real value from IDT drills (the one-weekend-a-month drills, typically a Saturday and Sunday.) It may be that reducing drills to once a quarter or twice a year – mainly to update mobilization paperwork, issue equipment, etc – would have less impact on civilian employment without impacting actual readiness.
It might also make sense to integrate reservists into active duty units and allow reservists to make their own arrangements for drill or training with the AD unit to which they are attached.
Another thing to look at – as I stated in my post above yours – is finding better ways to compensate employers when reservists are mobilized or otherwise called to duty. Of course we have ESGR now, but that is more of a voluntary “outreach.” There is also of course the law and USERRA – but that’s all stick, no carrot.
Perhaps instead of finding new and creative ways to PUNISH employers for not following the law with regard to Reservists and Guardsmen, we could find real, tangible ways to REWARD those that do a good job of
“supporting the troops.”
Martin, I don’t see it happening. All of the decision makers are title 10 or 32 full timers, and their experience of Guard life is nothing like the average mday yahoo. Many have not worked in the civilian market for years (some if ever) and don’t realize or remember what a PITA it is to coordinate time off with employers and travel to the drills (oops, I meant Battle Assemblies – sheesh). I was a long haul tractor trailer driver for years, and enjoyed nothing more than spending a month on the road and then coming home for my 2 days off to go to drill and then go right back out for another month.
PFM: “Battle Assemblies?” I was wondering what Top meant when he wrote “BA.” I retired 10 years ago when it was IDT – Inactive Duty for Training. In any case, this is a classic example of “kicking the can”, i.e. “solving” today’s problem by creating one that will have to be solved later on. It would be interesting to see a comprehensive survey of Guard/Reserve troops to determine whether they believe their service has negatively impacted their civilian careers, or if, OTOH, they basically don’t have civilian careers. That’s what I meant when I wrote above about how many guardsmen/reservists I knew were “casually employed.” Even though some of these people had a lot of education, the Guard or Reserve was pretty much the focus of their life. They would work a “Joe Job” to pay the rent but they would also volunteer for additional duty, TDY’s, schools, etc, to try and stay on AD for as much as they could. They changed civilian jobs frequently. I guess that’s OK if you like it but it’s probably worth pointing out that every person I know who did this was single and had no dependents. It’s a lot tougher to do when you’ve got mouths to feed and a mortgage to pay, to say nothing of the fact that unless you are extraordinarily disciplined, it’s hard to save for retirement this way. I don’t know exactly how one would go about measuring this but I’ll bet people like I described make up a significant percentage of guard/reserve members, probably at least 10% in some units. People with careers they enjoy, ties to the community and family find it much more difficult to shoehorn that IDT time into their schedules. There’s also another issue that comes up here in the large states of the rural West: Smaller units are deactivated and local armories/reserve centers are closed to consolidate units at bigger, more elaborate reserve centers. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, that makes perfect sense – it reduces duplication of efforts and allows money to be spent in one armory to support multiple… Read more »
My unit paid for a hotel room if you lived outside a 50 mile radius – not sure if they still do or just use the old “set up cots on the drill floor” method now. Junior soldiers were getting tired of the check the box training, coupled with the inescapable PMCS the same vehicles that haven’t moved in a month requirement. The deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan actually helped by weeding out the worthless deadweight NCOs that were there for the check and beer at AT – almost looked like a blizzard for a while there because of the 20 year letters that were suddenly cashed in 🙂 . I’d like to think there was going to be constructive change coming, but I’ve already heard from friends still in about things beginning to return to the pre 9/11 ways. Glad as hell that I retired.