Does your company support the National Guard and Reserve? If it’s like most of the companies I know of, it doesn’t.
I’ve been thinking of this lately because as you read this column, I will be serving on my annual two weeks of active duty with the Coast Guard. Each year about this time, reservists at Coast Guard Station San Diego begin to endure the ire of bosses angry at them for being away for two weeks of what is euphemistically dismissed as “summer camp.”
Federal and state law requires employers to give members of the reserve and National Guard time off for as much as four weeks of active duty each year. Few employers do so willingly; in many cases, reservists have to use vacation time or take unpaid leave.
Let me explain at this point that I am not a member of the Coast Guard’s military reserve component; I am an Auxiliarist, a civilian volunteer, and one of a growing number of Auxiliarists helping the Coast Guard with its growing mission load by performing reserve-like duties without pay. State and federal laws governing reservists do not apply to me , a legislative oversight which I’m certain will be speedily remedied as soon as this column appears (not!).
Previously, however, I served 10 years with the Coast Guard and Navy reserves. The complaints I hear today are the same as when I was a reservist in the Seventies and Eighties, but now they’ve been magnified by the growing importance our reserve forces have in maintaining our national defense.
On my last duty weekend, one of my crewmates was complaining of snide comments from his boss about “playing sailor.” As he spoke, my comrade stood inside the station’s armory, donning body armor, side arm, pepper spray and other weapons, all standard gear worn when patrolling for the narcotics-laden boats sent northward by the drug cartels , the same cartels that have placed bounties on the heads of federal law enforcement personnel.
Unlike other military reserves, the Coast Guard has long used its reservists to augment its small active duty force. Hammered by years of cutbacks, the nation’s other armed services now are following the Coast Guard’s lead, using their reserve forces more and more to fulfill active duty missions.
I recently spoke to an Air Force reservist who described to me the increasing amount of time he was spending on active duty. Six months ago, he celebrated the turn of the century and the millennium not with his family, but with his reserve unit in Europe. Now he’s getting ready for two more weeks of active duty scheduled for July.
Contrary to many misinformed opinions, a reserve enlistment is not an easy way to earn a military retirement check. Since the defense cutbacks began in the late 1980s, reservists have been called on more and more to fulfill our country’s military commitments, most notably in the battlefields of the Gulf War, Bosnia and Kosovo.
What used to be a commitment of only one weekend a month and two weeks a year , about 38 days , has now stretched up to, in some cases, 120 days of duty each year. Reservists and National Guardsmen, in fact, today make up half of our military manpower.
All of this came about, of course, because of demands from both sides of the political aisle for cutbacks in government spending and taxes , with business interests doing the loudest yelling.
Yet news reports indicate these same businesses are now unwilling to support the citizen soldiers who work for them. Adding to the stress of going into harm’s way and being away for long periods from their families, reservists have to cope with bosses who complain about them being away from the office too much. There are some reports of companies refusing to hire reservists for fear they’ll be too frequently called away to active duty.
This conflict between the needs of the country and the needs of employers has brought to the forefront a little-known Pentagon agency called the Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve. Though formed in 1972 to bridge the gap between citizen soldiers and their employers, the ESGR remained relatively obscure until now.
The ESGR provides help to both reservists and employers on how to cope with the increased activities of part-time service men and women. The agency strives to make companies understand their reservist employee is making a valuable and much-needed contribution to the defense of this country, not just playing soldier-sailor-airman-Marine for a few extra bucks a month.
The agency has launched a glossy ad campaign instructing employers how all the high-tech wizardry in our nation’s arsenal is useless without the reservists who keep the aircraft flying, the tanks rolling and the ships sailing.
The ESGR urges employers to learn more about the growing importance the National Guard and reserve forces have in our national defense strategy.
If you have reservist employees, I urge you to take the time to discuss with them their military reserve mission roles and their commitments. I also urge you to visit the ESGR Web site (www.esgr.org) for more information on how you can help support our country’s reserve forces.
We need them, and they need you.
Hill is editor of the San Diego Business Journal.
