Idaho, Oregon Employers Learn About Employees' Military Service

07/31/2009

Federal employment law protects military reservists who deploy overseas. It means that when national guard soldiers from the Northwest come home, they can be assured they can go back to their old jobs. That means a lot to the Washington National Guard soldiers who just returned from Iraq and the Oregon troops who recently began a tour of duty there. But it's a strain for some employers who have to cover for their absent employees. The military is trying to teach the bosses of citizen soldiers what overseas deployments mean.

If Idaho military reservists deploy in Iraq or Afghanistan next year, as they're scheduled to do, Dick Deam wants to make sure their employers support them.

Deam: "We basically want to sell some patriotism and show them that it's not like their preconceived idea from the old days, that guys leave for the weekend and just party themselves silly. It doesn't happen like that."

Deam is the director of the Idaho chapter of Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve. That's a Defense Department office that has the job of reaching out to employers like Mark Nooth. He lives in the Boise area, but works as the superintendent of the Snake River Correctional Institution, just across the border in Ontario, Oregon.

Nooth: "I've had a number of officers that have been deployed. I'm going to have another, the 116th out of Ontario, is going to get deployed in February."

Nooth says he's curious about what those officers do when they're away from the prison. Deam says he hears that a lot. So, instead of spending a lot of time on the phone answering employers' questions, once a year, Deam sponsors a big gathering he calls a "Boss Lift."

Deam rents military planes and sends them all over the state to pick up employers like Nooth. On this day, he's flying 185 people, some from Oregon, to Gowen Field, near Boise, where reservists and regular military personnel train. Deam puts them up for a night. And he gives them a two–day crash course on how guard members train. Of course, it helps that Deam has some toys to wow his visitors.

It's pretty heady stuff for a civilian to get a ride on a Black Hawk helicopter. It's a short 15–minute flight to the desert where Colonel Ty Edgar is waiting for them with bottles of water and a greeting.

Edgar: "When I say 'hooah' and you understand, you say 'hooah' back. Hooah?"

Reporter: "Hooah!"

Edgar: "Good."

Edgar prepares to send the employers to visit with camo–clad soldiers waiting to show off their unmanned planes, satellite trucks and cargo containers. But first, Edgar has a word of thanks.

Edgar: "You are one of the legs of stability for our soldiers. Family, employer and life satisfaction and happiness. You're a big key in that. So we appreciate you coming here. Really glad to have you. Don't want to hurt you. Hooah?"

Employers: "Hooah!"

After a quick flight back, it's the end of a long day. Melissa Moser from the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections says she's impressed by two things.

Moser: "Number one, I think I have a greater appreciation for the level of sacrifice and balance that it takes to serve. I also have had my eyes opened to the level of technology used in the field and the level of high–tech training that's being offered, so very impressed."

Idaho's "Boss Lift" is perhaps the most elaborate in the country. Oregon and Washington do shorter versions with smaller numbers of people. But the goal is the same: to make sure men and women who serve overseas can pick up their lives where they left off.

For Mark Nooth, the prison superintendent from Oregon, this helps inform a military support committee at his prison.

Nooth: "We've actually sent goodie bags to the guys. When they're deployed, we send them cards and let them know that we're thinking of them. Some of the female staff have taken the wives to lunch if their husbands are deployed."

Nooth says some of the coworkers of his deployed officers have taken the spouses of citizen soldiers to lunch.

I'm Doug Nadvornick in Boise.

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