Serving in Reserves Challenges Employers, Employees

By Alita Byrd
Special to FYI Online

With the images of September 11 still vivid in our memories and war with Iraq looming, U.S. reserve troops are being called to duty in the greatest numbers since the Persian Gulf War and for the lengthiest tours since the Vietnam War era. It all adds up to a great deal of sacrifice for reservists, who must leave families and jobs for longer tours of duty.

It also means that UMUC, like other companies and institutions nationwide, must be prepared to lose the services—for months or even years—of staff and faculty members who are in the National Guard or reserves. Given UMUC's strong ties to the military, many employees are destined to feel the effects, as friends and family members are called to serve.

Military analysts have told the Washington Post that 100,000 additional reservists could be called up if war is declared on Iraq—on top of the more than 70,000 that are now on active duty, many in response to post-September 11 threats. Reservists generally train one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer; the rest of the time they hold down full-time civilian jobs and support families. While the U.S. president can mobilize reserve troops for up to two years, most reservists have come to expect tours of duty to only last six months. The last time that reservists were called up for two full years was during the Vietnam War.

"This is stressful for families and for employers," David Segal, a University of Maryland military sociologist, told the Post. "Any time you change the rules it's hard."

One UMUC employee is concerned about a close friend who will be deployed to Germany to work as a military police officer for two years, away from her young child and her job as a corrections officer. Another employee, a faculty member, is scheduled to be called up for a minimum of six months.

"The requirements of reservists have necessarily changed since [September 11]," he said. Call-ups can now come on surprisingly short notice, and he worries that, in the future, employers will be reluctant to hire reservists, knowing that they may have to leave their jobs vacant without much warning.

UMUC employees need not worry about that, said Provost Nicholas Allen; whether an individual is a reservist would have no impact whatsoever on hiring decisions, and the University will accommodate the needs of any reservists who are called to active duty.

"[Any other policy] would be illegal," Allen said; "more importantly, it would be wrong."

Peter Vint

Marc Campbell, associate director of Regional Programs, has a simpler motivation; she believes reservists may be even more responsible than average employees, she said, and pointed to a new employee in her department who is a reservist and will take 10 weeks leave in May 2003 for training in Texas.

"It will be difficult to lose the employee for 10 weeks and it will stretch our other employees," Campbell said. "However, it would certainly not discourage me from hiring a reservist. I think they make great employees and are usually so dependable and ready to take extra responsibility."

UMUC does not have any specific policy in place to cover the absence of mobilized reservist faculty and staff, said Erytheia Lambert Jones, vice president of Human Resources; "absences will have to be covered by shifting responsibilities of existing staff." The state-wide hiring freeze currently in place for non-faculty positions only complicates the situation, making it impossible to fill temporary positions while reservists are away.

Peter Vint, an attorney and reservist who serves as an evaluator in UMUC's Prior Learning department, doesn't know whether the Army will call on him—"I could get sent to fight in Iraq or its aftermath; you never know"—and admits that it will present a hardship both for his law practice and UMUC. But Vint fought in Vietnam, and that experience helps him keep other, lesser hardships, in perspective. Employers and employees alike will have to adjust to situations as they arise.

"After Vietnam, I'm not too worried about anything," Vint said. "Stuff like the sniper [who shot more than a dozen people in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area]? We had that fear every day over there. We got used to living like that. It's just par for the course."