Sgt. First Class Patrick McDonald serves his country as an Army Reservist. 
Three times he has left his civilian job as an assistant to the Washington secretary of state and deployed.   His time deployed now stands at two and a half years.  
However, although he started working for the secretary of state in 2000 he only has credit towards retirement for 6.5 years of state service, he said.

“Washington State punishes us for serving our country,” he said. “We earn points towards retirement every year and when we are deployed we receive no credit for the months we are deployed.”

McDonald’s problem is one of many that National Guardsmen and reservists, who are involuntarily activated to deploy, face.   In 1994 the federal government passed a law called USERRA (the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act).  USERRA was created to ensure that persons who serve or have served in the Armed Forces, Reserves, National Guard or other “uniformed services:” (1) are not disadvantaged in their civilian careers because of their service; (2) are promptly reemployed in their civilian jobs upon their return from duty; and (3) are not discriminated against in employment based on past, present, or future military service.

Since USERRA was passed, each state has created its own laws governing the return of activated guardsmen and reservists from serving their country.  Although the state laws are superseded by the federal laws, they were created to simplify the federal laws, said Bryon Burgess, the executive director of the Washington Committee for Employer Support of Guard and Reserve, a Department of Defense entity that is run primarily by volunteers, and three full-time staff members that maintains support from employers.

“Anyone returning from a deployment has adjustments to make upon returning,” Burgess said.  “Basically the law says that soldiers returning from a deployment are to be given what they would have received whether or not they were deployed.”
The guard and reserve members should receive the same pay, status and seniority, he said.

“We try to mediate by educating the employee and employer on the laws before it becomes a court issue,” he said.

However, despite laws designed to support their deployments, guard and reservists return and often face obstacles in getting their jobs back, he said.

“Some people are not hired back,” he said. “Some people left a job that they worked a day shift, and they return and are put into a night shift.  Some people have people in the same job who received a pay raise that they missed.”

But the biggest issue is status, he said.  “A person might hold a position where they supervised 100 people before they deployed, and when they return they are placed in a job where they supervise three people,” Burgess said. “About 20 percent of the employers try to avoid the law, or find ways around it.”

Other issues include health benefits, and retirement credits, licensing, and certification renewals, he said.

Health professionals often have issues to deal with, he said. There are people in the health professions who return to the states from Iraq and they find that their certification for something has expired, he said.  Regardless of the reason, they are not allowed to work in their job until the certification and licensing issues are corrected, he said.

In other more supportive states like Arizona, the law says that a license, certificate or registration issued to an Arizona national guardsmen or a reservist, shall not expire while the member is serving on federal active duty and shall be extended one hundred eighty days after the member returns from that duty.

Further, in Montana, the law says that if an activated reservist requests that their license revert to inactive status during their deployment, the department or licensing board can’t require the collection of professional licensing fees, continuing education fees or continuing education classes, revoke or suspend the activated reservist's professional license, require the license to be forfeited, or allow the license to lapse for failure to pay licensing fees or continuing education fees or for failure to take or report continuing education classes.

However, Washington has not been viewed as a supportive state, he said. Although the laws are changing, some employers try to avoid the laws, he said.

Some employers try to treat deployed soldiers as new hires, he said.

“Sometimes when the soldiers return from overseas duty, they are forced to resubmit to drug testing, the interview process, and other things that they have already been through,” he said. “The employers might require retraining, or recertification.”

One example is a security guard who has to submit to an annual firearms certification.  Often the tests are only given once a year, so they have to be placed in another job until the certification is available, he said.  As a result, the deployed soldier might be out of a job until they can get recertified, he said.

“The employer has to make an effort to put them in another position until they can continue to do their job, but in some instances there is no other job,” he said.

“There are also instances when the soldier is injured and is unable to return to their jobs, such as police officers, firefighters, and construction workers.”