Gulf Reservist Fights Battle Over His Job : Homecoming: The Army officer, who claims he was fired by Loral Aeronutronic during his absence, faces uncertainty with his employment and medical benefits.

Maj. Stephen D. McConnell came home to Orange County on Tuesday night from Saudi Arabia after almost nine months in the desert, but there was no parade to greet him.

Awaiting the 38-year-old Army officer instead were a daughter who suffered a serious back injury the day that the Persian Gulf War ended, and Angst and uncertainty over the future of his job with a Newport Beach aerospace firm and the medical benefits that go with it.

Some welcome home, say McConnell and his wife, Kim.

While serving in the Middle East as an Army supplies contractor, McConnell got several letters from both Ford Aerospace and the company it was sold to in October, Loral Aeronutronic, saying that he had been “terminated” under company policy for military leave.

He should collect his final paycheck and belongings, McConnell was told, and turn in his identification badge.

After initially declining to discuss the case, officials at Loral’s corporate office in New York now say it was all a misunderstanding and that McConnell can have his job back whenever he wants it.

But McConnell and his wife say they have had no indication from Loral that he still has a job. And they charge that the firm, by cutting off his family medical benefits while he was on military duty and sending him a termination notice, violated a federal law designed to protect activated reservists from that very threat.

“It’s real scary having him coming home to no job, no money,” Kim McConnell said. “I’ve got kids to feed and medical bills to pay and we had counted on (his employer) for that, and they weren’t there.”

Says her husband: “It’s unconscionable. I leave one battle to come home and fight another.”

The enemy this time, at least as McConnell sees it, is Loral Aeronutronic--formerly Ford Aerospace. The Newport Beach defense firm was his employer until he was activated from reserve status and left for Saudi Arabia Sept. 19 to help organize the purchasing of supplies.

The Mission Viejo resident says he has heard plenty of stories of employers offering counseling to returning war veterans, giving them bonuses and parties, or making up the difference between their military and civilian pay.

Less prevalent and perhaps less publicized, however, are flaps arising since the end of the war involving reservists like McConnell, who have had to fight for their jobs, officials say.

While no numbers are available on fired reservists, “unfortunately, it’s not a rare occurrence,” said Lt. Col. Phil Aigner, spokesman for the National Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, an arm of the Defense Department.

McConnell, backed by private and government lawyers who have reviewed his case, maintains that his employer violated a federal law that is designed to protect activated reservists.

Kevin McDermott, a private Orange County attorney and a reservist who spent time during the war offering legal advice to local Marines, said that McConnell “has the right to his job. And I don’t read the federal law to say that he has to jump through hoops to get it back.”

But Joanne Hvala, a Loral spokeswoman, said: “We have looked into this, and it appears he was not terminated.”

She said the language used in the company’s correspondence with McConnell was probably ill-chosen.

“I can understand coming back from Saudi Arabia and being a little nervous about your job . . . but we expect him to come back to work--sign in and show up when he comes back.”

Hvala asserted that McConnell has been receiving a continued salary from the company during his time on military leave and his family has remained under the firm’s medical coverage.

But the McConnells disagree.

“I don’t know where it is,” Kim McConnell said of the salary and benefits. She offered rejected medical-claim forms from her daughter’s recent injury to support her assertion.

Federal law requires employers to give reservists back their jobs--or comparable positions--upon their return from active duty, so long as the employee reapplies within 90 days. But the employer can deny the reservist a job if layoffs have occurred in the interim, or if it can be shown that the position is no longer needed, some attorneys say.

In the case of McConnell, neither Ford nor Loral offered economic conditions as a reason for what Jane Pleasant, a personnel relations supervisor for both Ford and then Loral, described in one letter as McConnell’s “termination.”

Instead, Pleasant told McConnell in an Oct. 17, 1990, letter that it was Ford company policy to “release” employees after 30 days of military leave. She enclosed his final paycheck and accrued vacation pay and told him to complete a security-debriefing form and turn in his identification tag in a self-addressed envelope. McConnell was then in Saudi Arabia.

“Under company policy, affected reservists may make an application for reemployment within 90 calendar days of leaving active duty,” Pleasant wrote. The letter says nothing about whether he will get his job back if he does reapply.

McConnell says he was fired--plain and simple.

McConnell said he finds it particularly ironic that even as he was being fired, Loral printed his photograph under the headline, “Employees on Active Duty” in an issue of its newsletter that also touted the company’s support for the men and women in the Persian Gulf.

Kim McConnell said the most difficult thing about the flap has been the loss of her husband’s medical insurance, especially since the McConnell’s 9-year-old daughter, Gretchen, suffered a flare-up in a ruptured disc in her back that left her essentially bedridden and out of school for more than three months. Kim McConnell said she had to leave her daughter at home alone so she could stay at work and get her own medical coverage.

“I’ll be real interested to see what happens when he gets back and how (Loral) handles all this,” said Kim McConnell. “I don’t have good feelings about it.”