Gulf Reservist Finds Bleak Welcome Home

Maj. Stephen D. McConnell came home this week 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 the Persian Gulf War ended, and uncertainty over his job with a Newport Beach aerospace firm.

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

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

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

But McConnell and his wife said they have not heard that from Loral, and contended that by sending him the termination notice and cutting off his family medical benefits while he was on military duty, the firm violated a federal law. The law requires employers to give reservists back their jobs--or comparable positions--upon their return from active duty, as long as the employee reapplies within 90 days.

Employers can let reservists go if other layoffs have taken place in the interim or if a company can show a position is no longer needed. But neither circumstance was cited by the firms in the McConnell case.

“It’s real scary having him coming home to no job, no money,” Kim McConnell said.

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

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 was sent to Saudi Arabia on Sept. 19.

In a letter dated Oct. 17, a personnel relations supervisor for both Ford and then Loral told McConnell it was Ford company policy to “release” employees after 30 days of military leave. The supervisor, Jane Pleasant, 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.

“Under company policy, affected reservists may make an application for re-employment within 90 calendar days of leaving active duty,” Pleasant wrote. But the letter said nothing about whether he would get his job back if he did apply.

Saying the language in the letter was ill-chosen, Loral spokeswoman Joanne Hvala, said McConnell never actually had been terminated.

“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,” she said.

She also said McConnell has been receiving a salary from the company during his time on military leave and his family has remained under the firm’s medical coverage.

But the McConnells disagreed.

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 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 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.

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