Employers thanked for supporting military

Members of the Montana Army National Guard and Reserve units say their mission depends on a three-legged stool.

Their success depends on the soldiers themselves, their families and the employers.

In recent years, there has been more emphasis on helping the second and third legs of the stools, they say.

On Saturday, employers who sacrifice because their employees need time off for training or deployment were saluted by the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, a volunteer group within the Defense Department that works with employers to help them understand the rules and regulations regarding Guard and Reserve employees.

Employers were treated to a Blackhawk helicopter ride over the Bear's Paw Mountain, Fresno Reservoir and Havre.

"We really appreciate all the employers do for the Guard and Reserve," said Mike Flaherty, Montana chairman of ESGR.

"We know they make a sacrifice, especially in small businesses."

Under the law, he said, Guard and Reserve members don't lose any benefits or seniority when they go on deployment.

ESGR offers a mediation service if a soldier and the employer have a dispute.

"We are very lucky in Montana," he said. "Our employers are very supportive."

There are about 6,000 Guard and Reserve members in the state, he said. Last year, six cases were to mediation, and five cases were settled before the year was out.

Montana has in second in the nation in the per capita number of veterans, he said.

Large numbers of Guard and Reservists have been called up for federal service in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.

But Guard units can be called put by the governor to handle local emergencies.

Some Guard units were called up last year by Gov. Brian Schweitzer when a blast leveled a block of downtown Bozeman and when a fire destroyed a part of downtown Miles City.

"We forget sometimes the importance of the support network — the families and the employers," said Col. Jeff Ireland. "We are trying to build better relationships."

Ireland said the military appreciates the sacrifices that employers make by giving their personnel time off to attend weekend drills, annual summer training and deployments.

"Hopefully, in return we are giving the employer a worker with a skill set that they may not usually have," he said, Staff Sgt. Tim Callahan gave the crowd a description of his H a v r e - b a s e d 6 3 9 t h Quartermaster Co.'s mission when it spent virtually all of 2009 in Iraq. The troops supplied fuel, food and bottled water in the massive Victory Base complex in Iraq.

The unit won awards for performing its work well. The soldiers handed out 42,000 bottles of hot water a day — needed desperately in Iraq's hot weather — while they lived in 8-by-20 foot trailers.