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44–003 2009

UNIFORMED SERVICES EMPLOYMENT AND 

REEMPLOYMENT RIGHTS ACT AND 

SERVICEMEMBERS CIVIL RELIEF ACT ISSUES 

FIELD HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

AUGUST 18, 2008 

FIELD HEARING HELD IN BENTONVILLE, AR 

Serial No. 110–101 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs 

( 

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COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

BOB FILNER, California, Chairman 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, South 

Dakota 

HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

PHIL HARE, Illinois 

SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

CIRO D. RODRIGUEZ, Texas 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

DONALD J. CAZAYOUX, JR., Louisiana 

STEVE BUYER, Indiana, Ranking 

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

HENRY E. BROWN, JR., South Carolina 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

GINNY BROWN–WAITE, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

VERN BUCHANAN, Florida 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

MALCOM A. SHORTER, Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY 

STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, South Dakota, Chairwoman 

JOE DONNELLY, Indiana 

JERRY MCCNERNEY, California 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas, Ranking 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public hearing records 

of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs are also published in electronic form. The printed 

hearing record remains the official version. Because electronic submissions are used to 

prepare both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process of converting 

between various electronic formats may introduce unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the current publication process and should diminish as the process 

is further refined. 

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iii 

C O N T E N T S 

August 18, 2008 

Page 

Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act and Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Issues ......................................................................... 1 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Chairwoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin .............................................................. 1 

Prepared statement of Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin .................................. 42 

Hon. John Boozman, Ranking Republican Member ............................................. 3 

Prepared statement of Congressman Boozman ............................................. 43 

WITNESSES 

U.S. Office of Special Counsel, James P. Mitchell, Chief of Staff, Director 

of Communications ............................................................................................... 32 

Prepared statement of Mr. Mitchell ................................................................ 60 

U.S. Department of Labor, John M. McWilliam, Deputy Assistant Secretary, 

Veterans’ Employment and Training Service .................................................... 34 

Prepared statement of Mr. McWilliam ........................................................... 64 

American Legion, Department of Arkansas, William Vines, Commander, 

Post 31 .................................................................................................................. 22 

Prepared statement of Mr. Vines .................................................................... 57 

Arkansas National Guard: ......................................................................................

Major General William D. Wofford, Adjutant General .................................. 12 

Prepared statement of General Wofford .................................................. 45 

Captain Thomas Lee, Staff Judge Advocate ................................................... 14 

Prepared statement of Captain Lee ......................................................... 49 

Arkansas University Small Business Development Center, Arkansas State 

University, State University, AR, Herb Lawrence, Center Director ............... 20 

Prepared statement of Mr. Lawrence ............................................................. 53 

Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, Don Morrow, Chairman, Arkansas Field Committee ............................................................................................ 18 

Prepared statement of Mr. Morrow ................................................................ 52 

Merritt, Lieutenant Colonel Michael D., Deputy Brigade Commander, 142d 

Fires Brigade, Arkansas Army National Guard ................................................ 6 

Prepared statement of Colonel Merritt ........................................................... 44 

Smith, Paige, Fayetteville, AR, Family Readiness Coordinator for Headquarters 142d Fires Brigade, Arkansas National Guard .................................. 4 

Prepared statement of Ms. Smith ................................................................... 43 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

Post-hearing Questions and Responses for the Record: .......................................

Hon. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Economic 

Opportunities, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, to John McWilliam, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, 

U.S. Department of Labor, letter dated August 26, 2008, and response 

letter dated October 7, 2008 ............................................................................ 69 

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UNIFORMED SERVICES EMPLOYMENT AND 

REEMPLOYMENT RIGHTS ACT AND 

SERVICEMEMBERS CIVIL RELIEF ACT 

ISSUES 

MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 2008 

U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY, Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:10 a.m. at 

Northwest Arkansas Community College, Student Center Room 

108AB, One College Drive, Bentonville, Arkansas, Hon. Stephanie 

Herseth Sandlin [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Herseth Sandlin and Boozman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRWOMAN HERSETH SANDLIN 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. 

The Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic 

Opportunity hearing on the Uniformed Service Employment and 

Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) and the Servicemembers 

Civil Relief Act (SCRA) will come to order. 

I’d like to thank Ranking Member John Boozman for inviting us 

here today as we conduct this official hearing in his home State. 

It is great to be back in the Third District of Arkansas. As many 

of you may recall, under the leadership of then Chairman 

Boozman, the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity held a hearing here in 2006, in which we were able to receive testimony from 

his constituents about the importance of the Transitional Assistance Program and education benefits for the total military force. 

We’ve also had an opportunity to take testimony from the Adjutant General on education benefits. As you may also know, we have 

made substantial improvements in the GI Bill for our service men 

and women. I have enjoyed working with Congressman Boozman 

on this Subcommittee, the full Committee and other opportunities 

to work together in the Congress with his staff, who I want to 

thank here in the District, as well as our Committee staff that 

have traveled with us here today from Washington. Of course, I 

would like to thank our hosts for today, all of the people here at 

Northwest Arkansas Community College for giving us this wonderful venue to host this field hearing today as we continue to work 

together to help our Nation’s veterans. 

I also want to thank Congressman Boozman for his continued 

strong bipartisan support for our Nation’s veterans and his excepsmartinez on PROD1PC64 with HEARING

2 

tional leadership, for his constituents and for all of our servicemembers across the country. He has been kind enough to travel to 

South Dakota to hear from some of my constituents. We also held 

a hearing earlier this year in Indiana. This is our third field hearing this year, and we hope that the testimony we take today will 

provide us the information and some of the ideas to continue to 

work to ensure a smooth transition, especially in the area of employment and reemployment rights for our servicemembers. 

I look forward to hearing from our guest panelists whose testimony will focus on employment and reemployment rights for servicemembers and veterans. As many of you know, the Uniformed 

Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act and the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act were both enacted into law to provide 

our activated servicemembers with economic protections while serving one’s country. 

In the past, we’ve heard stories and anecdotal evidence from returning servicemembers and veterans as they’ve faced discrimination as a result of their service to our Nation. While violations of 

these rights by employers may, at times, be intentional, some of 

these violations have also been unintentional because there are 

many employers who do not understand USERRA and SCRA 

rights. Regardless of whether these violations are intentional or 

unintentional, veterans rights should be protected at all times. 

The Subcommittee has held hearings on these important laws 

and recently passed H.R. 6225, the ‘Improving SCRA and USERRA 

Protections Act of 2008,’ in the House of Representatives. If signed 

into law, this legislation would ensure that equitable relief is available to all USERRA victims when appropriate; protect the student 

servicemember by capping student loan interest at 6 percent during deployments; require institutions of higher learning to refund 

tuition and fees for unearned credit and, in addition, guarantee our 

servicemembers a place when they return to school. 

The legislation would also provide a servicemember 13 months to 

begin paying their student loans after an activation should they decide not to return to school immediately. It would amend the SCRA 

to cover service contracts to allow our men and women in uniform 

with deployment orders to more easily terminate or suspend service contracts without fee or penalty. It would also amend SCRA to 

allow a military spouse to claim the same State as the servicemember with regard to State and property taxes and voter registration. 

Furthermore, the Chairman of the full Committee, Bob Filner, introduced H.R. 4883 to amend SCRA to provide for a limitation on 

the sale, foreclosure or seizure of property owned by a servicemember during the one-year period following the servicemember’s period of military service. 

Unfortunately, for too many of our servicemembers returning 

from deployments, they’re finding themselves in a predicament 

where existing laws might not be sufficient to protect them. Laws 

are not properly enforced or existing laws need to be updated to 

meet the needs of today’s servicemembers. I look upon today’s hearing as an opportunity to gather more insight into these concerns. 

I mentioned, I look forward to working with Congressman Boozman 

and other Members of the Subcommittee as we continue to work 

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3 

diligently to provide the necessary safeguards to protect our servicemembers and veterans as they transition to civilian life. 

[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin appears on p. 42.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I would now like to recognize the distinguished Ranking Member, Congressman John Boozman, for his 

opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BOOZMAN 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you very much. Let me first thank the 

Community College for providing the venue allowing us to be here 

and all of their hospitality. It’s a real pleasure always to work with 

Becky Paneitz and her staff, who do such a very, very good job. I 

will also want to begin by thanking Ms. Stephanie Herseth 

Sandlin, the Chair of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, 

for holding this hearing. You hear a lot in the press these days 

about the partisan bickering in Congress and in Washington, and 

how we’re not capable of doing anything. 

But I’m very fortunate that when I was Chair of the Subcommittee, Ms. Herseth Sandlin was my Ranking Member and did 

a tremendous job. I’d like to have the job back, but, like I say, I 

couldn’t ask for a better Chairman. 

She works in a very bipartisan manner and looks to do both 

what’s appropriate for veterans, what’s best for veterans and, yet, 

is very mindful as to how we spend our tax dollars in the appropriate way. I also appreciate not only her, but her staff, who work 

very, very hard and also are mindful of the same things, as is my 

staff. 

Members of the National Guard Reserves continue to bear a significant load in the Global War on Terror. In Arkansas alone, over 

11,200 members of the National Guard have been mobilized since 

9/11, and there are over 3,000 currently deployed overseas. They 

have conducted the full spectrum of operations in the Global War 

on Terror. For example, the 213th Area Support Medical Company 

treated over 20,000 patients in Iraq, and the 875th Engineer Battalion cleared 1,244 explosive devices. Our aviation units perform 

every kind of mission from Medivac to air control. Our military police and related units provided the security and civil support. They 

are warriors all and I thank them very much for their service. 

Fortunately, we have laws like the Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act or USERRA, meant to ensure 

that when someone returns from military life, military service, they 

find their job waiting for them. 

We also have a law called the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, 

meant to protect veterans and their families in a wide variety of 

ways, ranging from interest rates to auto leases and taxes. Unfortunately, sometimes there are violations of the law, usually 

through ignorance of the law and, occasionally, through outright 

willful disobedience. We are here today to listen to several witnesses, who will describe the effectiveness of these laws and, hopefully, to offer suggestions on how we might improve them. 

Finally, Madam Chair, I’m sure you will agree that we seldom 

recognize the contribution of the spouses, who keep the home running while the servicemember is called away. In the fact of great 

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uncertainty, our military spouses provide the members with the 

strength to do their duty and the faith that they will be welcomed 

home once their service is done. We cannot ask for more, but they 

always seem to exceed our expectations. Therefore, Madam Chair, 

I think U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)—perhaps we should look 

into some sort of formal recognition for their contributions to the 

Nation’s defense. 

Once again, I thank the Chair for her consideration. I look forward to hearing our witnesses and I appreciate all of you. The people that are going to testify, I appreciate you being here and I 

know it’s a hassle, but this is very, very important, especially with 

a Nation at war, again, talking about a subject that’s so important, 

reintegrating our troops as they get home. Thank you, Madam 

Chair. 

[The prepared statement of Congressman Boozman appears on p. 

43.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Boozman. I would like to 

welcome all of the witnesses who are testifying before our Subcommittee today and I would like to remind each of you that your 

complete written statement has already been made part of the 

hearing record. I’d ask you to limit your opening remarks to 5 minutes so that we have plenty of time for follow-up questions that 

Mr. Boozman and I may have for all four of the panels that we’ll 

be hearing from today. 

As Mr. Boozman mentioned, the role, dedication and sacrifice of 

spouses and families over the last 5 years during the deployments 

and the Global War on Terror, at times, have not received the recognition that they deserve. Either the formal recognition or the 

types of insights that we believe spouses are able to provide, which 

is why, during these field hearings in Indiana, South Dakota, and 

Arkansas, we have made a point of ensuring that spouses are a 

part of each of the hearings and each of our first panels. 

With that said, I would like to invite our first panel up to the 

witness table. We have Ms. Paige Smith, a military spouse and 

Family Readiness Coordinator for Headquarters 142nd Fires Brigade and Mr. Michael Merritt, a member of the National Guard. 

I want to thank you both for joining us today. We look forward to 

your testimony. 

Ms. Smith, I will start with you. I think you have to pull the 

microphone a little bit closer so that we can hear you and the folks 

in the audience can hear you. We will now recognize you for five 

minutes. 

STATEMENTS OF PAIGE SMITH, FAYETTEVILLE, AR, FAMILY 

READINESS COORDINATOR FOR HEADQUARTERS 142D 

FIRES BRIGADE, ARKANSAS NATIONAL GUARD (SPOUSE OF 

NATIONAL GUARD MEMBER); AND LIEUTENANT COLONEL 

MICHAEL D. MERRITT, DEPUTY BRIGADE COMMANDER, 142D 

FIRES BRIGADE, ARKANSAS ARMY NATIONAL GUARD 

STATEMENT OF PAIGE SMITH 

Ms. SMITH. Thank you. Good morning, Chairwoman Herseth 

Sandlin, distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. I’m Ms. 

Paige Smith, and I’m testifying in my position as Family Readiness 

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Coordinator for Headquarters 142nd Fires Brigade and wife of a recently deployed and returned soldier, Sergeant First Class Joseph 

Smith. My testimony today reflects my personal views and does not 

necessarily reflect the views of the Army, the Department of Defense or the Administration. I appreciate the opportunity to appear 

before you and submit testimony relative to issues pertaining to 

family readiness in the Arkansas Army National Guard. 

First of all, I would like to address the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and the 6 percent cap on the interest rate on pre-mobilization debt for mobilizing Guard members. When my husband’s unit 

deployed, I know firsthand that all of our soldiers were entitled to 

have all pre-mobilization debt reduced to a maximum of 6 percent 

interest rate. And it’s been my experience as a family readiness coordinator that the majority of soldiers involved in this mobilization 

received debt relief due to their creditors supporting the war effort 

and creditors reducing the interest rates. 

I know of no instance that a creditor did not reduce our soldiers’ 

pre-mobilization debt, interest rates; and for that we are grateful. 

In several State courts, to include Arkansas, incorrectly held that 

SCRA did not apply to domestic relations. This left soldiers who 

were custodial parents in a position of choosing between following 

military orders and custodial rights. This was the exact dilemma 

that SCRA intended to prevent. I would like to thank the Committee for their hard work to ensure that our soldiers are not in 

a position of choosing between their families and their country. 

This was one of the most pressing issues of SCRA and should be 

resolved. 

Secondly, I would like to address the Family Medical Leave Act 

(FMLA), which was amended January 28th, 2008, to implement 

new military family leave provisions. This provision requires the 

Secretary of Labor to issue regulations defining any qualifying exigency before the regulation takes effect. Washington State and 

California have each passed a Spouse Leave Law, in which employers must provide a certain amount—Washington is 15 days and 

California is 10—of unpaid leave to spouses of military members 

who have been notified of an impending call or active-duty order, 

on leave from a deployment or have returned home from deployment. If this law would be passed for all States, it would allow all 

military spouses that do not fall under FMLA to have the same 

rights as those that do. And I would ask your assistance in implementing Federal legislation to address this issue that affects the 

majority of our soldiers during pre-mobilization and post-mobilization. 

I would like to conclude my testimony by thanking you for your 

hard work, the Congressional staff, in all areas concerning soldiers 

and family care issues. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before this Subcommittee and represent all military spouses and 

their families of the 142nd Fires Brigade of the Arkansas Army 

National Guard. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Smith appears on p. 43.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Ms. Smith. 

Mr. Merritt, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

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STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL MICHAEL D. MERRITT 

Colonel MERRITT. Good morning, Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin, 

Congressman Boozman, distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Michael Merritt, Deputy Brigade Commander for 142d Fires Brigade, Arkansas Army National 

Guard. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and submit my testimony relative to my experiences as a member of the 

Arkansas Army National Guard and as an employee of Fortune 500 

companies, specifically, issues related to my legal rights under 

USERRA. 

Let me begin my giving you a brief background on my military 

and civilian career past. I received my commission as a regular 

Army officer in 1984, and spent 4 years on active duty before leaving active duty and beginning a civilian career and joining the 

Army National Guard. Over the course 19 years, I’ve been exposed 

to the impacts of military service and the Reserve component from 

both the employers’ perspective, as well as the servicemembers. For 

17 of those 19 years, I’ve been in the human resource profession, 

with 15 of those years as a human resource manager. 

I’ve held positions in locations that have had as few as a hundred 

employees to as many as 1,100. Some of those companies had a significant number of Reserve component employees and others had 

very few. As a national Guard officer with 19 years of service and 

having recently returned from deployment in support of Operation 

Iraqi Freedom as an artillery battalion commander, I’ve seen the 

impact of military service on the employer-to-employee relationship. 

My personal experience has always ended positively, as have 

most of the experiences of my soldiers that I have been made 

aware of. Having made that statement, I must admit the greatest 

contributing factor to those positive outcomes has come more from 

the desire of employers to take care of their servicemember employees than out of a in-depth knowledge of or desire to comply with 

USERRA requirements. The concerns that I have heard from my 

soldiers have come more from perceived lost opportunities during 

deployment or concern that commitment to the National Guard will 

somehow hurt their ability to advance in the future. It is my responsibility to review the questionnaires completed by soldiers that 

have decided not to reenlist upon reaching the end of their term 

of service. And, by far, the two most common responses are family 

commitments and/or employment conflicts. 

My only personal experience that has led to reference to 

USERRA requirements came at the end of my recent deployment 

to Kuwait. My total deployment time was 18 months, during which 

time my position as human resource manager was backfilled with 

another employee. As my tour of duty was getting close to ending, 

I was told that another HR manager position was available in another city, and that I should take this position as a lateral move. 

This would have required relocating my family shortly after returning from a long deployment and I had no desire to put my family 

through that at such a time. The positive turn came when I reminded my employer about USERRA requirements and they quickly recognized both the regulatory situation and my personal desire 

not to move and promised my original position back. I don’t really 

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think it was due to USERRA, but we did talk about it and I think 

doing the right thing was what their objective was. 

After returning to the United States, I made the decision to leave 

my employer and become self-employed. My decision was not made 

because of this one small issue, but rather, my desire to continue 

seeking higher levels of responsibility within the National Guard 

and to be able to do that under my own terms without the institutional pressure, that I admit, was mostly self-imposed. In many 

ways, my previous employers have exceeded legal requirements 

when dealing with my military service obligations. Most common 

was making up any pay or benefit differential that might exist between military pay and benefits and those of my employer. 

In conclusion, it has been my experience that doing the right 

thing has been the objective of all my employers and USERRA only 

came into play as a reference for making those right decisions. As 

a human resource professional, I will say that people in that field 

are not as familiar with USERRA as they should be. You might be 

able to credit that to the lack of challenges made by returning servicemembers under USERRA. Trusting that your employer will 

meet the intent of the law and that no negative repercussions, 

whether subtle or blatant, will jeopardize your career does cause 

some anxiety for the citizen soldier. A better understanding of 

USERRA, a review of company policy for compliance and a communication plan could help prevent misunderstandings and alleviate 

a lot of those anxieties. 

I would like to express my appreciation for being able to address 

the Committee. I think it’s—USERRA is a wonderful thing and I’m 

much appreciative of having it in my—at my back. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Colonel Merritt appears on p. 44.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Merritt. 

I will now recognize Mr. Boozman for questions he may have of 

our witnesses. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you and we appreciate you, Ms. Smith, for 

being here and your testimony. It’s very helpful and all you’re 

doing, not only in the support of your own family, but helping otherwise. My dad did 20 years in the Air Force, and I know it’s tough 

when mom or dad is away for extended periods. It’s hard on the 

family, and so it’s such an important thing. 

You mentioned the FMLA. Can you give us, a real life story as 

to how that would relate in regard how you feel like that affects 

the family? 

Ms. SMITH. I can tell you as far as that relates to me personally. 

My situation was the fact when—when my husband returned home 

on leave, which was close to the end of his tour of duty, I was opening up a new hotel, the Double Tree Guest Suites in Bentonville. 

And I knew my responsibilities there. I was the only sales manager 

and still am the only sales manager. They were kind enough to 

give me a week off when Joey came home and they did that with 

pay. And I didn’t have vacation at the time, so I appreciate them 

for that. 

At the same time, I—in relation to me and other wives that I’ve 

heard, if we can—they need the opportunity to have that time off 

without it being held against them or them having to take vacation. I think it’s the right thing to do for our military families. 

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Mr. BOOZMAN. Very good. 

Colonel, you mentioned that in the questionnaires, family and 

jobs were at the top. One of the things that I know I’ve talked to 

about—really, for the last year or two, one of my concerns has been 

that with the deployments that we’re having so many, guys—men 

and women being gone so much that we get the—we do a pretty 

good job of trying to alert employers. And that’s what this hearing 

is all about. It’s trying to prevent future problems from happening, 

along with solving the problems that we have. 

But a real concern that perhaps, instead of having a problem 

with them being—coming back, but rather, they just don’t hire 

them in the first place; that they know that they’re National Guard 

and that small business, which is the backbone of the country, 

which is—most of our businesses with few employees, who spend 

the time to train somebody and in the back of your mind as an employer thinking, you know, this person’s going to be gone for a year 

or 15 months or whatever, that that might be a real problem boding into the future. Can you comment on that? Is that something 

that we really need to be concerned about? 

Colonel MERRITT. Yes, I believe it is going to be an issue and I 

don’t know that it will, necessarily, always be, you know, a blatant 

move, but I know on job applications years ago, they would always 

ask, did you have prior service. 

And, they would—you would put that down and it used to be you 

would jump at the opportunity to be able to say, Yes, I am, or Yes, 

I have. And now, you do have second thoughts as to whether you 

want to put that on there or not for that very reason. I don’t think 

many corporations will go out there with that intent, but it is a 

seed in the back of the mind that you would have to take into consideration. 

And the small company in the larger percentage of those people 

represented in the workforce, obviously, the tougher it is for them. 

But I think it is something that we’re going to have to watch in 

the future to see what impacts that it does have. 

I haven’t seen it in the short term, but long term, it could definitely become more of a factor as these deployments continue. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Was your unit, prior to deployment, was it briefed 

on USERRA. 

Colonel MERRITT. Yes, sir, we were. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. And you felt like that they did a good job in that 

regard. 

Colonel MERRITT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Very good. Thank you all very much. Thank you, 

Madam Chair. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Boozman. 

Just to clarify then, Ms. Paige. Given your circumstances and 

how flexible your employer was in giving you that time when your 

husband was home on leave, and maybe conversations with other 

military spouses, perhaps, that same flexibility hasn’t occurred for 

everyone. Either during that time on leave; or would you agree, 

perhaps, just as importantly, during that period of readjustment 

when they return home from the deployment. Do you have any 

thoughts on how long he was home on leave for more than a week? 

Ms. SMITH. Yes, ma’am. 

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Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. Right. 

What are your thoughts in terms of the amount of time without 

having to use vacation, without having it held against the spouse 

and the employment situation anyway? Take, for example, the return from deployment—— 

Ms. SMITH. Uh-huh. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. Is a week a sufficient 

amount of time? Do you think 2 weeks would be more beneficial 

for that readjustment period, particularly, if there are young children at home? 

Ms. SMITH. Yes, ma’am, I think two weeks would be a better 

timeframe. And with every family, it’s different. Every soldier 

comes back different. Not all of our circumstances are the same, so 

to speak. We don’t have small children at home. We do have a 

young one at home, but she’s 17. I do know that the mothers that 

have the children that are babies where they had their children 

while their husbands were gone, which we had a couple of those, 

I think it’s very important to have a longer period of time to just 

get to know each other again, quite frankly, without worrying 

what’s going to happen at work. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Uh-huh. 

Ms. SMITH. And I do know that I will say there are companies 

that have supported the soldiers and their families. There are companies that have allowed other employees to give their comp 

time—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Uh-huh. 

Ms. SMITH [continuing]. To the soldier’s spouse so that they could 

have more time with them because they didn’t have all the time, 

you know, on their own. So it’s not all a bad thing. There are companies out there that try to do the right thing, but if we could get 

it—you know, legislation passed through where it was a definite. 

And if they didn’t need the 2 weeks, then they wouldn’t have to 

take it—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Uh-huh. 

Ms. SMITH [continuing]. But to have it there would be a blessing. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. I appreciate your insights. 

Mr. Merritt, in response to Congressman Boozman’s question, 

they were briefed on USERRA. 

Did the Family Readiness Group get a briefing on the USERRA 

rights of the loved one who’s being deployed? 

Ms. SMITH. Yes, we——. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. 

Ms. SMITH [continuing]. We do. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I appreciate your knowledge and familiarity and, again, your perspective on the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, USERRA and what you’ve offered us here today. Thank 

you, again, very much. 

Ms. SMITH. Thank you. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Mr. Merritt, you said you’ve spent 15 

years as a human resources professional. 

Colonel MERRITT. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. My hunch is that there are a lot of other 

human resource professionals that aren’t nearly as familiar with 

USERRA rights as you are and you’ve recognized that in your testismartinez on PROD1PC64 with HEARING

10 

mony. Why do you think that is and what do you think we can do 

to help better inform companies and human resource professionals, 

in particular, about USERRA rights? 

You have made a few recommendations in your testimony with 

regard to the review of the corporate policies. Perhaps one of the 

reasons that certain employers are not familiar is the lack of challenges that certain servicemembers may not be bringing that help 

inform what those reemployment and employment rates are. Would 

you have any suggestions for what more could be done to better familiarize companies and human resource professionals, in particular, with USERRA? 

Colonel MERRITT. There are some organizations, you know, for 

human resource professionals that probably would be a good impact; to contact human resource people and say, hey, here’s something that’s out there that is important to you. I understand most 

of you probably, you know, exceed the regulations, but, you know, 

here’s something that probably would be smart to spend some time 

on. 

I don’t know exactly how legally you could push that. I also think 

being a little more inclusive with employers during the mobilization process might be something that we could work toward. You 

know, we do a pretty good job; getting better with the families and 

I think we’ve always done a pretty good job with the soldiers, so 

employers might be the next—you know, the next step to pull them 

into that process at some level. 

But, again, I think it’s—everybody’s busy and it becomes somewhat of a squeaky wheel kind of situation. 

And my experience with larger corporations has been USERRA 

has not been a problem and an issue, so therefore, I don’t spend 

much time, you know, looking at it. But, probably, your biggest 

challenge will be your small employers that may not have a human 

resource professional, do it in-house or there’s just one person that 

does it all. Those people would probably be the ones you would 

want to reach out to. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Uh-huh. 

Colonel MERRITT. And, also, it might be the easier ones to pull 

in to the pre-mobilization orientation process, either, you know, 

separately or inclusive with the employee. I’m not sure which 

would be better. But I think there’s some things that could be done 

to help that communications process. 

The soldiers being smart on the subject is probably one of your 

best tools because, you know—and, obviously, you’re looking after 

your own interest. You will use your knowledge to help you with 

your career. But I think if the employers were, maybe, a little more 

knowledge on the front end, you would avoid a lot of that. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Your assessment is it’s more a lack of familiarity with the law than the policies, as written, being unclear? 

I mean, once they know the law is out there. But, maybe, for the 

smaller employers, the—— 

Colonel MERRITT. Yes. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. Explanatory is important, 

especially, as you said, if they don’t have a dedicated human resource professional in-house. 

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11 

Colonel MERRITT. That’s right. Interpretation of USERRA has 

not been a problem that I have seen. It’s just, you know, picking 

it up and looking at it, period; either out of not knowing it exists— 

and I’m sure there are some smaller employers that have that 

issue—but, like I said, people not thinking they have an issue with 

USERRA because they’re doing all they can do to—well, I don’t 

think they’re doing it to do more than USERRA requires them. 

They’re just doing what they think is right and that is in the spirit 

of USERRA, so they don’t have that conflict. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. Just one final question for you, 

Mr. Merritt, a general question. With your 19 years of experience 

with the National Guard, what is the most common problem you 

think that servicemembers, their spouses and families face during 

a deployment? 

Colonel MERRITT. Well, that’s a tough one. I think just the separation, in general. This deployment, you know, over those that 

went to Desert Storm, the communication is—that’s available for 

soldiers now is so much better than it was; you know, the ability 

to call home and you sit and you know, you absorb. And we do 

coach people on that. I mean—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Right. 

Colonel MERRITT [continuing]. You’re going to hear things from 

your spouse, and you just kind of absorb them. There’s not a lot 

you can do about it and you learn how to deal with that frustration. But just the ability to communicate with your spouse back 

home and your children has been a big plus, so it’s really the separation; just the family structure. And it’s, you know, you run across 

a few that’ll have financial problems and some things that’ll pop 

up because of the deployment, if you want to talk universal issues, 

it’s just taking, you know, one of the parents out of a family and 

taking them away for a year, a year and a half. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you. 

Mr. Boozman, did you have any final questions? 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Well, just one thing. 

Does the Guard do any outreach as to employers concerning 

USERRA. 

Colonel MERRITT. Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve 

(ESGR) is a great organization that, you know, reaches out to 

many. I’m not really sure of the exact size of the ESGR, but my 

guess is that, you know, reaching all of the employers that are affected across the State is probably a pretty big challenge. But I 

know they do reach out to those that they’re made aware of and 

then they do have things that they do that pull employers in. 

So ESGR is a great asset for us and has been over time. They’ve 

built those relationships. They didn’t just pop up because of a deployment, you know. They’ve been there all along and we do everything we can to—— 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Uh-huh. 

Colonel MERRITT [continuing]. To build the relationships with our 

employers. We bring them out to the field with us when we’re at 

Fort Chaffee, and let them see what we do. And that familiarity 

with what we do is a big plus for them. I mean, they know, kind 

of—they hear what you do on the weekends, but when they get out 

there and they see that, you know, you really are doing a serious 

smartinez on PROD1PC64 with HEARING

12 

job, they feel like they own a little piece of that and it helps tremendously. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Very good. I thank both of you, again, for your 

service to our country and your dedication. Your testimony is very 

helpful. Thank you. 

Colonel MERRITT. Thank you. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you both. We appreciate your testimony and the sacrifices that you’ve made. 

Ms. SMITH. Thank you. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. We now would like to invite our second 

panel to the witness stand. Joining us is Major General William D. 

Wofford, Adjutant General of the Arkansas National Guard, and 

Captain Thomas Lee, Staff Judge Advocate for the Arkansas National Guard. Thank you both for being here and for providing a 

written testimony. 

We look forward to your comments today. 

General Wofford, we’ll begin with you. You are recognized for 5 

minutes. 

STATEMENTS OF MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM D. WOFFORD, 

THE ADJUTANT GENERAL, ARKANSAS NATIONAL GUARD; 

AND CAPTAIN THOMAS LEE, STAFF JUDGE ADVOCATE, ARKANSAS NATIONAL GUARD 

STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL WILLIAM D. WOFFORD 

General WOFFORD. Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin, Congressman 

Boozman, I’m Major General William D. Wofford, and I’m testifying 

in my position as the Adjutant General of the Arkansas National 

Guard. And I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and 

submit testimony relative to issues pertaining to National Guardsmen. As you had mentioned, my written testimony is submitted. 

I’ve got several issues that I’ve identified. I’d like to capture just 

a few of those right now in oral testimony, if I could. 

First of all, I’d like to begin my testimony by thanking the Congressional staff for a very important clause in the National Defense 

Authorization Act of 2008 that contains an affirmative clause that 

court ordered stay provisions under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act do not apply to child custody proceedings. Several State 

courts incorrectly held that the newly created Servicemembers 

Civil Relief Act did not apply to domestic relations. Congress answered that with the National Defense Authorization Act. This was 

one of the most pressing issues of SCRA and now appears to be resolved. 

One of the issues is that when a servicemember mobilizes, they 

are entitled to have all their pre-mobilization debt reduced to a 

maximum of 6 percent interest rate if their income is materially affected. Yet some servicemembers in Arkansas did not receive the 

debt relief because often the servicemember’s income is not materially affected. Now, I would like to point out that most creditors— 

the vast majority of our creditors are happy to comply with the 

SCRA and they go ahead and grant that relief without even checking on that, but that is a concern. 

I’d like to mention that the continued enforcement under the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division on SCRA issues. Servsmartinez on PROD1PC64 with HEARING

13 

icemembers seeking help under SCRA first contact their military 

Judge Advocate in the Arkansas National Guard. If the Judge Advocate’s office cannot resolve the matter and determines that assistance from the Department of Justice would be appropriate, it 

will submit a request to the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The Division needs to continue that work. That is a 

very positive effort and we just would like to thank those involved 

in SCRA for making that possible. 

I would like to mention that servicemembers’ creditors, employees and landlords should be commended on the sacrifices they 

make to ensure that a servicemember is prepared to leave their— 

his civilian position and fight in the war effort. However, if a servicemember is required to pursue legal action to enforce his rights 

conferred by SCRA, there is no provision for recovery of expenses 

by attorneys that he must hire. I think that’s an issue that should 

be addressed under the Civil Rights Act provision. 

Finally, the main issue I would like to address to the Subcommittee today has to do with employment concerns of Reserve 

component members. Before I discuss this issue, I’d like to emphasize that our servicemembers of the Arkansas National Guard receive outstanding support from employers when they are called to 

duty. Even after 7 years of executing the Global War on Terror, Arkansas employers continue to demonstrate tremendous patriotism 

and dedication to ensuring our servicemembers and their families 

are cared for while they’re deployed. However, I would like to share 

a growing concern that was mentioned just previously. 

Although our employers demonstrate solid support of their employees that are called to active duty, there is mounting evidence 

that employers are becoming reluctant to hire members of the Reserve components because of repeated, second and third, deployments. It has become apparent that those traits exhibited by the 

members of the Guard and Reserve that make them valuable employees, leadership, professionalism, physical condition, maturity 

and a can-do attitude, are no longer considered to be cost effective 

advantages if they’re going to be deployed for 12 months every 

three to 4 years. The businessmen and businesswomen that are responsible to their superiors and to stakeholders are making hiring 

decisions that will best help their organization’s financial bottom 

line and that’s understandable. 

For over a year, I’ve taken the opportunity to speak to numerous 

civic organizations, chambers of commerce and business leaders 

around the State of Arkansas about the National Guard. And I certainly expound on those outstanding qualities for hiring them. 

However, I also ask them one simple question. What incentives 

must we, as a Nation, try to develop to ensure it is profitable for 

employers to hire a Guardsman? I’ve received some valuable feedback and I’ll be more than glad to address that. And I do have it 

in my written testimony, but I know I’ve run out of time. 

I do want to thank you for allowing me to speak. 

[The prepared statement of General Wofford appears on p. 45.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, General Wofford. 

Captain Lee, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

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14 

STATEMENT OF CAPTAIN THOMAS LEE 

Captain LEE. Madam Chairwoman and Congressman Boozman, 

I am testifying regarding my position as the Staff Judge Advocate 

of the Arkansas National Guard. I thank you for the opportunity 

to personally appear before you and submit this testimony regarding legal issues of our national Guardsmen. I would like to take the 

time to explain what we do as Judge Advocates and what type of 

issues we see as Judge Advocates. 

In the last 5 years, we have seen almost 10,000 servicemembers 

come through our legal station on their way to various deployments. I split our legal assistance services into three stages depending on the current status of the servicemember. The first stage 

is the pre-mobilization phase. The second stage is the post-mobilization phase. And the third stage is the demobilization phase. 

The first phase, the pre-mobilization phase, before servicemembers leave Arkansas on any mobilization, they must go through a 

soldier readiness processing (SRP) or an Special Reporting Code 

(SRC). The SRP and the SRC are basically, the benchmark of the 

deployment process. At the SRP and SRC, we will have multiple 

stations where a Judge Advocate will draft the servicemember a 

will or a power of attorney. We also ask whether or not the servicemembers have any legal issues that may prevent them from deployment. 

At that time, we also give them a packet of information. The 

packet includes, first, letters that they can send to their creditors 

asking for the creditors to reduce their interest rate to 6 percent; 

second, letters for terminating a residential lease; third, an IRS 

power of attorney for tax purposes; fourth, a simple letter to send 

to any court to stay a pending court action; and fifth, a guide on 

how to resolve fines and warrants. And, in addition to that, during 

this phase, our Judge Advocates will also talk directly to prosecuting attorneys and judges concerning our servicemembers that 

have pending misdemeanor charges or traffic violations in our various courts. 

Phase II is the post-mobilization phase. At this time, there are, 

roughly, 3,000 members of the Arkansas National Guard on active 

military orders in the post-mobilization phase. Currently, we receive an average of 233 calls a month seeking legal assistance information. The phone calls come from servicemembers, their families, attorneys and creditors. We provide all the groups as much information as we can. 

Generally, the questions are related to SCRA. In my written testimony, I provide a table regarding legal actions falling under 

SCRA that servicemembers of the 39th Brigade Combat Team have 

faced since their January, 2008 mobilization. As you can see, the 

most common problem is the 6 percent cap on interest rates. This 

is usually due to the creditor not understanding the law. Generally, 

this issue can be resolved between the servicemember and the 

Judge Advocate, once the creditor is aware of the law. Since the 

39th Brigade Combat Team has deployed, almost a third of all 

legal assistance actions are regarding the 6 percent interests rate. 

The third phase is the demobilization phase. Once servicemembers return from deployment, they will go through the legal section 

at the mobilization center. The most common legal issue when 

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15 

servicemembers return home is that someone has obtained a default judgment against them, as the local court was not aware of 

the servicemember deploying. The Judge Advocate will help the 

servicemember resolve this issue. 

In conclusion, we are still looking for ways of improving how 

servicemembers may reach our office. This requires a team effort 

by the entire National Guard. Our family assistance coordinators 

pass out our phone numbers at military family gatherings. Our 

public affairs department has a Web site so if servicemembers need 

assistance, they can contact our office. We also have to rely on commanders like Lieutenant Colonel Merritt to pass out our information. 

I appreciate this opportunity to submit this testimony. I’d like to 

thank you for all the hard work and services that you provide all 

servicemembers, not just Arkansas National Guardsmen. The Arkansas National Guard Judge Advocate General section especially 

thanks you for the support and services that you’ve provided us. 

[The prepared statement of Captain Lee appears on p. 49.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Captain Lee. 

General Wofford, if I could start with you. At the beginning of 

your oral testimony today, the issue of debt relief under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. You state that in a number of instances, it’s not triggered because the servicemember’s income isn’t 

materially affected. Do you think we set a different standard? Is 

that just a standard that’s too difficult for a servicemember to 

prove, to demonstrate? 

General WOFFORD. Ma’am, I think the standard is there and I 

think it is fair to the creditors. The vast majority of the creditors 

provide the debt relief for our servicemembers. There are some 

creditors that understand the law extremely well and require the 

individual to bring in proof that their income has been materially 

affected, their income has been reduced, and so they have to prove 

that. 

In some cases, for many of our Guardsmen in Arkansas, when 

they’re called to active duty, they actually make more money than 

they do at their civilian jobs. Again, the vast majority of the creditors don’t ask. They just go ahead and—or the creditors go ahead 

and allow them the 6 percent debt relief, but there are some that 

don’t. And I’m not sure how to effect that because, I think, the way 

the law is written is fair for the employers. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. Well, I appreciate you bringing a 

number of other issues to our attention today, the provision with 

regard to hiring an attorney fees is one I intend to pursue. You 

know, we’ve already looked at some other issues as it relates to equitable relief in getting injunctive relief and making sure every 

servicemember understands he or she is entitled to that. I think 

this is an important provision because of as Mr. Merritt said. I 

mean, if there’s a lack of challenges being brought, for those that 

are, they are incurring expenses, generally, with the advice of 

counsel. I think that’s an important change that we should look 

into with regard to SCRA. 

The recommendations you make in your written testimony, as 

you have discussed with chambers of commerce and other employsmartinez on PROD1PC64 with HEARING

16 

ers around the State, there are about half a dozen or so recommendations. 

General WOFFORD. Yes. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Do any of those stand out to you in terms 

of most frequently cited, that would be the most beneficial—— 

General WOFFORD. Yes. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. To employers? 

General WOFFORD. Yes, ma’am. Madam Chairwoman, the one 

recommendation that seems to be common across the board, business men and women around the State, has to do with healthcare 

benefits—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Uh-huh. 

General WOFFORD [continuing]. That if through TRICARE—or 

whatever means that the military provides, healthcare benefits to 

our soldiers—if that was common across the board for every 

Guardsman, those that are mobilized and those just in a drilling 

capacity. That is the most common benefit that they think would 

help them the most because that would be a benefit package they 

would not have to provide in civilian business. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I appreciate that. That makes a lot of 

sense. I know that even for some employers who are able to offer 

healthcare coverage, that if they’re a smaller employer, I know how 

important it was for the servicemember to know that his family 

was covered—— 

General WOFFORD. Yes. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. During the deployment. 

Captain Lee, talk to me a little bit more about the issue of the 

default judgments. This can be something where, especially for single servicemembers, mail is being forwarded to a parent’s home. Or 

if they are married, but the spouse isn’t familiar with getting, legal 

document in the mail and what all that means and doesn’t have 

the resources to go hire an attorney to tell her what it means. 

Do you have any ideas on how we can best communicate to the 

courts when we have mobilizations so that we’re not dealing with 

this after the fact with those default judgments? I’m sure, especially in this part of the country, I know that some folks, even their 

economic interest for what they may be entitled to if they owned 

land and someone’s making an offer for mineral rights under the 

land, they could face a default judgment if they don’t go and contest an offer that’s been made. I would imagine that this is an ongoing problem for a number of servicemembers here and elsewhere 

across the country. 

Captain LEE. Yes, ma’am, and the Federal courts now, I believe, 

in a pleading, you have to state—the attorney has to state that the 

plaintiff or defendant is not a servicemember who is deployed. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. In the Federal courts. 

Captain LEE. In Federal courts. In State courts, we don’t have 

that. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. 

Captain LEE. And that’s, mainly, where we see different default 

judgment issues come up. Generally, the judges themselves never 

know if a servicemember is deployed unless someone tells them. 

And that’s the issue. It’s not that judges are signing court orders 

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17 

knowing the servicemember is deployed. They just simply don’t 

know. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. That was the point of my question. I 

would imagine that they wouldn’t do that, but what we need are 

some ideas for how we can ensure that there’s some communication 

there. I think putting the onus on the attorney in the action as it 

relates to the individual having to state that due diligence at the 

outset is something that they could find out—— 

Captain LEE. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. By contacting the National 

Guard, by contacting the Reserve unit. That’s something that will 

be helpful for us to pursue. Thank you. 

Mr. Boozman. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

First of all, with your permission, I’d like to recognize George 

Westmoreland, who’s here. George is the Civilian Aid to the Secretary of the Army, and does a good job of getting out in the State 

and just helping our soldiers in a variety of different ways, so we 

appreciate you being here. 

General Wofford, the Chairwoman had really asked my first 

question and that was what did you learn? And you say you were 

able to elaborate on that. The other thing is, is that you guys mention that, basically, 75 percent of our guys that are getting called 

up are actually making more money when they’re deployed than in 

civilian life, and yet, we’re seeing these problems of financial troubles. 

And one of the things that I worry about is the divorce rate that 

we see that’s probably affected by these kinds of things. And I 

know that when you look at that, finances are always high on the 

chart as far as getting people in trouble with their marriages and 

things. And, I guess, my question is, is there anything we can do? 

Can we do a better job or can we do somewhat of a job in helping 

individuals as they start to deploy with some sort of financial management training. Is that available or could that be made available 

or—— 

General WOFFORD. Sure. There are a number of things that can 

be done. And actually, one thing that is being implemented at this 

time in every State is what’s referred to as the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program. The program starts at the very beginning, 

when a unit is alerted; works with the family through the deployment; and then the reintegration process. And I think Ms. Smith 

touched on something in her testimony that I think is worth revisiting is during a lengthy deployment, for 12 months or more, the 

spouse that stays back here that’s maintaining the family, holding 

the family together, becomes somewhat independent. 

They—he or she realizes that they’ve got to become self-sufficient. They’ve got to be able to maintain the household. At the 

same time, while the soldier is deployed, most of them are in a 

high stress situation. The way they do business in a combat environment is it’s mission focused. They get the job done, whatever it 

takes. And they come back to a less stressful environment; realize 

that the spouse is—doesn’t need them as much as they used to, to 

make the day-to-day decisions that have to be made, which creates 

additional stress within the family. 

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18 

I think that the reintegration program—and it boils down to 

communication. It boils down to education of our soldiers while 

they’re deployed and when they get back home and it takes education of the family. And as Ms. Smith said, they need time to get 

to know each other, to become reacquainted. And I think that is 

one of the greatest things that we can do and are doing now. It’s 

just taken us a long time to figure that out. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. We really have some excellent credit counseling 

resources and things. And I would hope—and I know that you all 

are working—— 

General WOFFORD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BOOZMAN [continuing]. Really hard in trying to see how we 

can integrate those things to ward off problems. I had the opportunity of being with the General in Iraq a few weeks ago, and I 

do want to compliment you for the great job that you’re doing. And 

you can tell by the way that you are received over there, that they 

have a lot of admiration for the job that you’re doing, so give yourself a pat. 

General WOFFORD. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. And we really do appreciate you guys. Thank you 

for being here. 

Captain LEE. Thank you. 

General WOFFORD. Thank you. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, both, for your insight, leadership and your service to our men and women in uniform. We look 

forward to following up with you on some of the recommendations 

and insights that you’ve offered to the Subcommittee today. 

General WOFFORD. Thank you. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, again, for your testimony. 

We would now like to welcome the third panel. Joining us is 

Mr. Don Morrow, Arkansas Chairman of Employer Support for the 

Guard and Reserve; Mr. Herb Lawrence, Center Director for the 

Small Business Development Center (SBDC) of Arkansas State 

University; and Mr. William Vines, Commander of Post 31 in the 

Department of Arkansas, the American Legion. 

Gentlemen, welcome. Thank you for being here with us today. 

We look forward to your testimony. Mr. Morrow, we begin with 

you. You are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENTS OF DON MORROW, CHAIRMAN, ARKANSAS FIELD 

COMMITTEE, EMPLOYER SUPPORT OF THE GUARD AND RESERVE; HERB LAWRENCE, CENTER DIRECTOR, ARKANSAS 

UNIVERSITY SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CENTER, ARKANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY, STATE UNIVERSITY, AR; AND 

WILLIAM VINES, COMMANDER, POST 31, AMERICAN LEGION, 

DEPARTMENT OF ARKANSAS 

STATEMENT OF DON MORROW 

Mr. MORROW. Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin, Mr. Boozman, 

thank you for the invitation to offer my perspective on issues relating to the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment 

Rights Act (USERRA) as it applies to the Arkansas National Guard 

and Reserve members and their employers. 

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19 

USERRA 1994 protects the employment and reemployment 

rights of Federal and non-Federal employees who leave their employment to perform military service. 

The role of informing servicemembers and employers about this 

law and enforcing it falls to several different government organizations. It should be noted that USERRA covers all employees except 

screeners employed by the Transportation Security Administration. 

ESGR is a Department of Defense organization that seeks to develop and promote a culture in which the American employers support the value of military service of their employees. We do this by 

recognizing outstanding support, increasing awareness of the law 

and resolving conflicts through mediation. Gaining and maintaining employer support requires a strong network composed of both 

military and civilian employer leaders that’s capable of providing 

communication, education and exchange of information. ESGR 

works with the Reserve component leadership of each service, appropriate government organizations such as the U.S. Department 

of Labor (DOL) and the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) 

and industry associations such as chambers of commerce and others to create broad based, nationwide support for our troops. 

It’s important to note that ESGR is not an enforcement agency 

and we do not have statutory authority to offer formal legal counsel 

or to participate in any formal investigation or litigation process. 

Our part in USERRA issue is to inform and educate our customers, 

the servicemembers and their civilian employers, regarding their 

rights and responsibility under the USERRA statute; also to provide mediation service. 

We have approximately 900 volunteer ombudsmen throughout 

the country and a national call center in Arlington, Virginia, to 

provide this service. Our call center received 13,116 requests for assistance during Fiscal 2007. Of these calls, 171 were from servicemembers or their civilian employers in Arkansas. Of those requests, 10,742, 129 for Arkansas, were informative in nature; that 

is, they were sufficiently resolved by providing information about 

the law. The remaining 2,374, 42 for Arkansas, were assigned as 

cases to our ombudsmen. 

Through a Memorandum of Understanding between ESGR and 

DOL Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS), ESGR 

informs those servicemembers whose cases ESGR is unable to successfully mediate within 14 days of their options to either contact 

the DOL or to retain private counsel. During Fiscal 2007, ESGR referred 416 cases to DOL. It should be further noted that ESGR mediation process is covered by the Administrative Dispute Resolution 

Act of 1996, which minimizes the amount of specific data that can 

be released about individual cases. 

The ESGR’s mandate ends at this point in the USERRA process. 

As I understand it, the Department of Labor investigates and attempts to resolve these claims that are filed by the servicemembers. If not successful, DOL informs the Federal claimant that they 

may have their claims referred to the Office of Special Counsel and 

informs the non-Federal claimants that they may engage Department of Justice. Of course, all parties reserve the right to engage 

private counsel at any time. 

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As of June 30th, 2008, 651,918 Reserve component members 

have been mobilized since the terrorist attacks of 11 September. 

There are 108,010 Reserve component members mobilized as of 

July the 30th. As of June, 2008, Arkansas had 16,726 Reserve component members. The use of the Reserve component has shifted 

from a strategic reserve to an operational reserve, whereby members of the National Guard and Reserve no longer are forces held 

in reserve, but are integral and integrated part of the total force. 

I see I’m running out of time, so let me thank you for allowing 

me to give my testimony today. And I’ll be happy to answer any 

questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Morrow appears on p. 52.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Morrow. 

Mr. Lawrence, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF HERB LAWRENCE 

Mr. LAWRENCE. Thank you. Chairwoman Sandlin, Congressman 

Boozman, Members of the Subcommittee, as a retired military officer, as a father of a son who just returned from the surge and all 

the soldiers who are coming after me, I thank you for allowing me 

to speak to this Subcommittee. 

I am the State—the Small Business Development Center Director for Arkansas State University, part of a statewide small business network. We have been working with small business owners 

who are involved in deployment for the past several years. Continued deployment of National Guard and Reserve military personnel 

in the Global War on Terror, who are also businessowners, has created additional hardships on these Reserve components’ servicemembers. Nationally, continued deployment of this subgroup of 

Guardsmen and Reservists has resulted in numerous business failures, losses of business income, bankruptcies and economic challenges to their enterprises. They have created undue hardships on 

their civilian career. 

The playing field between the Reserve component businessowner 

and the non-military businessowner is no longer even. And their 

service to our country comes at a significant sacrifice to their civilian endeavors. 

USERRA, especially in terms of its impact on interest rate caps 

and deployment loans, does not appear to me to differentiate between consumer-related loans and business loans and does not appear to prohibit its application to business loans. 

However, we do have a number of consumer—excuse me—of commercial lenders out there who are confused about exactly what impact the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act has on businessowners, 

especially because of the variety of loans that those businesses 

might have. A small businessowner could have revolving lines of 

credit, as well as business term loans, business credit card loans, 

equipment leasing, accounts receivable factoring; all of which are 

critical to sustain most business endeavors, but are challenged by 

some lenders. I believe it is more out of not knowing the law and 

what they are required to do, as opposed to not wanting to support 

our servicemembers. 

The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, clarification for commercial 

lenders to their obligations, to business-related loans needs to be 

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21 

more clearly defined to the lender. Additionally, servicemembers 

who are businessowners, need to be identified by command prior to 

deployment and access to consulting and counseling business assistance needs to be provided that targets the debt obligations and 

the options available to those servicemembers to reduce the negative impact of servicing those loans during and upon return from 

active duty. 

Also, the time limits on removal of the six percent cap should be 

expanded for businessowner servicemembers upon their return to 

ensure they have the best opportunity to get their businesses back 

to pre-deployment levels of revenues and customer bases to ensure 

they can service the debt. If I work for someone else and I go back 

to my job and get my due level of—and my old level of income, having that eight percent back is not an issue. But for small businessowners who have lost significant revenues during that 12-month 

period, putting them back to eight percent or 9 percent may not be 

to their benefit. If there’s a way we can expand the timeframe to 

allow them to continue that 6 percent until they can regain that, 

it would be helpful. 

Current assistance to service related businessowners called to active duty is inadequate to help keep many of them operational or 

to help them rebuild upon redeployment. The U.S. Small Business 

Administration programs aimed specifically at veteran and Reserve 

component businessowners have improved dramatically, but are 

still not sufficient to meet all of their needs. The Patriot Express 

Loan Guaranty Loan Program is not available to many commercial 

lenders. Additionally, the SBA Direct Loan Program for military 

servicemembers, the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL), is only 

a stopgap at present time and is limited to working capital. The 

EIDL should be expanded to help refinance existing business-related debt, provide deferments where possible and repayment until 

reasonable time after redeployment to be expanded to meet the 

needs, as well as working capital. Not all businesses need it, but 

there are a number that we’ve worked with who could have used 

that assistance. 

In summary, our soldiers aren’t looking for a handout and they’re 

not looking for a subsidy. What they want is assistance to help 

them regain their competitiveness and to level—and to levelize 

their playingfield. 

And very quickly I’ll make a comment too that—to follow up with 

the General on his discussion of seeing some employers having 

problems wanting to hire Guardsmen. 

I had an informal poll of a number of my lenders, asking if an 

individual came in—all things being equal, credit history, collateral, ability to repay—that came in and asked for a new loan, and 

they knew that individual was a Guardsman or a Reservist and if 

there was a good chance of being deployed, would that impact their 

decision? Obviously, they wouldn’t come out and say, Absolutely, it 

would, but they did say that would be a significant challenge to 

overcome in making a decision to make another loan to these individuals. 

I thank you very much for your time to listen to me. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lawrence appears on p. 53.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Lawrence. 

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22 

Commander, you are now recognized. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM VINES 

Mr. VINES. Thank you. As commander of the American Legion 

Post in Fort Smith, I’m honored to be asked to represent the American Legion for the State of Arkansas, and I’m happy to be on a 

panel with the good General Wofford there and to be working with 

my favorite Congressman, John Boozman. Both of these gentlemen 

are well respected, well known and the troops really honor and respect both of them here in this part of the State. 

In fact, the good Congressman told me and I’m very pleased to 

be in the presence of—he said that Chairlady Sandlin would be the 

next Governor of the State of South Dakota—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank—— 

Mr. VINES [continuing]. Followed immediately by that you would 

be the next U.S. Senator from South Dakota, so we’re very proud 

to be here with you. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you. 

Mr. VINES. And we welcome you and all those from out of State 

and those from across the State to beautiful Northwest Arkansas. 

And I hope John has had an opportunity to show you all the scenic 

beauty of our State, our tree-covered mountains and the fresh air 

that we have here and the beautiful clear waters of Beaver Lake, 

which is just a few miles east of us here. And I know that my formal statement is on the record, so I’m going to kind of jump around 

here and hit things that are near and dear to my heart. 

Just a few miles down the road in Fort Smith and Van Buren, 

just sitting in the river bottom across the river from each other and 

most of our industry in the State of Arkansas is located in the river 

bottom and, of course, we have Whirlpool, Baldor Electric, Hiram 

Walker, Planter’s Peanuts—some of the big name brand industries, 

as well as many smaller industries that service them. 

And, of course, up here in the mountains, you have Bekaert Steel 

and the two world class corporations, Wal-Mart and Tyson Foods, 

so we have a lot of industry. Right here in Bentonville where we 

are now, there’s a Guard unit and many of the towns around here 

have Guard units, so these fellows—we have a good education system here in Northwest Arkansas. 

We have good schools and I feel like our people get a little better 

education, maybe, than they would a lot of other places. Consequently, with all this concentration of industry and with the 

troops in the Guard, we have a lot of our employees are Guardsmen. And this has always been the as I think Colonel—well, our 

good Colonel back there mentioned and General Wofford both—it’s 

always been kind of a plus to be in the Guard because these people 

knew they were going to be hiring a good troop, a little better than 

troop. And when they hire them and they’ve come in and they really advance a little faster than their peers because of the training 

they’ve had, a good education and the military training which 

teaches you a lot of leadership and chain of command and how to 

deal with problems. 

Consequently, when they are deployed as we are now so often 

being deployed, this is a tough deal for the employers. It’s tough 

on the family. It’s tough on the troop, but it’s also hard on these 

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23 

employers. And, as we mentioned earlier, the smaller the company, 

the harder it is. So I just—in fact, this past Friday, met with several of our industrial leaders and CEOs there in Fort Smith, and 

we had a nice, little informal conversation. And one of the things 

that they mentioned having—they know I’ve been involved with 

the military for 40 years, and been involved with the industry for 

40 years, and I’ve been both an employee and an employer and I 

kind of see both sides of the coin here. 

And they know they can trust me. I’m not going to tell it to you 

who they are, but they have said in this meeting that they really 

now are a little hesitant about hiring our Guard troops. When they 

find out that they’re going to the Guard, they really kind of give 

it some thought. 

So I think we need to not only take care of the troops and the 

families, but we need to also look after these employers and give 

them some perks, you know; take care of the folks who are taking 

care of us by—I don’t know—give them tax breaks. Give them preferential—some of these government contracts—the many government contracts we have, maybe look at those employers who support the military effort toward getting those contracts. We just 

need to look after the employers as well as we do our own troops. 

And I think we do a good job with the troops. When they go off, 

they know what they have coming to them and many times, they 

know it better than the employer does, so, yes, ma’am, thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Vines appears on p. 57.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Well, thank you, Commander. 

Let me start with a question for both you, Mr. Vines, and 

Mr. Morrow. 

Let me read to you a section of General Wofford’s testimony and 

pose a similar question to you as I did to him in terms of what you 

hear the most from employers that would be helpful to address this 

issue of a current disincentive because of the deployment pace 

among National Guard versus what we can do to offset that. 

One recommendation is a tax incentive for employers. Another is 

to provide health benefits for servicemembers and their families on 

an ongoing basis so businesses don’t have to provide healthcare as 

a part of the benefits package. Also, eliminating Social Security 

and retirement penalties for those retirees who temporarily backfill 

deployed or mobilized servicemembers would provide considerable 

relief. Another is reimburse replacement training expenses for businesses and, finally, reimbursing municipalities for overtime for policemen or firefighters who are required to fill in for deployed servicemembers would go a long way to providing a strong support network. 

Which of those do you hear the most would be most helpful to 

employers in making decisions to overcome any hesitation now? 

Would it be the healthcare benefits as General Wofford has been 

hearing the most? Is it a different incentive, like a tax incentive? 

Mr. Morrow, what do you think? 

Mr. MORROW. Well, as General Wofford mentioned, I think probably the healthcare incentive might be the most practical. Obviously, we hear a great deal about tax incentives. And I think the 

somewhat recent idea of being able to forgive some of the employment taxes for hiring the replacements, I think, is one of the items 

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that I hear a good bit about. And you mentioned municipalities. 

Municipalities are probably unfairly hit. Perhaps, unfair might be 

the wrong term, but we certainly have a high percentage of policemen, firemen, municipal employees in the Guard and Reserve. 

And we have a lot of cities that’s been hit very, very heavily with 

their police force, their firefighters. And it’s very difficult to hire replacements for those individuals. In many cases, what the employers are saying, If you allow us to hire some of these recent retirees 

back in to fill those positions and give us a tax break in that process might be an effective procedure for us. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Mr. Vines? 

Mr. VINES. I think the tax breaks, definitely, would be number 

one on the list. And I think if there’s any way that we can work 

this out so the corporations have a preferential bidding situation on 

government contracts and so forth, I hear that a lot. With our industry in Fort Smith and—and with our—some of the big construction companies, that would certainly play a part. And we need to 

keep these employers happy because, you know, if they’re not 

happy and Mama’s not happy, then the troop’s not going to re-up. 

And it all really is just one big ball of wax there that needs to be 

dealt with. 

And I hope that we can do something to limit the number of deployments. I hope this will kind of calm down a little bit. And in 

talking to young people about the fact that they ought to be joining 

the Guard and all the great benefits we have, I keep telling them, 

this is all going to settle down here one of these days and you don’t 

have to worry about going off and leaving your loved ones and leaving your job. But when they do, they need to know that they come 

back to and our employers in this area are very patriotic. We don’t 

have much problem. Any problem we have, I notice, is kind of 

where the rubber hits the road there. It’s the shop foreman or the 

guy on the loading dock who says, no, you can’t go to Guard drill 

Saturday. You’ve got to be here. Don’t care what the law is. Don’t 

care what the military says. I want this truck loaded on Saturday 

morning, or I’m in big trouble with the boss. 

And, you know, so we discussed that Friday, that we would also 

make certain that it gets down through the ranks—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Uh-huh. 

Mr. VINES [continuing]. That the law is down through the ranks 

and that they have to go by it. But we also need to—the troops 

need to certainly let the employers know ahead of time when 

they’re going to be gone, when they want to be gone. And this is 

one of the things that is stressed, that they, as soon as they can 

and as early as possible, let their employer know. 

But, you know, this is the big deal for me. I think that working 

through the employers, we can do an awful lot of good for the employees. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you. 

Mr. VINES. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I have some additional questions for each 

of you. Right now, I’d like to recognize Mr. Boozman. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

General Morrow, I could have said the same things about you a 

few years ago, in the sense when you led our last deployment so 

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successfully, you have done such a great job. You’re so well respected and we really do appreciate your service to our country. 

One of the things that would be helpful in following up on the 

Chair’s question is, we have this cost to the municipalities. We 

have it to small business. We have it to, as Mr. Vines was saying, 

to our major industries like Planter’s Peanuts or whatever. One of 

the things that would be helpful is in quantifying that, you know. 

And do you have any experience in that, Mr. Lawrence. Do you— 

I mean, is there data that we can say Arkansas, you know, this or 

that deployment is costing small business this amount of money 

and could give some examples for our municipalities or—— 

Mr. LAWRENCE. I can certainly tell you the number of Guardsmen who it appears to be impacted who are small businessowners. 

The SBA nationally will say 7 percent are self-employed or sole 

proprietors. When you add to that those who are in partnerships, 

closely held corporations, I’ve seen numbers as much as 12 to 

14 percent. I work—thanks to General Wofford, I was able to attend most of the 39th Brigade’s SRPs; identify those small businessowners; provide them with a business mobilization planning 

guide. 

And I came up and met with 253 self-professed small businessowners out of about 2,600, so as far as the percentage who are involved, I would say we’re probably right on national averages. As 

far as our failures at the moment, I’m not sure we’re seeing. All 

of mine is coming from those soldiers who are coming back who go, 

I need help. I’ve run out. And so I’m seeing, as a small business 

development center director, on an individual basis. 

One thing we are trying to do through the Small Business Development Center Network is to find some way to start surveying Arkansas Guardsmen as they’re coming back. Are you a businessowner? Were you a businessowner? Have you faced issues? What 

challenge? We’re trying to quantify that, but, actually, at the 

present time, it’s pretty much still anecdotal. I knew to come see 

you because I had problems with my lawn care business. All my 

customers went to my competitors, but the bank wants their 

money. So at that moment, it’s mainly anecdotal from the small 

business side as far as the actual failures. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Well, I think anything we can do to quantify that 

would be real helpful. The other thing, we’ve got the hardship on 

the Guardsmen themselves. And then, again, so many of our small 

businesses—I don’t know what is the average size of the small 

businesses in Arkansas, but it’s—you know, it might be seven or 

eight employees. And, if a key guy is gone, then certainly, we need 

to quantify how much that’s costing so that we can look at—we 

need some arguments to move forward with considering health insurance, considering tax breaks, considering some of the things 

that you all have said. This will be good for business and moving 

forward. 

But we do appreciate you. We appreciate all that Arkansas State 

is doing—— 

Mr. LAWRENCE. Thank you. 

Mr. BOOZMAN [continuing]. In this regard. They’re really becoming a—somebody that has really picked the ball up and we’re very, 

very proud of their efforts. 

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Mr. LAWRENCE. The PRIDE Center has been very effective there 

as well, yes, sir. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Very much. 

And then you might just take a second and just describe what’s 

going on with the center. 

Mr. LAWRENCE. With the PRIDE Center. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LAWRENCE. Okay. Yes, sir, the—ASU, Arkansas State University was fortunate enough to receive funding from an alumnus, 

who is also retired military, who is concerned about the impact of 

all the returning veterans, whether they’re Guard, Reserves or active duty—coming off of active duty who are suffering some type 

of injuries, be it physical, be it mental, psychological. 

And they developed what is called the Beck, B-E-C-K, PRIDE 

Center in our College of Nursing and Allied Health. And it is a— 

basically, a clinic without walls. 

They’ve hired several consultants, most of whom are prior military and as a servicemember comes back, they’re suffering whether 

it’s a physical issue or mental, they can go and work through them. 

They will help them get to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 

(VA), if necessary; help them with other types of concern of outside 

consulting, clinical issues that occur. And it’s all confidential and 

they’ve been very successful, as well as going further. Helping 

them to looking at getting into school, dealing with their handicaps, especially if they’ve lost limbs; finding opportunities in the civilian world to become effective and contribute. 

And it’s just been one of those that, thanks to an alumnus, Mr. 

Beck, and to the dedication of our Dean of the College of Nursing 

and Allied Health, Susan Hanrahan and Susan Tonymon, who’s 

the PRIDE Center Director. It’s just taken off. My Center, I feel, 

is very fortunate to be able to work with them, as they have their 

servicemembers come in that have issues to start a business, so an 

excellent job being done over there in Northeast Arkansas. We’re 

very proud of them. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Yeah, I know they’ve become a big part of the 

task force that Mr. Westmoreland’s—— 

Mr. LAWRENCE. Yes. 

Mr. BOOZMAN [continuing]. Heading to—to try and to be helpful. 

Thank you. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. Well, thank you. I appreciate 

learning more about what’s been happening in other States, especially with some of our universities, to provide more outreach and 

services to our returning veterans. 

Mr. Lawrence, are you familiar with the Transition Assistance 

Program? 

Mr. LAWRENCE. Yes. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Yes? You state that, a minimum, businessowners should be identified and they should be made aware of 

how Servicemembers Civil Relief Act can assist them with their 

business debt. 

Is this something we should be doing in the TAP program. 

Mr. LAWRENCE. We do use that, the Transition Assistance Program—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Here—— 

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Mr. LAWRENCE [continuing]. Here in Arkansas. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. USERRA—— 

Mr. LAWRENCE. Yes. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. Is offered here at the bases 

in Arkansas. 

Mr. LAWRENCE. Here in Arkansas and this because we’re looking 

at Federal and possibly on a national basis. When General Wofford 

took over as Adjutant General, I pulled—I went and spoke with 

him and asked him about the impact of the deployment of small 

businessowners with the 39th Brigade, at which point General 

Wofford, being General Wofford, said, go find out and come up with 

something. 

And the answer was we prepared with their office, the Arkansas 

National Guard, the business mobilization planning guide so that 

when I would identify a businessowner, we would give them this 

guide; work with them to try and help. When we worked with the 

39th, General Wofford turned me over to the Transition Assistance 

Office and I developed a very strong relationship with Ms. Barbara 

Lee. And it’s worked very successfully here in Arkansas, and so it’s 

a model that we’re hoping we can—you know, can be carried forward into other States, in addition to just the deploying servicemembers, so I go to every SRP that occurs or my staff does—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Uh-huh. 

Mr. LAWRENCE [continuing]. And work right beside the Transition Assistance and with the Employer Support. Additionally, we 

are involved in all of the reintegration briefings. So when a unit 

returns back from deployment, we are there with the Transition 

Assistance Office, identifying those who we obviously missed since 

we didn’t start this until about 18 months ago, who had been deployed. Are you a businessowner. Do you need help? What can we 

do? Because all the assistance through the Small Business Development Center system is free of charge and absolutely confidential. 

So it’s just allowing us to see, yes, I need some help. I’ve got 

problems. And we identify who they are, where they’re located because my Center works only in the northeast part of the State. I 

then turn them over to the appropriate—my counterpart, wherever 

they may be; if they’re up here, to the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, SBDC. And also, we get a lot who are saying, You know, 

I’m really interested in starting a business. What do I need to do? 

And so we help them. 

Our State Director for the Small Business Development Center 

Network has even made all of our Starting a Business in Arkansas 

workshops that we do throughout the State free of charge to any 

Guardsman, Reservist, any veteran and his spouse who wants to 

attend, just to try and help them. So we’ve been very fortunate in 

being able to work hand-in-glove with the Transition Assistance Office and it’s been a very beneficial relationship. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I appreciate that. 

In our two prior field hearings, we focused, specifically, on TAP 

and in the prior Congress under Mr. Boozman’s leadership, we had 

other field hearings that focused on Transition Assistance. You’re 

absolutely right in terms of trying to find models that are working 

in States and we find consistently that Arkansas and the leadership in the National Guard is furthering models that can work efsmartinez on PROD1PC64 with HEARING

28 

fectively in other States. That’s part of what we’re trying to do 

here, as well as find out more to share best practices, even if it 

does not end up being legislation and a change in policy. It’s sharing information to the public is another one of our responsibilities 

on the Subcommittee, so I appreciate your information. 

Mr. LAWRENCE. Well, in fact, the work that the Transition Assistance Office did—has been doing with the small business— 

Guard’s members who are small businesses, she was actually nominated and won the Arkansas Small Business Administration Veteran Champion of the Year for her work with the veteran—with 

the—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. That’s great. 

Mr. LAWRENCE [continuing]. SBA and with her veterans. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. That’s great and that’s a great segue for 

my next question for you. Who should have the lead responsibility 

in educating commercial lenders? Should it be SBA? Should it be 

the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs? 

Mr. LAWRENCE. I would say that the VA would be more—might 

be better able to do that. And the only reason I would say that is 

some lenders are not pro-SBA, and so, you know, for whatever reason. And so they may have an SBA person come in and not want 

to listen. And now I think the SBA could effectively do that. They 

do deal with lenders on a daily basis. I’m not sure given the size 

of the SBA—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Uh-huh. 

Mr. LAWRENCE [continuing]. I mean, there’s—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Yes. 

Mr. LAWRENCE [continuing]. There’s more employees at the 

McClelland VA Hospital than there is in the entire Small Business 

Administration that they would have the ability to do that. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. 

Mr. LAWRENCE. But I would say from a size standpoint, possibly, 

the VA would be a better unbiased person to talk with lenders. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. A final question for you, Mr. Lawrence. 

You had stated that the 6 percent interest cap should be expanded 

to give the businessowner time during that reintegration and readjustment period. 

Do you have any suggestions on what a reasonable time period 

would be, 6 months? Longer? 

Mr. LAWRENCE. Possibly. Well, it would depend on the business. 

I hate to use that. Some may not need it at all, but if you think 

that many of these Guardsmen spend a number of years building 

their business to the point it could generate enough revenues to be 

able to support the pre-deployment debt level. And then they leave 

and they are the key person in that business, so that their revenues, their customer base, basically, goes away because no matter 

how much you may like that individual, if you need that service, 

you can’t wait 12 months. 

And so they see that erosion of their customer base. It’s going to 

take them some time to rebuild the customer base; to bring their 

revenue level back up to where they can service that debt. At a 

minimum, I would think 6 months would be a reasonable amount. 

There might be some—like, if you were in a consulting business, 

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that might have to go longer. But I would say 6 months would certainly be a good start. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. Just one or two more questions. 

Mr. Morrow, you’re the former Adjutant General of the Arkansas 

National Guard? 

Mr. MORROW. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize that earlier. 

Thank you, General, for all of the other capacities in which you’ve 

served servicemembers here in Arkansas. You had stated that 

you’re working to raise the awareness of USERRA for all members 

of the Reserve components. Are they all in Arkansas currently receiving that training and information? 

Mr. MORROW. Madam Chairwoman, the answer is yes, as it applies to units. When a unit is mobilized, regardless of the branch, 

we know about it. When Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) members 

are mobilized, we don’t know about it, and so in several cases, we 

miss the IRR. However, the vast majority, obviously, are in organized units and we do manage to brief every unit. 

I’d also like to comment that in the area of educating employers, 

I think we do a very good job in educating the employers. It’s very, 

very difficult to reach the small employers because when we have 

events, such as boss lifts, meetings at the various chambers around 

the State, we get the larger employers. For the past 2 years, we’ve 

had very successful meetings with the Society of Human Resource 

Management, SHRM. We’ve met with that conference for the last 

2 years; been very successful; have been able to brief those human 

resource managers. 

Also another big program with ESGR is the statements of support that we gain from employers. And Arkansas, currently, has 

reached its goal for this fiscal year. We’ve signed well over 682, 

which was our goal. We’ve signed well over that number of statements of support with various employers. And that’s been done 

through meetings with chambers of commerce throughout the 

State, with various organizations in their annual meetings, the Association of Arkansas Counties, SHRM, as I mentioned and any 

other organization that we can get on their calendar for their annual meeting. I think we’ve been very successful there. And I think 

we’ve done a very good job in reaching the major employers. 

As I said, it’s very, very difficult to get the small employer to attend those meetings. It’s very difficult for them to give up the time 

to be able to attend those meetings. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Well, I appreciate that insight. Going 

back to your first comments about the Individual Ready Reserve 

and that they’re getting the training, the information on USERRA 

by units. One of the things that we have found out, starting in Indiana, and some of what we’re hearing in DC, is this challenge, not 

just with regard to information on USERRA rights, but other benefits with the smaller detachments that are being deployed. It was 

one thing when it was the whole unit. 

The Adjutant General in South Dakota is trying to figure out 

ways to look at the services and information they’re providing to 

the Reserve units, in addition to the National Guard. Because we 

are finding that the Reserve units are falling through the cracks, 

either as a unit or the smaller detachments than the individuals 

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30 

that are being deployed and attached to a larger unit at their mobilization site before deployment. 

You state that you become aware of when the unit gets deployed, 

right? Now, do you become aware of that because your office receives direct notification from the DoD, or is it just through people 

that you know in the community and news reports? 

Mr. MORROW. Well, it’s actually a combination of all those things. 

However, Arkansas is probably in the more fortunate position there 

than a lot of other States. All the headquarters for the Reserve 

components in Arkansas, save one, are located at Camp Robinson. 

That’s where our ESGR office is located. We have a very good relationship with the commanders of all those various Reserve component entities. 

The one that’s an exception, however, is really not a problem for 

us because it’s located at Little Rock Air Force Base. The Air Force 

Reserve is located there. All the others are at Camp Robinson, all 

within just a few miles of our State ESGR headquarters. And, as 

I said, with the relationship we have with those commanders, I 

don’t think we miss any units. The individuals out there in the 

IRR, we don’t know about those. We don’t know about all of them. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Let me just explain my frustration with 

the Department of Defense in so easily being able to find these individuals to mobilize them, but seemingly, having difficulty finding 

them when they’re wanting to share information about their benefits. Then, of course, we have the issue of some of the blips when 

people were getting deployed and they were enrolled in TRICARE, 

and then all of a sudden, a family fell out of TRICARE. I mean, 

there were just things we had to work through. 

In your experience, do you think that it would be feasible and 

reasonable for the Department of Defense to be able to notify, assuming we can address all the privacy issues—but to notify every 

State ESGR office for individuals in Reserve components who are 

mobilized? 

Mr. MORROW. Well, ma’am, I think it’d be possible because when 

the notification is sent out for the servicemember to report, a notification could be sent to ESGR. We could then, at least, through telephone make some contact with that individual. So, yes, I assume 

there would be a way to do that. And, certainly, we’d be willing to 

make the contact and provide the information to the individual. We 

can provide it by mail. We can provide by telephone, if necessary. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you. I want to be real cognizant 

of our time, so I may submit a question in writing for you, Mr. 

Vines, because we do have one more panel. I appreciate all of your 

testimony today. 

Mr. Boozman, did you have any final questions. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Well, I’d just say that I think you’re kind of in a 

unique situation, General, in the sense of seeing things in light of 

being the commander and all this you’ve got to deal with there. 

And then in your current capacity that, perhaps you and your guys 

could give that some thought as to how we could locate and do a 

better job of helping the individuals that are in that situation. Because it does seem as we’ve gone throughout the country and in 

Washington that really is a problem. 

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And, again, especially, in visiting with their wives and this and 

that it’s very easy to, when the brigade leaves or this or that 

leaves. It’s just a whole different deal and some of those individuals 

seem to be just kind of left out of the mix. So any advice you could 

give us as far as how we could do a better job of that or how you 

see it could be handled in a way that is reasonable. That would be 

very, very helpful. We would appreciate it. 

Mr. MORROW. I assume the only way that can happen is for DoD 

to notify us because, otherwise, we have no means—— 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Right. 

Mr. MORROW [continuing]. Of knowing when those folks are mobilized. I would point out, as a percentage, they’re a very minor 

percentage. However, again, they don’t have a family support system—— 

Mr.BOOZMAN. Not—— 

Mr. MORROW [continuing] Doing—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Exactly. 

Mr. MORROW [continuing]. Anything for them. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. And that’s really where it came. We’ve noticed it 

as in the last panels, them talking about it and just really not having much support at all, so that would be very helpful. 

The Patriot Loan Program, why is it not available to some lenders? 

Mr. LAWRENCE. For a lender to be a Patriot Express Lender, that 

bank must first be a SBA Express Lender, and then they apply to 

become a Patriot Express. In order for you to become an SBA Express Lender, you have to have so many SBA guarantees on the 

books already. Your liquidation rates must be below a certain percentage. There’s a number of hoops that a bank has to jump 

through because the benefits from the SBA’s standpoint that 

they’re giving that banker to use that express, requires them to 

really monitor very closely. 

So the result is while the larger banks, national banks, the big 

banks, are Patriot Express Lenders in Arkansas; Metropolitan National Bank, of course; Liberty Bank. I’m sure up here in Northwest Arkansas some of the large ones have gone through that process and are. The smaller banks, the First Community Bank of 

Batesville, the Citizens Bank of Salem, Arkansas, they may do one 

or two SBS guarantees a year and they haven’t built the track 

record. Now, they may also have Guardsmen who are small business owners. The best they can—you know, their choice then is to 

say, You want to go to one of our competitors? And, of course, that’s 

not—so that’s the biggest challenge. 

The Patriot Express Program is a wonderful program is the 

Guardsman or the Reservist businessowner can find the bank that 

can do it for them. But it’s just the requirements that the SBA has 

to impose does not allow it to go to every commercial lender that 

probably would like to use it. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. I see. Mr. Vines, you’re kind of in a unique position. I don’t think anybody’s more supportive in this State of you 

of our armed services, in every capacity. 

Mr. VINES. Thank you. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. But working for a manufacturer, yourself being 

very active in the City of Fort Smith and very active in the manusmartinez on PROD1PC64 with HEARING

32 

facturing community, any help that you could give us in—in talking to those guys. We mentioned a number of different things, the 

tax breaks—the this and that. I’d like for you to really follow up 

on that and just kind of quantify that as to, some sort of ranking, 

as to what they felt like, whether it was health insurance or this 

or that. I think that would be very, very helpful. 

So I appreciate all of you guys. We just thank you for your service and thank you for all that you’re doing for veterans in a variety 

of different ways. We appreciate you very much. 

Mr. LAWRENCE. Thank you. 

Mr. VINES. Thank you, Mr. Congressman and thank you, Governor. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Mr. Lawrence, if we could get a copy for 

staff of some of the materials that you referenced, that would be 

helpful. 

Mr. LAWRENCE. Certainly. I brought several of these, as well. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you. Okay. Sorry I missed that. 

Thank you. Again, I appreciate all of your testimony and your service to country and for our Nation’s veterans. 

We will now have our final panel join us at the witness table. 

We have joining us Mr. James Mitchell, Chief of Staff and Director 

of Communications for the Office of Special Counsel (OSC); and Mr. 

John McWilliam, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Veterans’ Employment and Training Service in the U.S. Department of Labor. Who 

is accompanied by somebody you had introduced me to earlier from 

here in Arkansas. If you could introduce him to the rest of the audience because I think he’s very familiar with Mr. Boozman. 

Mr. MCWilliam. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I’m accompanied today by Mr. Roy Schultz, who is our newly hired Director 

for Veterans’ Employment and Training within the State of Arkansas. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Very good. Well, again, thank you for 

being here with us. We look forward to your testimony. We’re 

pleased that you could be here to hear the testimony of prior panels. 

We will go ahead and start with you, Mr. Mitchell. You are recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENTS OF JAMES P. MITCHELL, CHIEF OF STAFF, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS, U.S. OFFICE OF SPECIAL 

COUNSEL; AND JOHN M. MCWILLIAM, DEPUTY ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY, VETERANS’ EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING 

SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 

STATEMENT OF JAMES P. MITCHELL 

Mr. MITCHELL. Thank you, Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin, 

Ranking Member Boozman. Good morning. I’m James P. Mitchell, 

Chief of Staff and Director of Communications of the U.S. Office of 

Special Counsel or OSC. Thank you for the opportunity to provide 

our perspectives on the enforcement of USERRA, the Uniform 

Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. 

Our military members understand their obligations and they 

serve when called. Unfortunately, not all employers understand 

their obligations to their employees. And some servicemembers, 

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mostly members of the National Guard and Reserve, return from 

active duty, but are turned away by their civilian employers who 

seem to be saying, welcome back. You’re fired. This happens even 

when the employer is the same Federal Government that mobilized 

the servicemember. 

USERRA provides the strong enforcement mechanism for Federal employees, giving jurisdiction to the Merit System Protection 

Board. A complaint under USERRA may be made to the Department of Labor, Veterans’ Employment and Training Service or 

VETS. If the employer is a Federal agency and VETS cannot resolve the claim, the complainant may request referral to OSC for 

possible prosecution. Also, cases with allegations of prohibited personnel practice violations, which come under our jurisdiction, are 

referred to OSC. While USERRA expanded OSC’s role as a protector of the Federal merit system, it established a split process. 

First, VETS investigates. Then the matter may be referred to OSC 

for prosecution. 

To evaluate the potential advantages of having a single agency 

handle these claims, Congress in 2004 established a USERRA 

Demonstration Project, directing about half of Federal employee 

claims to OSC. During the Demonstration Project, which ran from 

February 2005 through December 2007, OSC obtained corrective 

action for servicemembers in over 30 percent of cases. This rate is 

significantly higher than achieved by other governmental investigative agencies. And that resulted from thorough investigations and 

legal analysis, educating Federal employers about USERRA and a 

credible threat of litigation, which itself, leads agencies to settle 

claims. 

We value the commitment of men and women of our military and 

work aggressively to safeguard the merit system enforcing 

USERRA. The Demonstration Project showed that Federal claimants who come to us get better and faster service. My statement, 

for the record, recounts examples of cases where OSC obtained employment and restored Federal employees’ benefits. And beyond 

corrective action for the employee, OSC seeks to prevent future 

agency violations through, what we call, systemic corrective action. 

For example, we help agencies modify their leave and promotion 

policies to comply with USERRA. We provide USERRA training to 

personnel and we require agencies to post USERRA information. 

The Demonstration Project eliminated referral between agencies 

and allowed claimants to obtain faster, more effective relief. With 

a single entity handling and resolving cases, claimants benefited 

from a more efficient and transparent process that increases communication and accountability. Congress tied the outcome of the 

USERRA Demonstration Project to a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) evaluation, but despite an April 1st, 2007, 

deadline, it was submitted to Congress only days before the August, 2007 recess. The Demonstration Project was to expire September 30th, so Congress had little time to act. Moreover, the GAO 

report did not address a central question; that being, are Federalsector USERRA claimants better served when they can file complaints directly with OSC for both investigation and litigation. 

The Demonstration Project was, ultimately, extended to December 31st, but then OSC lost authority to accept direct USERRA 

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claims by Federal employees. So where does this leave USERRA in 

enforcement? Today, more than 106,000 members of the National 

Guard and Reserve are mobilized. A quarter of them are Federal 

employees. 

Troops returning home in greater numbers could cause a spike 

in USERRA enforcement demand. However, enforcement capacity 

has been reduced, leading to problems for larger numbers of veterans; what we might call a Walter Reed moment for USERRA. 

Congress can recover this capacity by assigning the task of investigating and resolving USERRA claims by Federal employees to 

OSC, which specializes in the enforcement of Federal personnel 

laws. We are ready to do our part to make their transition back 

to civilian life as smooth as possible. 

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mitchell appears on p. 60.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you. 

Mr. MCWilliam? 

STATEMENT OF JOHN M. MCWILLIAM 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and 

Mr. Boozman. Mr. Schultz and I are pleased to be here today to 

appear before the Subcommittee to discuss employment and reemployment concerns from deployments and multiple deployments of 

active duty and Reserve component servicemembers. Congress, of 

course, enacted USERRA to protect the employment rights of the 

men and women who leave their jobs while serving as members of 

our military. 

One of our Department’s top priorities is to protect our military 

members’ jobs when they’re called up to serve. We work hand-inhand with Defense and Justice and the Special Counsel to enforce 

USERRA. The Department of Labor both investigates complaints 

by servicemembers and veterans and administers a comprehensive 

outreach education and technical assistance program. We work 

closely with the ESGR to ensure servicemembers are briefed on 

their USERRA rights before and after they are mobilized. 

We conduct numerous USERRA outreach and education programs to inform servicemembers and employers on their rights and 

responsibilities under the law. Since 9/11, we have provided 

USERRA assistance to over 535,000 servicemembers, employers 

and others. This includes 341 USERRA mobilization and demobilization briefings given to over 267,000 servicemembers. The Defense 

Department reports in their Status of Forces Survey that on the 

average, each National Guard and Reserve component member receives two USERRA briefings. We believe the low rate of reported 

USERRA problems is due, in part, to our extensive outreach, the 

Agency’s user friendly regulations, the collaborative efforts between 

Labor, Justice, Defense and Special Counsel and, in great part, to 

the tremendous support the vast majority of employers show for 

the Nation’s men and women in uniform. VETS continues to provide support in all the States. We work very closely with the ESGR 

and the National Guard. 

We are looking forward to supporting the return of the 39th Brigade to Arkansas this year. 

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Madam Chairwoman, the United States has the best, the most 

capable, the most advanced military in the world. The dedication 

to service and the willingness of our servicemembers to serve is inspiring. Labor takes seriously its responsibilities for assisting our 

veterans in returning to their previous employment, in finding 

good, new jobs and careers and in protecting their job rights. 

We are dedicated to doing everything possible to help protect 

their economic and job security. Mr. Schultz and I look forward to 

answering your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. MCWilliam appears on p. 64.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you both for your testimony. 

We’ll begin questions for this panel with Mr. Boozman. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you very much. Mike Westbrook told me— 

he said it was great to hear two agencies argue over who could do 

the best job for veterans, so we do appreciate that. 

You know, Mr. Mitchell makes a strong case, Mr. McWilliam, for 

doing that, with the success of the Demonstration Project and 

things and I’ve got a lawyer here that’s licking his lips wanting to 

get after these people that either don’t understand the law or are 

abusing it or whatever. You mentioned the good that you’re doing 

as far as outreach and all of those things. You know, that wouldn’t 

change, so I know you respond to somebody in your testimony, but 

what’s the reason not to do that? 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Well, thank you, Mr. Boozman. We believe the 

Demonstration Program highlighted areas where we have improved 

our program. We have done that, particularly in reporting and in 

calculating. We have a very high satisfactory case resolution, as 

does the Office of Special Counsel. Thirty-one percent of our cases 

are either granted or settled. We have a 53-day average case closing. We believe that there is an inherent advantage in having one 

agency investigate claims and then using other agencies to actually 

pursue the legal remedies, such as the Department of Justice does 

for the non-Federal cases and the Special Counsel does for the Federal cases. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Very good. Do you want to respond? This is kind 

of fun. 

Mr. MITCHELL. And we’re sitting close enough together, too. 

Well, we think that when it comes to Federal claims, we are the 

specialists in that area. And one of the—I’m getting some backup 

here—one of the issues is that oftentimes a USERRA claim will 

also contain an allegation of a prohibitive personnel practice violation. And it is—when it goes to VETS, it’s up to them to figure out 

that there’s a prohibitive personnel practice in there and it’s taken 

often a long time for VETS, which has spread all over the country—has a lot of people working on these issues; and many of 

whom are not really familiar with prohibitive personnel practices. 

So it can take quite awhile, many months sometimes, before we 

will see a claim referred to us. We think, frankly, there’s a two-for 

here; that if we took over the Federal claims, it would free up 

VETS to focus on the non-Federal, the private sector, the State and 

local government claims, while we focused on the Federal where we 

are specialists. And we think that the Demonstration Project demonstrated that we were doing a superior job of dealing with the 

Federal claims. 

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And it was very disappointing to have all this run out at the end 

of the year and with all the energy and all the enthusiasm that we 

had for enforcing USERRA. In fact, we had hired an individual 

who had been involved in writing the original USERRA litigation, 

Captain Sam Wright, was with us. And he was so disappointed 

that when we lost our ability to do direct USERRA cases that he 

went into private law practice, and so lost him. So it’s been kind 

of a morale kick for us, but we really want to have USERRA back. 

We really want to contribute. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Very good. Today and then in other testimony, in 

Washington and stuff, we’ve had some conflicting testimony about 

whether or not USERRA cases are declining or are arising or whatever. Can you call comment about that? Do you feel like they’re on 

the increase? Are they on the decline or stabilized or—— 

Mr. MITCHELL. Well, why don’t you go ahead, John—— 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. All right. 

Mr. MITCHELL [continuing]. Because they’re on the decline for us, 

definitely. 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Mr. Boozman, they certainly are both in total 

number of cases, they’re on decline and also in a ratio of number 

of cases per demobilized Guard and Reservist, which is a very key 

factor that we look at that has fallen significantly over recent years 

recently. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Does VETS, do they participate in the national 

conferences, the training events where, for instance, the Society for 

Human Resources Management that was alluded to earlier in 

the—— 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Yes. 

Mr. BOOZMAN [continuing]. Testimony. 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Yes, sir. We try to attend as many of those as 

we can. We attend SHRM each year and put up a booth and talk 

with people there. We go to a whole host of them. I have some examples. We participate in many human resources councils around 

the United States. We have recently gone to the Industrial Liaison 

Group of Arkansas and the Society of Professional Benefits Administrators. There’s a whole series of associations of employment 

councils. We attend those meetings also and speak about USERRA. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Boozman. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. I’ll turn it over to another lawyer. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Well, Mr. Mitchell, I think you made a 

pretty compelling case based on the Demonstration Project and 

based on the statistics that you offered at the beginning of your 

testimony that one quarter of the 106,000 currently deployed are 

Federal employees for the role of the Office of Special Counsel here. 

Especially as it relates to the more specialized training to identify, 

investigate and work through the prohibitive personnel practices 

you’ve described. 

A couple of questions. What do you think the main reasons are 

that Federal Government agencies continue to violate USERRA? 

Mr. MITCHELL. Well, Federal Government agencies are, generally, quite large and we’ve found that larger and the more spread 

out they seem to be all over the country—examples of these are the 

Postal Service, the Veterans Administration and, actually DoD in 

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its components—that we see larger numbers of cases coming from 

those agencies. And that’s probably a factor of outreach, not being 

able to get to a Postmaster General in South Dakota, necessarily, 

or a Postmaster in South Dakota, who may have influence over 

whether a letter carrier who comes back from active duty is going 

to be able to have his job back. And so the—I think the size of the 

agencies and the distribution of those agencies all over the country 

is a factor in having more USERRA claims. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. So given the decentralized nature of 

some of those agencies—— 

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. Do you feel that the centralized nature of OSC is more capable of dealing with that, roughly, 

10 percent? 

Mr. MITCHELL. Well, when the claim comes in, we can deal with 

the—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Federal—— 

Mr. MITCHELL [continuing]. Federal claim more quickly because 

we’re much more familiar with those areas of law. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Right. So if the Office of Special Counsel 

were to get primary referral for all the Federal cases, would you 

need a bigger budget? With what you currently have, would that 

allow you to meet the needs that you anticipate? 

Mr. MITCHELL. We had calculated last year that we’d need about 

$2.5 million added to our now $17.4 million budget to grow our 

USERRA unit back and add the capacity to take on double the 

number of cases that we were taking in during the Demonstration 

Project. During the Demonstration Project, if a claimant had and 

even numbered Social Security number final digit, the claim went 

to VETS. And if it was odd numbered, it came to us, and if it came 

to us, then we’d have all of them. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. Mr. McWilliam, you identified a 

53- to 57-day turnaround. How is that calculated? Is that calculated based on all cases entered or is that calculated in some way 

of those that actually require some days, weeks, months of investigation and completion? 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Ma’am, it’s all cases for which we received a 

claim from a veteran or a servicemember. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Are some of those claims addressed and 

rectified fairly easily so that it’s just almost a day turn? I mean, 

you can get an answer and solve it within a day. 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. I would say some of them within several weeks, 

ma’am, yes. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. State that again. Some of them within—— 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. I’m sorry. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. Weeks. 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Some of them don’t take as long as others. Absolutely. Some just take a few weeks to do. By the time the investigator receives the complaint, talks to the veteran, the claimant 

who’s making the claim, assemble some of the initial paperwork, 

it’s possible that they could be settled fairly shortly. I don’t have 

a specific time or minimum amount of time that it takes. 

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Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. I just want to make sure that you 

mentioned that part of the Demonstration Project led to improvements in DOL’s and VETS’ reporting—— 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. And calculation. I would be 

interested and, perhaps, you could provide to the Subcommittee, 

with all claims, I would like to see the date entered and the date 

closed to see how that average is being calculated. 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Age them? Yes, ma’am, we could do that. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. Just for an example, Mr. Boozman 

can go through all his District staff who are here. We do casework—— 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Certainly. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. On behalf of constituents 

and, sometimes, it’s something that we can easily handle. We can 

make a quick phone call, put them in touch. We enter it. We open 

a case. 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. We close it in our IQ system or whatever. 

So that certainly affects, the average time—— 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Yes, it would. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. That it takes. 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Madam Chairman, I was just talking about 

ones where we actually receive a formal, written complaint from a 

servicemember. I was not including any technical assistance that 

we do, which often is like you say a telephone call and we just talk 

to the people and clarify issues. But we can certainly—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. 

Mr. MCWILLIAM [continuing]. Clarify that—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Yeah. If you could—— 

Mr. MCWILLIAM [continuing]. Certainly. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. Provide us both the actual 

written complaints that are—— 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Yes. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. Filed, as well as, maybe 

some additional information on—— 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Certainly. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. The technical assistance. 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Yes, ma’am. Certainly. 

[The information was provided in the post-hearing questions and 

responses for the record, which appears on p. 69.] 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. You also stated in your testimony 

that VETS is conducting an evaluation of USERRA investigative 

process. 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. What will the evaluation entail and when 

will it be completed? 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. We’ve decided, ma’am, we wanted to do a business process redesign of the entire system, Six Sigma, along those 

lines. We have a contract out. We are waiting right now to—I believe it’s being evaluated to make an award to a consulting firm to 

ask them to look at the whole process. It’s—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. And any timetable then so—— 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. I believe it’s a one-year timeframe, ma’am. 

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Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. A consulting firm who 

can—— 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Yes, ma’am—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN [continuing]. Meet with you. 

Mr. MCWILLIAM [continuing]. For this review. It takes about that 

long to do a really solid business process redesign. And I intend to 

work through all our major processes. We decided to start with 

USERRA, and then we’re going to go to competitive grants and 

non-competitive grants. As your Committee is aware, we’ve, in essence, done this for the TAP employment workshops right now. So 

we’re just in the process of working through each one of our major 

programs. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. One final question for both of you. 

In your experience in your respective offices, you’ve seen your 

share of GAO reports. How would you describe the GAO report and 

evaluation that was finally submitted to the Committee last summer? Was it one of the more thorough ones you’ve seen? Did it include as many helpful recommendations that you’ve seen in the 

GAO report on other operations within each of your offices? 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Madam Chairwoman, I think the GAO reports, 

although we may not always agree with their recommendations, we 

think their conclusions are usually very well done and very well 

thought out. They identified several areas, particularly in data 

management that have been very helpful to us. They made some 

recommendations that the Committee has asked us to do to look 

at making sure that our annual report includes information from 

other organizations. And so I thought it helped us out quite a bit 

in improving the process. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you. 

Mr. Mitchell. 

Mr. MITCHELL. May I provide a contrasting view? 

The GAO, in our—in fact, we filed with them quite an extensive 

letter of comments. It seemed to focus more on computer data elements than it did on the quality. In fact, they admitted that they 

did not evaluate the quality of the work that was being done by 

both agencies. They got hung up on how the computer systems 

handled the data, and—where we would have preferred something 

that we offered to Senator Kennedy’s staff before a hearing last November is they came in and we gave them a pile of cases. 

And they went through the cases over several days. And we 

would have preferred the GAO, actually, get into the cases, evaluate the work that was done and contact the claimants to see if they 

were satisfied and evaluate the quality. That wasn’t done and it 

was—just seemed to be this hang-up on the computer data elements. And we were very disappointed in the outcome of the— 

well—and there were really no recommendations that affected us 

in that—in that GAO report. It didn’t come to any conclusion. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Mr. Boozman, do you have any follow-up 

questions? 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Well, yes ma’am, a couple of them. 

How long is a vet willing to wait? You mentioned the timeframe 

and stuff and, I mean, how much of this is settled just by the fact 

that the claimant just gets tired of fooling with it and then moves 

on and finds themselves another job? 

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Mr. MITCHELL. They’ll let you think about that one while we’re 

thinking about it. It varies. I mean—— 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Is that a factor in some of these. 

Mr. MITCHELL. It is a factor. In some of the cases, they aren’t— 

the veteran doesn’t bring a compelling case. There were missteps 

at the beginning in notifying the employer. There are problems like 

that, but we’ve found that, generally, the claimants that come to 

us stay with us through the process until we’ve resolved the claim. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. The—go ahead, if you’d like. 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. I don’t have much to add to that, Mr. Boozman. 

A veteran, at any time, can withdraw and go to private counsel. 

They can request that we forward it and refer it. I don’t have any 

numbers on that. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. One of the other witnesses mentioned, private 

counsel and the fact that there is no reimbursement for that. Is 

that something that we need to look at in the sense that somebody’s in the right and, yet, they have to go out and, in some cases, 

hire private counsel. Should we make amends for that in any way 

or—— 

The other question I have is, would they be less likely to do that 

with which group, as far as feeling like they need to hire private 

counsel? 

Mr. MITCHELL. Well, of course, if they stay with us and we see 

them through, we’re their attorney and can see them through the 

process. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. So—— 

Mr. MITCHELL. And we don’t charge attorney fees. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. That’s what I thought. Would that be an argument for shifting. 

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. You provide the counsel—— 

Mr. MITCHELL. Right. We can—— 

Mr. BOOZMAN [continuing]. And it’s free. 

Mr. MITCHELL [continuing]. Take care of the prosecution and it’s 

when they go outside and certainly those who wind up going outside, there’s quite a large number who, of, I think USERRA claimants who go to law firms to settle claims and I think it would be 

with considering arranging for attorneys fees to be covered for 

them. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Very good. Would you agree with that Mr. 

McWilliam—— 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Mr. Boozman—— 

Mr. BOOZMAN [continuing]. On the—— 

Mr. MCWILLIAM [continuing]. I’m sorry. I don’t have an administrative position on that. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Okay. Very good. Well, thank you, Madam Chair, 

and I thank the witnesses very much. You guys did a great job. 

And, like I said, it really is refreshing that, you know, you’re both, 

you know, fighting for veterans and making a case as to which 

would do the better job. We really do appreciate you guys. 

Mr. MCWILLIAM. Mr. Boozman, I’m sorry. I didn’t give a very 

complete answer on that. If you take the case to court and they 

find in favor of you, attorney fees are recoverable by the court—— 

Mr. BOOZMAN. Okay. 

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41 

Mr. MCWILLIAM [continuing]. Under USERRA. 

Mr. MITCHELL. By the court, yeah. 

Mr. BOOZMAN. I want to thank you for being here and thank 

your staff, Juan, heading that up and you guys that do all the work 

over there; Mike, for doing such a good job and then Steve Gray 

back there, who’s coordinated everything here and does such a good 

job for veterans in Arkansas. We really appreciate him. And we 

just appreciate our Chairlady for the hard work and her commitment to veterans. You know, being on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee is something that we all ask to do. That’s not a—that’s a 

Committee that is a labor of love and we just—we really do appreciate your leadership. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Well, thank you, Mr. Boozman. We appreciate your leadership and hospitality here in Arkansas. Once 

again, I would like to thank your staff who is here with us from 

your District offices here in the Third District and your constituents who took time to be here from various regions of the State. 

I know some of them had to drive a distance to join us today to 

share their insights and expertise and our folks who have traveled 

to join us from Washington, DC. Our staffs do an excellent job of 

counsel here at the table; our other Committee staff who help do 

all the logistics and set these up. We thank them for the good work 

that they do to support our efforts in our desire to best serve our 

Nation’s veterans. 

Again, I want to thank all of our panelists for being here today. 

Your insights, your perspectives are invaluable to the work that we 

do and we appreciate the thoughts that you had on both USERRA 

and the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. We take away from today 

some ideas that will get us working on possibly new legislation to 

introduce when we return to session this fall to continue our efforts 

in the 110th Congress and lay the groundwork for the 111th Congress as well. Thank you all very much. This hearing now stands 

adjourned. 

[Whereupon, the Subcommittee adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Chairwoman, 

Subcommittee on Economic Oportunity 

I would like to thank Ranking Member John Boozman for inviting us here today 

as we conduct this official hearing in his home state. Under the leadership of then 

Chairman Boozman, we conducted a field hearing in Rogers, Arkansas, which provided the Subcommittee the opportunity to receive testimony from constituents affected by the Transition Assistance Program. As we continue to work together to 

help our nation’s veterans, I would also like to thank Ranking Member Boozman 

for his continued strong bipartisan support of our nation’s veterans. 

I look forward to hearing from our guest panelists whose testimony will focus on 

employment and reemployment rights for servicemembers and veterans. As many 

of you know, the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act 

(USERRA) and Service Civil Relief Act (SCRA) were both enacted into law to provide our activated servicemembers with protections while serving one’s country. 

In the past, we have heard stories and anecdotal evidence from returning servicemembers and veterans as they have faced discrimination as a result of their service 

to our nation. While violations of these rights by employers may at times be intentional, some of these violations have also been unintentional because there are 

many employers that do not understand USERRA and SCRA rights. Regardless, 

whether these violations are intentional or unintentional veterans rights should be 

protected at all times. 

The Subcommittee has held hearings on these important laws and recently passed 

H.R. 6225, the Improving SCRA and USERRA Protections Act of 2008 in the House 

of Representatives. If signed into law, this legislation would: 

• Ensure that equitable relief is available to all USERRA victims when appropriate, 

• Protect the student servicemember by capping interest at six percent during deployments, require institutes of higher learning to refund tuition and fees for 

unearned credit, and in addition, guarantee our servicemembers a place when 

they return to school, 

• Provide a servicemember 13 months to begin paying their student loans after 

an activation should they decide not to return to school immediately, 

• Amend SCRA to cover service contracts to allow our men and women in uniform 

with deployment orders to more easily terminate or suspend their service contracts without fee or penalty, and 

• Amend SCRA to allow a military spouse to claim the same state as the servicemember in regards to state and property taxes, and voter registration. 

Furthermore, the Committee Chairman Bob Filner introduced H.R. 4883 to 

amend SCRA to provide for a limitation on the sale, foreclosure, or seizure of property owned by a servicemember during the one-year period following the servicemember’s period of military service. 

Unfortunately, for many of our servicemembers returning from deployments find 

themselves in a predicament where existing laws might not be sufficient to protect 

them, laws are not being properly enforced or existing laws need to be updated to 

meet the needs of today’s servicemembers. I look upon today’s hearing as an opportunity to gather more insight into these concerns. 

I look forward to working with Ranking Member Boozman and the other Members 

of the Subcommittee as we continue to work diligently to provide the necessary safeguards to protect our servicemembers and veterans to return to civilian life. 

f 

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Prepared Statement of Hon. John Boozman, Ranking Republican Member, 

Subcommittee on Economic Oportunity 

Good morning. Let me begin by thanking Ms. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, the 

Chair of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, for holding this hearing. You 

hear a lot in the press these days about partisan bickering and how Congress isn’t 

capable of anything. I am very fortunate that when I was chair of the Subcommittee, Ms. Herseth Sandlin was my Ranking Member. I would like to have kept 

the job, but I cannot ask for a better Chair who works in a bipartisan manner and 

looks to do both good things for veterans and is mindful of how we spend our tax 

dollars. 

Members of the National Guard and Reserves continue to bear a significant load 

in the War on Terror. In Arkansas alone, the over 11,200 members of the National 

Guard have been mobilized since 9/11/01 and there are over 3,000 currently deployed overseas. They have conducted the full spectrum of operations in the War 

on Terror. For example, the 213th Area Support Medical Company treated over 

20,000 patients in Iraq and the 875th Engineer Battalion cleared 1244 explosive devices. Our aviation units performed every kind of mission from medivac to air control. Our military police and related units provided security and civil support. They 

are warriors all and I thank them for their service. 

Fortunately, we have laws like the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act or USERRA, meant to ensure that when someone returns from 

military service, they find their job waiting for them. We also have a law called the 

Servicemembers Civil Relief Act meant to protect veterans and their families in a 

wide variety of ways ranging from interest rates to auto leases and taxes. 

Unfortunately, sometimes there are violations of these laws—usually through ignorance of the law and occasionally through outright willful disobedience. We are 

here today to listen to several witnesses who will describe the effectiveness of these 

laws and hopefully to offer suggestions on how we might improve them. 

Finally Madam Chair, I’m sure you will agree that we seldom recognize the contributions of the spouses who keep the home running while the servicemember is 

called away. In the face of great uncertainty, our military spouses provide the members with the strength to do their duty and the faith that they will be welcomed 

home once their service is done. We cannot ask for more, but they always seem to 

exceed our expectations. Therefore Madam Chair, I think DoD should develop a 

Spouses Service Medal in recognition of their contributions to the Nation’s defense. 

Once again, I thank the chair for her consideration and I look forward to hearing 

from our witnesses. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Paige Smith, Fayetteville, AR, 

Family Readiness Coordinator for Headquarters 142nd Fires Brigade, 

Arkansas National Guard 

Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin, distinguished members of the Committee, I am 

Mrs. Paige Smith, and I am testifying in my position as the Family Readiness Coordinator for Headquarters 142d Fires Brigade and the wife of a recently deployed 

and returned soldier (SFC Joseph Smith). My testimony today reflects my personal 

views and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the Administration. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and 

submit testimony relative to issues pertaining to family Readiness in the Arkansas 

Army National Guard. 

First, I would like to address the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) and the 

six percent cap on interest rates on pre-mobilization debt for mobilizing Guard 

members. When my husband’s unit deployed, I know first hand that all our soldiers 

were entitled to have all pre-mobilization debt reduced to a maximum of 6 percent 

interest rate. It has been my experience as the Family Readiness Coordinator that 

the majority of soldiers involved in this mobilization received the debt relief due to 

their creditors supporting the war effort and creditors reducing the interest rates. 

I know of no instances that a creditor did not reduce our soldier’s pre-mobe debt 

interest rates and for that we are all grateful. In several state courts, to include 

Arkansas, incorrectly held that SCRA did not apply to domestic relations. This left 

soldiers who were custodial parents in a position of choosing between following military orders and their custodial rights. This was the exact dilemma that SCRA intended to prevent. I would like to thank the Committee for their hard work to ensure that our soldiers are not in the position of choosing between their families and 

their country. This was one of the most pressing issues of SCRA and should be resolved. 

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Second, I would like to address The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) which 

was amended on January 28, 2008 to implement new military family leave provisions. This provision requires the Secretary of Labor to issue regulations defining 

‘‘any qualifying exigency’’ before the regulation takes affect. Washington state and 

California have each passed a Spouse Leave Law in which employers must provide 

a certain amount (Washington: 15days; California: 10 days) of unpaid leave to 

spouses of military members who have been notified of an impending call or active 

duty order, on leave from a deployment or have returned home from deployment. 

If this law would be passed for all states it would allow military spouses that do 

not fall under FMLA to have the same rights as those that do. I would ask your 

assistance in implementing Federal legislation to address this issue that effects the 

majority of our soldiers during pre-mobilization and post mobilization. 

I would like to conclude my testimony by thanking you for the hard work of the 

Congressional staff in all areas concerning Soldier and Family care issues. I appreciate this opportunity to testify before this Subcommittee and represent all military 

spouses and families of the 142d Fires Brigade of the Arkansas Army National 

Guard. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Lieutenant Colonel Michael D. Merritt, Deputy 

Brigade Commander, 142nd Fires Brigade, Arkansas National Guard 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

I am Lieutenant Colonel Michael D. Merritt, Deputy Brigade Commander, 142nd 

Fires Brigade, Arkansas Army National Guard. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and submit testimony relative to my experiences as they relate to 

USERRA. 

I received my commission in 1984 and spent four (4) years on active duty before 

beginning a civilian career as a Human Resource Manager and joining the Army 

National Guard. I have seen the impact of military service in the Reserve Component (RC) from the employer’s perspective as well as the Servicemember’s. As a National Guard officer recently returned from deployment overseas as a battalion commander, I have a heightened awareness of the impact military service has on the 

employer/employee relationship. 

My personal experiences and most of those of my Soldiers have ended positively. 

The greatest contributing factor to those outcomes has been the desire of employers 

to take care of their reserve component employees, not from a sense of obligation 

to comply with USERRA requirements. Most concerns have come from the perceived 

missed opportunities, or concern their commitment to serve will hurt their chances 

to advance in the future. 

Doing the right thing has been the objective of all my past employers and 

USERRA only came into play as a reference. As a Human Resource professional I 

know many civilian managers to include Human Resource personnel are not as familiar with USERRA as they should be. You might credit that to the lack of challenges made by returning servicemembers under USERRA. I believe a better understanding of USERRA, periodic review of company policy for compliance and a communication plan could help prevent misunderstandings and alleviate a lot of worries 

from employers and employees alike. 

Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin, distinguished members of the Committee, I am 

Lieutenant Colonel Michael D. Merritt, Deputy Brigade Commander, 142nd Fires 

Brigade, Arkansas Army National Guard. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and submit testimony relative to my experience as a member of the National Guard and as an employee of a Fortune 500 corporation. Specifically, issues 

related to my legal rights under USERRA. My testimony today reflects my personal 

views and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the Administration. 

Let me begin by giving you a brief background of my military and civilian career 

paths. I received my commission as a Regular Army officer in 1984 and spent the 

next four (4) years on active duty before beginning a civilian career and joining the 

Army National Guard. Over the course of 19 years I have been exposed to the impacts of military service in the Reserve component from both the employer’s perspective as well as the Servicemembers’. For seventeen of those nineteen years I 

have been in the Human Resource profession, with fifteen of those years as a 

Human Resource Manager. I have held positions in locations that had as few as one 

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hundred employees to as many as eleven hundred. Some of those companies had a 

significant number of Reserve component employees and others had very few. As a 

National Guard officer with 19 years of service and having recently returned from 

deployment in support of OIF as an artillery battalion commander, I have seen the 

impact of military service on the employer to employee relationship. 

My personal experiences have always ended positively, as have most of the experiences of my Soldiers that I have been made aware of. Having made that statement 

I must admit the greatest contributing factor to those positive outcomes has come 

more from the desire of employers to take care of their servicemember employees, 

than out of in depth knowledge of or desire to comply with USERRA requirements. 

The concerns that I have heard from my Soldiers have come more from perceived 

lost opportunities during deployment or concern their commitment to the National 

Guard will somehow hurt their ability to advance in the future. It is my responsibility to review the questionnaires completed by Soldiers that have decided not to 

reenlist upon reaching the end of term of service (ETS) and by far the two most 

common responses are ‘‘family commitments’’ and/or ‘‘employment conflicts’’. 

My only personal experience that has led to reference to USERRA requirements 

came at the end or my recent deployment to Kuwait. My total deployment time was 

18 months during which time my position as Human Resource Manager was 

backfilled with another employee. As my tour of duty was getting close to ending 

I was told that another Human Resource Manager position was available in another 

city and that I should take this position as a lateral move. This would have required 

relocating my family shortly after returning from my deployment and I had no desire to put my family through that at such a difficult time. The positive turn came 

when I reminded my employer about USERRA requirements and they quickly recognized both the legal situation and my personal desire not to move and promised my 

original position back. 

After returning to the United States, I made the decision to resign my position 

and become self employed. My decision was not made because of this one small 

issue, but rather my desire to continue seeking higher levels of responsibility within 

the National Guard and to be able to do that under my own terms without the institutional pressure that I admit was mostly self imposed. In many ways, my previous 

employers have exceeded legal requirements when dealing with my military service 

obligations. Most common was making up any pay or benefit differential that might 

exist between my military pay and benefits and those of my employer. 

In conclusion it has been my experience that doing the right thing has been the 

objective of all my employers and USERRA only came into play as a reference for 

making those right decisions. As a Human Resource professional I will say that people in that field are not as familiar with USERRA as they should be. You might 

be able to credit that to the lack of challenges made by returning servicemembers 

under USERRA. Trusting that your employer will meet the intent of the law and 

that no negative repercussions whether subtle or blatant will jeopardize your career 

does cause anxiety for the citizen Soldier. A better understanding of USERRA, a review of company policy for compliance and a communication plan could help prevent 

misunderstandings and alleviate a lot of worries. 

I would like to express my appreciation for being given this opportunity to submit 

testimony to the Committee. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Major General William D. Wofford, 

Adjutant General, Arkansas National Guard 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

This testimony addresses five issues related to the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, as well as the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. 

• The NDAA of 2008. The NDAA of 2008 contains a clause that confirms that 

court ordered stay provisions under SCRA do apply to child custody proceedings. In the past several state courts had incorrectly held that SCRA did 

not apply to domestic relations. The NDAA of 2008 clarified this important 

issue. 

• Six Percent Interest Rate for Pre-Mobilization Debt. Some Servicemembers in 

Arkansas do not receive debt relief because their income is not materially affected during a mobilization. However, it is important to point out that most 

creditors comply with the law even when they are under no obligation viewing 

this as their part of the war effort. 

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• Continued Enforcement of SCRA/USERRA under the Department of Justice’s 

Civil Rights Division. Servicemembers seeking help under SCRA first contact 

the military assistance judge advocate’s office. If the JAG cannot resolve the 

matter and determines that assistance from the Department of Justice would 

be appropriate, the JAG will submit a request to the Civil Rights Division or 

U.S. Attorney’s Office. • Awarding of Attorney’s Fees. Currently if a Servicemember has an issue and 

is required to pursue legal action to enforce rights under SCRA there is no provision for recovery of the cost of an attorney. If SCRA was amended to allow 

the recovery of attorney’s fees, it could increase the number of attorneys willing 

to represent our Servicemembers in SCRA court actions. • Employment Concerns. There is mounting evidence that employers are becoming more reluctant to hire members of the Reserve components because of repeat, second and third, deployments. There have been recommendations to provide incentives for employers to hire Guardsman. These include: tax incentives, 

health benefits, eliminating Social Security and retirement penalties for retirees 

who temporarily backfill deployed Servicemembers, reimburse replacement 

training expenses, and reimbursing municipalities for overtime for policeman 

and fire fighters that are required to fill in for deployed Servicemembers. 

Once again I would like to thank the Committee for all of their efforts in these 

matters. 

Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin and distinguished members of the Committee, I am 

Major General William D. Wofford, and I am testifying in my position as the Adjutant General for the State of Arkansas. Please understand that my testimony today 

reflects my views as the Adjutant General of Arkansas and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the Administration. 

Thank you for the opportunity to personally appear before you and submit this written testimony relative to issues pertaining to the support of our national Guardsmen. Your invitation encouraged me to address the following issues: 

1. The successful passing of the provision related to child custody in the National 

Defense Authorization Act of 2008 

2. The six percent cap on interest rates on pre-mobilization debt for mobilized 

Servicemembers 

3. The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division for enforcement of Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) and USERRA issues 

4. Possibly including a provision to award attorney’s fees under SCRA 

5. Employment concerns of the Reserve forces 

THE NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2008 

I would like to begin my testimony by thanking the Congressional staff for their 

hard work on the inclusion of a very important clause in the NDAA of 2008: the 

affirmative clause that court-ordered stay provisions under SCRA do apply to child 

custody proceedings. 

During previous military mobilizations, military legal assistance officers advised 

Servicemembers that they would not lose custody of their children due to an impending deployment because of the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act. 

When the Arkansas National Guard began mobilizing in 2003 for operation Iraqi 

Freedom, Arkansas JAG office attorneys also advised our Guardsmen that they 

would not lose custody of their children while they were deployed because the Soldier’s and Sailor’s Relief Act would allow for a stay of proceedings while they were 

fighting our country’s wars. 

Unfortunately, several state courts, including Arkansas’ case Lenser v. McGowan, 

have incorrectly held that the newly created Servicemembers Civil Relief Act did not 

apply to domestic relations. This left Servicemembers who were custodial parents 

in a position of choosing between fighting for their country—or ignoring military orders to fight for custodial rights. This is the dilemma that most military attorneys 

agree the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act intended to prevent. 

In Lenser v. McGowan, SPC Michael Lenser and his wife were having a custody 

dispute over their child. SPC Lenser asked the Court for a Stay since he had already mobilized from National Guard status to active duty status for an eighteen 

month mobilization that included a year long deployment to Iraq. The trial court 

denied his initial stay request and entered an order awarding custody to the child’s 

mother. 

Then the Court further stayed the matter until he returned from the deployment. 

SPC Lenser appealed this ruling and the Arkansas State Supreme Court agreed 

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with the lower court’s ruling. The Supreme Court ruled that a lower court has jurisdiction to consider matters such as support, custody, and other similar matters that 

arise during the course of the stay. This ruling in large part nullifies the intent of 

the Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act. 

This contributed to SPC Lenser’s dilemma of serving his country or keeping custody of his child. Lenser had no court enforceable rights to his child during his deployment. In order to talk to the child or visit the child during his fifteen days of 

leave from theater, Lenser was required to have the consent of his wife. Neither 

were the child’s paternal grandparents to be allowed to visit the child during his 

deployment unless the wife consented. 

Once SPC Lenser returned from Iraq, he divorced his wife and now has custody 

of the child, but the personal and emotional conflict suffered by SPC Lenser and 

his parents was exactly what the SCRA intended to avoid. 

Congress answered this issue in the NDAA of 2008. Section 522 of SCRA now specifically states that the act applies to child custody cases. I thank the Congress for 

their hard work ensuring that Servicemembers are no longer in the position of 

choosing between their families and their country. This was one of the most pressing issues of SCRA and it appears to be resolved. 

SIX PERCENT INTEREST RATE COMBINED ASSESSMENT PROGRAM ON 

PRE-MOBILIZATION DEBT 

When a Servicemember mobilizes, they are entitled to have all pre mobilization 

debt reduced to a maximum 6 percent interest rate if their income is materially affected. 

While the majority of creditors do allow Arkansas Guardsmen to reduce their interest rate, oftentimes our Servicemembers don’t receive the debt relief under the 

law because the Servicemember’s income is not materially affected under the law 

in order to trigger the debt relief provisions. 

While the majority of our Arkansas Servicemembers do enjoy the same debt relief, 

it’s due to creditors voluntarily reducing the interest rate because of their support 

of Servicemembers. However, if the letter of the law was upheld, many Servicemembers would not receive this benefit. 

There is a ‘‘gray area’’ that allows for a creditor to compel a Servicemember to 

prove that their income is materially affected before they will reduce the interest 

rate to six percent. Under SCRA, it’s clear that it is the creditor’s responsibility to 

prove that the Servicemember’s income has been materially affected. Currently, as 

things stand, it is often the Servicemember who has to take the time to prove their 

income has been affected. This is clearly an unfair burden on the Servicemember 

or family; they have to spend their last days together before deployment gathering 

and providing information to prove their amount of income. This is an encumbrance 

when the Servicemember is preparing for war. 

In other cases, creditors may reduce the interest rate, but not reduce the minimum payment. This should also be reduced and is problematic for Servicemembers 

and the families they leave behind. Under this, the monthly payment remains the 

same, although there is more of the amount going to pay down the principal of the 

loan. However, this still negates the intent of the act which is to reduce debts for 

a Servicemember while answering their country’s call. 

I would like to emphasize that this is an issue with only a minority of creditors. 

Most are happy to comply with the SCRA and see reducing the interest rate as their 

way of supporting our Servicemembers. Some creditors have gone so far as to reduce 

all interest rates while a Servicemember is deployed. This not only helps the Servicemember while they are deployed, but allows them to further reduce their principal once they return. These creditors should be commended for going above and 

beyond. 

CONTINUED RESOURCES FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE CIVIL 

RIGHTS DIVISION FOR SCRA AND USERRA COMPLIANCE 

We need continued enforcement under the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights 

Division on SCRA issues. While the Division continues to build the SCRA enforcement program, since receiving enforcement authority in 2006, the division has 

opened several investigations and has resolved the first such investigation with a 

favorable outcome. 

In addition, the Division engages in a sustained outreach effort, which includes 

visiting military bases throughout the country to educate and inform JAG attorneys 

that it is actively investigating SCRA matters and stands ready to help them with 

enforcement. 

The process is that Servicemembers who are seeking help under SCRA first contact their military assistance judge advocate in the Arkansas National Guard. If the 

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JAG cannot resolve the matter and determines that assistance from the Department 

of Justice would be appropriate, it will submit a request to the Civil Rights Division 

or a U.S. Attorney’s Office. This office complements private enforcement actions 

brought by private counsel representing a Servicemember. It is important that the 

division continue its work with the Servicemembers and JAG legal assistance attorneys to ensure Servicemembers’ rights are respected under SCRA. 

In Arkansas, we’ve had a number of SCRA issues come up with the last deployment of the 39th Brigade; fortunately, the issues were usually resolved between the 

Servicemember, the opposing party and the local National Guard judge advocates. 

Having Department of Justice assistance to ensure SCRA provisions are upheld, 

is invaluable support and we ask for this Committee’s continued support in SCRA 

and USERRA issues. 

AWARDING OF ATTORNEY’S FEES 

Generally, Servicemembers’ creditors, employees, and landlords deserve to be commended on the sacrifices that they make to ensure that a Servicemember is prepared to leave his civilian position and fight in the war effort. However, some of 

these entities are not aware of the protections of SCRA and others choose not to 

comply. 

Unfortunately, if a Servicemember has to pursue legal action to enforce their 

rights through SCRA, there is no provision for recovery of the expense of the attorney he must hire to get relief. 

To help ensure the protections Congress has provided under Federal law, we request that you consider amending the SCRA to add a provision authorizing courts 

to award exemplary or punitive damages and attorneys’ fees to Servicemembers 

whose rights are violated intentionally or willfully under SCRA. This change would 

be reflective of the Civil Rights Act’s provisions and fulfill its intentions. 

In most cases, the amount in controversy is insufficient to allow an attorney to 

proceed on a contingency basis. While National Guard judge advocates are ready to 

try to resolve the issue, they are not allowed to represent Servicemembers in actual 

court proceedings. Further, most attorneys will not accept SCRA violation cases on 

a commission basis because there simply is little financial reward. If an amendment 

was passed by Congress to allow the recovery of attorney’s fees, it would increase 

the number of attorneys willing to represent our Servicemembers. 

EMPLOYMENT CONCERNS OF THE RESERVE FORCES 

Before I discuss this issue, I would like to emphasize that our Servicemembers 

in the Arkansas National Guard receive outstanding support from employers when 

our members are called to duty. Even after seven years of executing the global war 

on terror, Arkansas employers continue to demonstrate tremendous patriotism and 

dedication to ensuring our servicemembers and their families are cared for while 

they are mobilized. 

However, I would like to share with you a growing concern. Although our employers demonstrate solid support for their employees that are called to active duty, 

there is mounting evidence that employers are becoming reluctant to hire members 

of the reserve components because of repeat, second and third, deployments. 

It has become apparent that those traits exhibited by members of the Guard and 

Reserves that make them valuable employees: leadership, professionalism, physical 

condition, maturity, and a ‘can-do’ attitude, are no longer considered to be cost effective advantages if they are going to be deployed for twelve months every 3 or 4 

years. The business men and women that are responsible to their superiors and 

stakeholders are making hiring decisions that will best help their organization’s financial bottom line. 

For over a year I have taken the opportunity to speak to numerous civic organizations, chambers of commerce, and business leaders around the state of Arkansas 

about the National Guard. I certainly emphasize the advantages to their businesses 

that come with hiring Guard members because of their work ethic and character 

traits. 

However, I also ask them one simple question: ‘What incentives must we, as a 

Nation, try to develop to ensure it is profitable for employers to hire a Guardsman?’ 

I have received some valuable feedback that I would like to share with you. Much 

of this feedback is resounding evidence that the transition of the Reserve Components from a strategic reserve to an operational force has taken a drastic toll on 

businesses, and has had a definitive impact in those business considerations used 

when making hiring decisions. 

This has led me to advance a few recommendations that would help make it cost 

effective for business leaders, especially in small businesses, to hire a member of 

the Guard or Reserves. 

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49 

One recommendation is a tax incentive for employers; another is to provide health 

benefits for Servicemembers and their families on an ongoing basis, so businesses 

don’t have to provide healthcare as part of a benefits package. Also eliminating Social Security and retirement penalties for those retirees who temporarily backfill deployed or mobilized Servicemembers would provide considerable relief. Another is 

reimbursed replacement training expenses for businesses. And finally, reimbursing 

municipalities for overtime for policemen or fire fighters that are required to fill in 

for deployed Servicemembers would go a long way to providing a strong support network for our country and a continuity in the workforce when our Servicemembers 

are called to serve. 

Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin and distinguished members of this Committee, I 

apologize for veering off somewhat from the USERRA and SCRA topics that we 

were invited here to address today, but I feel it is imperative that we examine possible initiatives and help build a strong case to make it cost effective for business 

leaders of our Nation to continue hiring members of the Reserve Components. 

Several months ago, I made the comment to Dr. L. Gordon Sumner, Jr., National 

Director of the Employer Support to the Guard and Reserve Program, that if we did 

not make it cost effective for business men and women to hire members of the 

Guard and Reserves, we would not be able to maintain a Reserve Component five 

years from now. He corrected me by responding that if we don’t do something soon 

about this issue we will not have a Guard and Reserve three years from now. 

I appreciate this opportunity to submit testimony to the Committee on Veterans 

Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity. On behalf of our Servicemembers, 

I would like to thank you for all the hard work and service you provide. The Arkansas National Guard especially thanks you for the support that you provide us. I look 

forward to answering any questions that you may have on August 18, 2008. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Captain Thomas Lee, 

Staff Judge Advocate, Arkansas National Guard 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

I would like to take the time to explain what services the Judge Advocates of the 

Arkansas National Guard provide and the type of issues that we see. In the last 

five years, we have seen almost 10,000 Servicemembers come through our legal station on their way to various deployments. We have provided some sort of legal service to each and every one of them. 

• I have enclosed a table regarding legal actions that Servicemembers of the 39th 

Brigade Combat Team have faced since their January 2008 mobilization. 

ISSUE INSTANCE % 

6% interest 24 29.2 

Eviction 12 14.6 

Auto Repossession 16 19.5 

Judicial Stay 8 9.8 

Unpaid Debt Issues 4 4.9 

Child Support 2 2.4 

Residential Lease Termination 2 2.4 

Other 7 17.1 

• The most common problem during a deployment is a creditor not understanding 

the law of the six percent interest rate cap on pre-mobilization debt under 

SCRA. 

• The other issue that requires much time of the local judge advocates is domestic 

relations issues. 

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• I appreciate this opportunity to submit testimony to the Committee on Veterans 

Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity. The Judge Advocates would 

like to thank you for all the hard work and services that you provide all Servicemembers. 

Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin and distinguished members of the Committee, I am 

Captain Thomas Lee, and I am testifying regarding my position as the Staff Judge 

Advocate of the Arkansas National Guard. Please understand that my testimony 

today reflects my personal views and what I have seen for the last five years as 

a Judge Advocate and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the Administration. Thank you for the opportunity to personally appear before you and submit this written testimony relative to issues with 

legal support of our National Guardsmen. I would like to take the time to explain 

what services the Judge Advocates of the Arkansas National Guard provide and the 

type of issues that we see. In the last five years, we have seen almost 10,000 Servicemembers come through our legal station on their way to various deployments. We 

have spoken with each one. 

As a Judge Advocate, I split our legal assistance services into three stages corresponding to the current status of the Servicemember. We see different issues and 

provide varying service depending upon the stage of the Servicemember. The first 

stage being the pre-mobilization phase when the Servicemember is preparing for deployment and legal issues that they think may arise or while they attempt to resolve current legal issues. The second stage is the post-mobilization phase where the 

Servicemembers, their families, or legal representatives have arising legal issues, 

but are not in a position to resolve them. The third stage is the demobilization 

phase where the Servicemember has returned and must resolve legal issues that 

arose from the deployment or were judicially stayed during the deployment. 

Phase I—Pre-mobilization 

Before a Servicemember leaves Arkansas on a mobilization he must go through 

a Soldier Readiness Process (SRP). Often a Servicemember goes through the SRP 

and later will process through a Soldier Readiness Certification (SRC) before leaving 

Arkansas. SRPs and SRCs are basically the benchmark of the deployment process. 

At each SRP and SRC, the Servicemember speaks with a Judge Advocate and is 

asked if he needs any legal assistance. We have multiple stations where a Judge 

Advocate will draft the Servicemember a will or a power of attorney. Generally, we 

try to talk the Servicemember out of a general power of attorney and instead draft 

a specific power of attorney for whatever purpose the Servicemember needs, or we 

ask that they wait until they need a power of attorney and we can prepare and email one to them at that time. 

Also at the SRP, we ask whether the Servicemembers have any legal issues that 

will prevent them from deploying. Then we provide them with a packet of information. The packet includes letters that they can send to the creditors asking for their 

creditors to reduce their interest rate to six percent, letters for terminating a residential lease, an Internal Revenue Code power of attorney for tax purposes, and a 

sample letter to send to a court to stay a pending court proceeding and a guide on 

how to resolve fines and warrants. 

During this phase, our Judge Advocates will often talk directly to prosecuting attorneys and judges concerning our Servicemembers that have pending misdemeanor 

charges or traffic violations in our various courts. Usually the prosecuting attorney 

and judges agree to re-arrange their docket so that Servicemembers may attend to 

these matters before they deploy. The prosecutors and judges throughout Arkansas 

have been a tremendous help in the war effort. 

Phase II—Post-mobilization 

At this time, there are roughly 4,000 members of the Arkansas National Guard 

on active military orders. Between the two Judge Advocates of Arkansas National 

Guard Joint Forces Headquarters and the one Judge Advocate of the rear detachment 39th Brigade Combat Team Legal, we receive an average of 223 calls a month 

seeking legal assistance information. The phone calls come from Servicemembers, 

their families, attorneys, and creditors. We provide all groups as much information 

as we can on military legal issues. Generally, the questions are related to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). I have enclosed a table regarding legal actions 

falling under SCRA that Servicemembers of the 39th Brigade Combat Team have 

faced since their January 2008 mobilization. 

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ISSUE INSTANCES % 

6% interest 24 29.2 

Eviction 12 14.6 

Auto Repossession 16 19.5 

Judicial Stay 8 9.8 

Unpaid Debt Issues 4 4.9 

Child Support 2 2.4 

Residential Lease Termination 2 2.4 

Other 7 17.1 

Table 1—Legal actions involving the 39th BCT since mobilization 

Our Servicemembers often run into financial problems when transitioning from 

their civilian pay status to a military pay status. The rights from repossession of 

vehicles and eviction from homes are a key element in SCRA for our Servicemembers and their families. While many of the issues arising from the pay transition 

are not per se legal issues, our Judge Advocates are able to assist the Servicemembers in resolving the temporary financial hardship with their creditors. 

The most common problem during a deployment is a creditor not understanding 

the law of the six percent interest rate cap on pre-mobilization debt under SCRA. 

Generally, this issue can be resolved between the Servicemember and the Judge Advocate once the creditor is aware of the law and the Judge Advocate determines 

whether the section of SCRA applies to the Servicemember’s case. Since the 39th 

Brigade Combat Team has deployed, almost a third of all legal assistance actions 

are regarding six percent interest rate issues. 

Phase III—Demobilization 

Once a Servicemember returns from deployment, he will go through the legal section at the mobilization center. The Judge Advocate will ask Servicemembers if they 

have any legal assistance issues that need to be resolved. Hopefully, the Servicemember will notify the Judge Advocate at that time if he is aware there is a legal 

issue; however, the Servicemember often does not find out that they have legal 

issues until they return home. If they do notify the Judge Advocate at the mobilization center of pending legal issues, the Judge Advocate will try to resolve them or 

they will notify us about the matter and we will help the Servicemember resolve 

the issue. Having mobilized and deployed myself has allowed me to develop a good 

working relationship with the Judge Advocates at the various mobilization centers. 

The most common legal issue when Servicemembers return home is that someone 

has obtained a default judgment against them as the court is often not aware that 

the Servicemember was deployed. SCRA allows the Servicemember to file a motion 

with the court to set aside the default judgment. Often, it is the Judge Advocate 

providing legal guidance to the Servicemember on how to get a default judgment 

set aside. 

The other issue that requires much time of the local Judge Advocates is domestic 

relations. Whether it is a Servicemember who lost custody of their children or the 

Servicemember wants to dissolve his marriage, the Judge Advocate will provide assistance. Usually, the Judge Advocate works in coordination with the Army Chaplain and family assistance personnel, advising the Servicemember of various options. It is unfortunate that many families are irreparably harmed by deployments, 

but it is a fact of being a Servicemember not only in the National Guard and Reserves but any other service component. For those Servicemembers and their 

spouses who seek a divorce while deployed, Judge Advocates advise them of the 

legal hurdles and refer them to a civilian attorney in their community. We do not 

go to court representing either party. 

We are still looking for ways of improving how Servicemembers may reach our 

office. This requires a team effort by the Arkansas National Guard as a whole. Our 

family assistance coordinators pass out our phone numbers at military family gatherings. Our public affairs department has a website so if Servicemembers need assmartinez on PROD1PC64 with HEARING

52 

sistance, they can contact their office and public affairs will route the issue to the 

Judge Advocate. 

I appreciate this opportunity to submit testimony to the Committee on Veterans 

Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity. I would like to thank you for all 

the hard work and services that you provide all Servicemembers. The Arkansas National Guard especially thanks you for the support that you provide us. I look forward to answering any questions that you may have on August 18, 2008. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Don Morrow, Chairman, Arkansas Field Committee, 

Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve 

Chairwoman Herseth-Sandlin, Mr. Boozman, and members of the committee: 

thank you for the invitation to offer my perspective on issues relating to the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), as it applies to Arkansas National Guard and Reserve members and their employers. 

The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act 1994 protects 

the employment and reemployment rights of federal and nonfederal employees who 

leave their employment to perform military service. The role of informing Servicemembers and employers about this law and of enforcing it, fall to several different 

government organizations. It should be noted that USERRA covers all employees except screeners employed by the Transportation Security Administration. 

Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) is a Department of Defense 

organization that seeks to develop and promote a culture in which all American employers support and value the military service of their employees. We do this by recognizing outstanding support, increasing awareness of the law, and resolving conflicts through mediation. 

Gaining and maintaining employer support requires a strong network comprised 

of both military and civilian-employer leaders that is capable of providing communication, education, and exchange of information. ESGR works with the Reserve 

component leadership from each service, appropriate government organizations such 

as the Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (DOL– 

VETS), and the Small Business Administration, and industry associations such as 

the Chamber of Commerce and others, to create broad-based, nationwide support for 

our troops. 

It is important to note that ESGR is not an enforcement agency, and we do not 

have statutory authority to offer formal legal counsel or to participate in any formal 

investigative or litigation process. Our part in the USERRA issue is to inform and 

educate our customers—Servicemembers and their civilian employers—regarding 

their rights and responsibilities under the USERRA statute, and also provide mediation services. We have approximately 900 trained volunteer ombudsmen throughout the country and a national call center in Arlington, Virginia, to provide this 

service. Our call center received 13,116 requests for assistance during Fiscal Year 

(FY) 2007. Of those calls, 171 were from Servicemembers or their civilian employers 

in Arkansas. Of those requests, 10,742 (129 for Arkansas) were informational in nature, that is, they were sufficiently resolved by providing information about the law. 

The remaining 2,374 (42 for Arkansas) were assigned as cases to our ombudsmen. 

Through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ESGR and DOL–VETS, 

ESGR informs those Servicemembers whose cases ESGR is unable to successfully 

mediate within 14 days of their options to either contact the DOL–VETS or to retain 

private counsel. During FY 2007, ESGR referred 416 cases to DOL–VETS. It should 

be further noted that the ESGR mediation process is covered by the Administrative 

Dispute Resolution Act 1996, which minimizes the amount of specific data that can 

be released about individual cases. 

ESGR’s mandate ends at this point in the USERRA resolution process. As I understand it, the Department of Labor (DOL) investigates and attempts to resolve 

claims filed by Servicemembers, and, if not successful, DOL informs the federal 

claimants that they may request to have their claims referred to the Office of Special Counsel, and informs non-federal claimants that they may engage the Department of Justice. Of course, all parties reserve the right to engage private counsel 

at any time. 

As of June 30, 2008, 651,918 Reserve component members have been mobilized 

since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. There are 108,010 Reserve component members mobilized as of July 30, 2008. As of June 2008, Arkansas had 

16,726 Reserve component members. The use of the Reserve component has shifted 

from a strategic reserve to an operational reserve whereby members of the National 

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Guard and Reserve no longer are forces held in reserve but are an integrated and 

integral part of our total force. 

The Department is well aware of the stress this operational use has on our Servicemembers and their employers. To that end, Secretary Gates has provided policy 

guidance designed to give more predictability as to the frequency and duration of 

Reserve component mobilizations so that both Reserve component members and 

their employers can better plan their professional and personal futures. 

As I stated earlier, ESGR operates proactive outreach programs to inform, educate, and recognize the employers of our Servicemembers. We do this to raise awareness of USERRA and to thank employers for their support. As you know, employers 

suffer twice the cost when their employees are mobilized for military duty, in that 

they lose their trained, productive employees and they have to often hire replacements for the time those employees are gone. We talk all the time about the costs 

borne by our Servicemembers, and by their families. Those are no doubt real costs. 

However, we do not often talk about the costs borne by the employers of Guard and 

Reserve members. These employers do not have a choice when we take away their 

employees for months. Despite these very real costs, employers across the country 

continue to provide incredible support, and it is the least we can do to publicly recognize that support. 

All of our records, including the numbers of Reserve component members who 

contact us to recognize their employers, to the day-to-day interaction ESGR volunteers across the country have with Servicemembers and employers, to the ever decreasing numbers of USERRA cases handled by ESGR, indicate that employer support for the Guard and Reserve remains strong. Of course, there are instances of 

USERRA violations, but I urge caution to not extrapolate isolated but highly visible 

problems into broad-based policy problems. 

We are working with the individual Uniformed Services to raise awareness of 

USERRA and to provide training about USERRA to all Reserve component members. We also continue to work with the appropriate federal government agencies 

such as the DOL–VETS, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Small Business Administration, to better communicate to Servicemembers and their employers 

about USERRA, transition assistance and reintegration programs. 

The Department has also provided ESGR more resources over the past five years 

to better serve our customers and we now have 166 full-time staff around the country in addition to the approximately 4,400 volunteers. The ESGR Arkansas Field 

Committee has approximately 50 volunteers assisting Servicemembers and their civilian employers. We also have a national customer service center that is operational 12 hours per day during the workweek to provide service. 

We continue to believe that the existing USERRA process is the process that will 

continue to best serve the interests of Servicemembers, whereby the Department of 

Defense, through the ESGR organization, provides mediation, and the DOL continues to have the statutory authority to investigate USERRA claims. The ESGR 

and DOL will, of course, continue to collaborate to the fullest extent possible to ensure the speediest and most effective resolution of USERRA challenges. 

For our part, ESGR will continue its mission to gain and maintain employer support by recognizing outstanding support, increasing awareness of the law, and resolving conflicts through mediation, and by cooperating to the fullest extent allowable with the DOL. 

I hope that I have been able to clarify the role played by the Arkansas ESGR in 

helping employers and Servicemembers as it relates to the USERRA statute. Thank 

you. 

f 

Prepared Statement of Herb Lawrence, Center Director, Arkansas 

University Small Business Development Center 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

Continued deployment of National Guard and Reserve military personnel in the 

Global War on Terror who are also businessowners is creating additional hardships 

on those reserve component servicemembers than their non-businessowner/self-employed counterparts. Continued deployments of this sub group of Guardsmen and 

Reservists has resulted in numerous business failures, losses of business income, 

bankruptcies and economic losses to their enterprises that have created undue hardships on their civilian careers. The playing field between reserve component businessowners and non military businessowners is no longer even and their service to 

their country is resulting in significant losses in their civilian careers. 

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The SCRA especially in terms of its impact on interest rate caps for pre deployment loans does not differentiate between consumer related loans and business 

loans although the wording of the act does not appear to prohibit its application to 

business loans. However servicemembers who own their own businesses also have 

pre deployment business debt that is not clearly identified in the wording such as 

revolving lines of credit, business term loans, business credit card loans, equipment 

leasing or accounts receivable factoring, all of which are critical to sustainment of 

most business endeavors. 

SCRA clarification for commercial lenders as to their obligation to business related loans needs to be more clearly defined, servicemembers who are businessowners need to be identified by command prior to deployment and access to consulting/counseling business assistance needs to be provided that targets their debt 

obligations and options available to the servicemember to reduce the negative impact of servicing those loans upon their return from active duty. SCRA time limits 

on removal of the 6 percent cap need to be expanded for business owner servicemembers upon return from active duty to ensure best possible opportunity to get 

their businesses back to pre deployment levels of revenues and customer bases to 

ensure they can service the debt. 

Commercial lenders need further education on the SCRA and its impact specifically to small business owner servicemembers and be provided with tools to help 

them provide the best possible alternatives to assist those customers retain a viable 

business upon return from deployment. Some confusion exists among commercial 

lenders as to the scope and applicability of SCRA to businessowners who are called 

to active duty. 

Current assistance to service related businessowners called to active duty is inadequate to help keep them operational or to help them rebuild upon deployment. U.S. 

Small Business Administration programs aimed specifically at veterans and reserve 

component businessowners has improved but is still not sufficient to meet their 

needs. Patriot Express guaranty loan programs are not available to many commercial lenders and need to be expanded to allow smaller community banks to access 

the program. Additionally the SBA direct loan program for military servicemembers 

EIDL (Economic Injury Disaster Loan) direct loan program is only a stop gap at the 

present time and is limited to working capital. The EIDL should be expanded to 

help refinance existing business related debt, provide deferments on repayment 

until a reasonable time after redeployment and be expanded to include needs other 

than working capital. 

Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) and its Impact on Reserve 

Component Business Owners 

In 1777 the commanding general of the British forces in North America summarily dismissed concerns expressed by his staff about the quality of the colonists’ 

military force as ‘‘an army of peddlers and shop keepers’’. Those militia ‘‘small businessowners’’ went on to defeat that super power, win our nation its freedom, and 

have continued to serve as our National Guard and Reserves in every major conflict 

since then. 

The continued deployment of our nation’s reserve component since 2003 is unprecedented in modern times. Not since World War II has the nation’s National Guard 

and Reserves been called upon to mobilize and deploy to supplement the country’s 

armed forces in combat operations overseas to this level. As the subcommittee is 

well aware these continued deployments on our nation’s National Guard and Reserves have created great hardships on these citizen soldiers, their families and 

their civilian careers. 

Nowhere is this more evident than in the challenges that our reserve components 

‘‘peddlers and shop keepers’’ face. The impact of continued deployment on those military personnel who are businessowners or self employed is a critical issue that deserves congressional assistance. The U.S. Small Business Administration estimates 

that at least 7¥ of all reserve component servicemembers are self employed or sole 

proprietors. When the number of servicemembers who are involved in other business entities is included (those in partnerships or with substantial ownership in privately held corporations such as Sub Chapter S, C Corporations or Limited Liability 

Companies) these percentages of impacted members increase significantly. Estimates range from 10 percent to 14 percent for the number of servicemembers involved in some form of businessownership. While these are a relatively small proportion of all Reserve Component servicemembers, these individuals tend to hold 

critical ‘‘mid-level’’ positions in their units. While retention of all military members 

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is of great importance to sustaining our armed forces, the potential loss of many of 

these key leaders would be detrimental to the deploying units. 

Small businessowners who are members of our National Guard and Reserves face 

additional challenges as they prepare for continued deployments overseas for extended periods of time. In addition to the personal and family issues that must be 

overcome these servicemembers also must make hard decisions about their business 

operations. Unlike their fellow soldiers who are guaranteed their jobs by their employers, no such guaranty exists for these small businessowners. When the yellow 

ribbons are taken down and the parades are over this sub set of servicemembers 

must deal with the often negative consequences that their absence has had on their 

livelihood. 

Because of the nature of their businesses, the deploying servicemember is generally the key management person of that business and his or her extended deployment causes severe problems as they attempt to rebuild their businesses. Many 

have been forced to close their businesses during deployment or to have family 

members attempt to sustain it while they are on active duty and the majority find 

that the loss of revenues and loss of their customer base upon their return makes 

return to pre-deployment levels of operations a significant challenge. For many of 

these citizen soldiers the result of their decision to serve their country results in 

a level of sacrifice and loss far greater than that of their non-businessowner fellow 

servicemembers. 

While the Servicemember Civil Relief Act has proven itself to be a significant 

piece of legislation aiding many deploying servicemembers, especially in terms of 

pre-deployment debt obligations, its protection to these small businessowners seems 

to be of limited value and is not uniformly understood by all commercial lenders. 

While the Act does not have specific language differentiating consumer loans from 

business loans, it does create confusion among some commercial lenders as to 

whether it even applies to business loans. 

The majority of all small businesses have to operate on some form of debt financing. Whether this is in the form of term loans, revolving lines of credit, accounts 

receivable factoring, equipment leases or business credit cards, commercial loans are 

a fact of life for most businesses to succeed. Unlike consumer loans (home mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, etc.) that are paid for by the borrower from wages 

and salaries received by their employers, commercial business loans must be repaid 

from the revenues generated by these small businesses. 12–15 month deployments 

of businessowners results in losses of revenues which in turn impacts their ability 

to meet their financial obligations to their lenders. 

While the 6 percent cap of interest rates required by the SCRA are invaluable to 

many servicemembers as they face decreased household income due to their military 

deployment, even this reduction is often not enough to allow that returning businessowner to deal with the challenge. When a businessowner losses a significant 

part of ongoing revenues due to his or her deployment even a 6 percent cap is not 

sufficient to keep that business afloat. 

At a minimum all servicemembers called to active duty who are businessowners 

should be identified and they should be made aware of how SCRA can assist them 

with business debt. These servicemembers must have access to individual counseling assistance at no charge who are able to review their business financial position, their current business debt schedules and work out plans to assist them in 

meeting with lenders to implement SCRA requirements as they currently exist. 

More emphasis must be placed on educating commercial lenders especially those 

involved in business related loans of their obligations under SCRA to help these deploying businessowners with their debt issues. Discussions with loan officers from 

a number of financial institutions around north central and Northeast Arkansas indicates that they are not fully aware of their responsibilities under SCRA to deploying businessowners. 

However, the benefits available under SCRA as it is currently written are not sufficient to help those returning servicemember businessowners deal with the challenges of rebuilding their businesses. SCRA allows the lender to return loans to predeployment interest rate levels upon release from active duty. While this is not as 

significant an issue to returning servicemembers who are returning to their old civilian employers and thus to their pre-deployment income levels, for most small 

businessowners rebuilding revenues and customers to the pre-deployment levels is 

not an overnight proposition. It often took years for that businessperson to build his 

or her revenues to its pre-deployment level and will take significant time for them 

to return to those levels after deployment ends. At a minimum continuation of the 

6 percent interest rate cap for business loans should be allowed to continue for a 

reasonable amount of time after the businessowner returns to civilian life to help 

rebuild their business. 

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Another issue that is not adequately addressed with SCRA is in the scope of the 

enterprises that would be covered under the 6 percent cap. While as written it impacts both the deploying servicemember and his/her dependents it does not address 

those businessowners who are involved in partnerships where they are partial owners in the business but their departure has a significant negative impact on the 

partnerships earning ability and thus ability to service business debt. As example 

a 3 person medical clinic where one of the three partners is a reserve component 

servicemember and is called to active duty, while the other two members may not 

be servicemembers, that departing individual is a significant contributor in civilian 

life to the overall revenue stream of the business and thus to the ability of the partnership to meet their contractual debts. Assuming that all three partners co-signed 

for business debt, even though that deploying member is only a one-third owner, 

the business should have access to the same interest rate cap as if that individual 

was a sole owner. 

Finally, although outside the scope of the SCRA as it is currently written the Subcommittee should give consideration to changes or additions to the Act that will further help reduce the negative impact of businessownership on these servicemembers. For many small businessowners even a reduction of interest rates to 6 percent 

on their business loans is not sufficient to help their business survive the deployment and regain lost revenues or customers. It is strongly suggested that Congress 

review possible legislation that would facilitate ‘‘banking holidays’’ for those deploying servicemembers whose businesses will not be able to be sustained during their 

deployment even at the 6 percent cap. Obviously commercial lenders are not in a 

position on their own to provide these total payment deferments for the period of 

the deployment without some type of governmental involvement such as providing 

some form of guaranty on these loans similar to U.S. Small Business Administration 

guarantees or other governmental guaranty programs. Another option is the possible expansion of the current SBA disaster direct loan program Economic Injury 

Disaster Loans (EIDL) for deploying small businessowners that would allow the government to ‘‘buy out’’ the loans from the lenders and set up terms that would benefit 

the servicemember. 

The U.S. Small Business Administration has made significant improvements on 

their loan assistance programs aimed at veterans and reserve component servicemembers through their Patriot Express programs and the EIDL direct loans; however these initial moves need to be significantly enhanced to ensure our businessowner servicemembers are able to operate on a par with non military businesses. 

The Patriot Express loan is limited to those commercial lenders who are already 

members of the SBA Express loan program and in Arkansas only a very limited 

number of larger banks are able to use this program. Small community banks do 

not have access to this program and thus are not able to provide the assistance with 

the SBA guaranty to their servicemember customers. 

Additionally the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program through the SBA while 

beneficial to those servicemembers who qualify is limited to working capital needs 

and does not include the ability to refinance existing commercial loans nor to provide loans for equipment, inventory, or other normal business loan needs. 

Reserve component businessowners find themselves at a significant disadvantage 

economically and through access to capital that significantly cripples their ability 

to keep their business operational while deployed or to recover upon return when 

compared to their non-servicemember competitors. Banking requirements also make 

it difficult for individual banks to make deferments or other assistance to their reserve component business customers without some form of governmental assistance. 

In conclusion, small businessownership is and remains the bedrock of our economy and studies from the Small Business Administration show that veteran owned 

businesses are significantly more likely to be formed and to succeed than their nonveteran counterparts. However, continued deployment of this significant subgroup 

of our reserve component in the Global War on Terror has created a tremendous 

barrier to their normal civilian operations far in excess of that faced by non-business 

owner servicemembers or their non-business owner fellow servicemembers. I urge 

the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity of the House Committee on Veterans’ 

Affairs to give consideration to the current level of assistance available to reserve 

component businessowners under the SCRA, to look at expansion of assistance 

under SCRA that addresses unique lending needs of these servicemembers and to 

consider alternative forms of direct governmental assistance to allow these citizen 

soldiers to remain on a level playing field as they strive to keep their business enterprises viable. 

f 

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Prepared Statement of William Vines, Commander, Post 31, American 

Legion, Department of Arkansas 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

Sustained and multiple deployments have taken a significant toll on servicemembers and their families, who are bearing a disproportionate burden on these wars. 

Servicemembers, who honorably defend this country, depend on laws like USERRA 

to protect their jobs while they are involuntarily activated and sent to war. According to the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Status of Forces study released in November 2007, among Post-9/11 returning National Guard and Reservists, nearly 11,000 

were denied prompt reemployment and more than 20,000 lost seniority, pay, and 

other benefits awarded to them through their dedicated service. 

In addition, nearly 20,000 saw their pensions cut and more than 15,000 did not 

receive the training they needed to return to their former jobs. Twenty-three percent 

of National Guard and Reservists surveyed in 2006 who could not find a job postdeployment said that they were unemployed because their previous employer did 

not promptly rehire them as required by law. It was the intent of Congress in enacting USERRA that no veteran be denied employment, reemployment, advancement 

or discrimination in employment for serving their country in the interest of protecting our nation. 

The very nature of military service often compromises the ability of servicemembers to fulfill their financial obligations and to assert many of their legal rights. It 

is unfair to expect servicemembers to concentrate on fighting battles overseas and 

then simultaneously attend to all their personal matters at home. SCRA helps ease 

the economic and legal burdens on military personnel called to active duty status 

in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Relief under SCRA 

extends to actions terminating leases, evictions, foreclosures and repossessions, default judgment, lower interest rates on credit cards and loans and protects against 

lapses or termination of insurance policies. 

Millions of servicemembers depend on USERRA and SCRA protections while they 

are called to serve their country. USERRA and SCRA were created to prohibit discrimination against and eliminate the disadvantages faced by deployed servicemembers. The American Legion recommends strengthening the enforcement on USERRA 

and SCRA. There needs to be effective consequences for non-compliance or proactive 

regulation of these Acts to ensure that veterans are not disadvantaged or unable 

to return to their previous jobs, due to their honorable service to our Nation. The 

American Legion urges this Subcommittee to send a strong message to Congress to 

ensure full protections and benefits under these Acts. 

Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

The American Legion appreciates this opportunity to share its views on USERRA 

and SCRA. 

UNIFORMED SERVICES EMPLOYMENT AND REEMPLOYMENT RIGHTS 

ACT (USERRA) 

Over seven years of war has caused record high deployment rates of reserve component soldiers, who have the responsibility of maintaining civilian employment 

while waiting for the call to serve their nation. Many of these soldiers, who struggle 

daily to balance their dual military and civilian lives, have returned home from deployment to find their employers not hiring them back. According to the Department 

of Defense’s (DoD) Status of Forces study released in November 2007, among Post9/11 returning National Guard and Reservists, nearly 11,000 were denied prompt 

reemployment and more than 20,000 lost seniority, pay, and other benefits awarded 

to them. 

In addition, nearly 20,000 saw their pensions cut and more than 15,000 did not 

receive the training they needed to return to their former jobs. Twenty-three percent 

of National Guard and Reservists surveyed in 2006 who could not find a job postdeployment said that they were unemployed because their previous employer did 

not promptly rehire them as required by law. Sustained and multiple deployments 

have taken a significant toll on servicemembers and their families, who are bearing 

a disproportionate burden of these wars. Servicemembers, who honorably defend 

this country, depend on laws like USERRA to protect their jobs while they are involuntarily activated and sent to war. It was the intent of Congress in enacting 

USERRA that no veteran be denied employment, reemployment, advancement or 

discrimination in employment for serving their country in the interest of protecting 

our nation. 

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The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) 

1994, 38 United States Code (U.S.C.) §§ 4301–4334, was signed into law on October 

13, 1994. USERRA prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of an individual’s: prior service in the uniformed services; current obligations as a member 

of the uniformed services; or, intent to join the uniformed services. USERRA also 

provides reemployment rights with the pre-service employer following qualifying 

service in the uniformed services. In general, the protected person is to be reemployed with the status, seniority, and rate of pay as if continuously employed during 

the period of service. USERRA applies to private employers, the Federal Government, and State and local governments. It applies to employers operating overseas 

as well. 

The Department of Labor, through the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS), provides assistance to all persons having claims under USERRA. The 

Department of Labor is the enforcement authority for USERRA and it processes all 

formal complaints of violations of the law. VETS refers unresolved claims to the Department of Justice (DOJ) or the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) for litigation as 

appropriate. The veteran may then request that the Department of Justice litigate 

on their behalf but only after a certain period has passed. 

Although USERRA defines individual agency roles and responsibilities, it does not 

make any single individual or office accountable for maintaining visibility over the 

entire complaint resolution process. In a report addressing USERRA issues by the 

Government Accountability Office (GAO) in October 2005, it noted that the ability 

of federal agencies to monitor the efficiency and effectiveness of the complaint process was hampered by a lack of visibility resulting, in part, from the separated responsibilities for addressing complaints from among multiple agencies. The GAO report recommended that Congress consider designating a single individual or office 

to maintain visibility over the entire complaint resolution process from DoD through 

DOL, DOJ, and OSC. This would encourage agencies to focus on overall results than 

agency-specific outputs and thereby improve federal responsiveness to servicemember complaints that are referred from one agency to another. The American Legion 

supports this recommendation by GAO. 

Since September 11, 2001, DoD has relied on more than 600,000 members of the 

National Guard and Reserve components to support various operations abroad and 

at home. In particular, from September 2001 to July 2007, the department deployed 

more than 434,000 Reservists to support operations in DoD’s Central Command 

area of responsibility. During this same period, DOL/VETS have provided USERRA 

assistance to over 410,000 employers and servicemembers. In FY 2006, VETS staff 

closed 1,377 USERRA complaints, recovering $2,346,142.04 in lost wages and benefits and in FY 2007, VETS staff closed 1,200 USERRA complaints, recovering 

$1,886,572.95 in lost wages and benefits. Soldiers who are called to active duty 

serve and protect their country. They should not come home from a military leave 

of absence to find they have no job or that their seniority has been taken from them. 

With the rising numbers of USERRA cases across the country, The American Legion is deeply concerned with the protection of the servicemember and the prevention of the servicemember not being reemployed by their previous employer after deployment(s). USERRA cases have become more complex than in the past and frequently involve multiple issues. This is due to longer and more frequent deployments of National Guard and Reserve members. As currently drafted, USERRA fails 

to adequately support military personnel upon their return to civilian employment 

as numerous employers have violated the rules laid out in Title 38 of the United 

States Code. The American Legion thanks this Subcommittee for supporting H.R. 

6225, Improving SCRA and USERRA Protections Act of 2008, which has passed the 

House and referred to the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. H.R. 6225 would require courts to grant injunctive relief, when appropriate, to veterans filing claims 

against state or private employers under USERRA. The bill would also prohibit governmental entities from charging fees to some servicemembers for terminating utility contracts, and it would prohibit state and local governments from imposing certain taxes on some spouses of servicemembers. Additionally, the bill would require 

public institutions of higher learning to refund tuition and fees to servicemembers 

if they must leave school for military service commitments. 

The Servicemembers Access to Justice Act (SAJA) is also new legislation that is 

under consideration. SAJA would strengthen the protections in current law to ensure that servicemembers’ and veterans’ employment and reemployment rights are 

effectively enforced under USERRA. Specifically, this bill would make it easier for 

servicemembers to obtain justice when their employment rights are violated by prohibiting employers from requiring servicemembers to give up their ability to enforce 

their rights under USERRA in court in order to get a job or keep a job. 

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SERVICEMEMBERS CIVIL RELIEF ACT (SCRA) 

The very nature of military service often compromises the ability of servicemembers to fulfill their financial obligations and to assert many of their legal rights. On 

December 19, 2003, the President signed into law theServicemembers Civil Relief 

Act (SCRA). This law is a complete revision of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief 

Act (SSCRA) 1940. This helps ease the economic and legal burdens on military personnel called to active duty status in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Relief under SCRA extends to: 

• reducing the rate of interest for debts incurred before entering active duty to 

6 percent 

• tolling civil statutes of limitations 

• staying civil and administrative proceeding and execution of judgments 

• protecting against default judgments, evictions, mortgage foreclosures and repossessions of property 

• providng the ability to terminate residential and automobile leases 

With the military’s increased reliance on National Guard and Reserve units and 

individuals, creditors residing in remote areas of the country outside of the traditional military towns are not aware of this Act, including members of the Reserve 

components. Therefore, servicemembers are experiencing serious financial difficulties while on active duty—their cars are repossessed, homes foreclosed and credit 

histories ruined because this legislation is unknown. We simply cannot afford to 

have our men and women in Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere distracted by concerns 

over whether someone is seeking a default judgment against them back home, or 

repossessing their leased car, or evicting their spouse and children, or selling their 

house at an auction sale, or running up penalties on credit cards with 21 percent 

interest rates. 

In the most unfortunate of circumstances, lenders are unwilling to negotiate and 

assist veterans who are in default status even though these veterans are in a good 

position to correct the situation. It is unfair to expect servicemembers to concentrate 

on fighting battles overseas and simultaneously attend to all their personal matters 

at home. Moreover, veterans have a positive track record of following through with 

payments. During the fourth quarter of 2007, only 2.83 percent of homeowners 

using Veterans Affairs (VA’s) Loan Guaranty program were seriously delinquent. 

This is much lower when compared to 6 percent for Federal Housing Administration 

mortgages, and a whopping 14.44 percent for the subprime mortgages. 

The American Legion has produced a brochure on active duty legal rights, copies 

of which will be distributed across the country. If the Transition Assistance Program 

(TAP) was mandatory, servicemembers and local community businesses would also 

know of this program, and a lot of frustration, time and misunderstandings could 

be avoided. To their credit, Navy TAP representatives discuss personal financial 

planning during workshops and seminars. However, the Reserve components need 

to have this issue also addressed pre and post deployment. 

H.R. 4883 is a bill to amend SCRA to provide for a limitation on the sale, foreclosure, or seizure of property owned by a servicemember during a 1 year period 

following the servicemember’s period of military service. This legislation would 

greatly assist those veterans that were deployed to a combat zone and had little 

time to successfully transition from active duty military service to the civilian sector. Members of the Reserve components would be the largest benefactors of an extension from 90 days to 1 year. Enactment of this legislation would provide veterans 

an extended period of time to become employed, correct all their finances and assist 

them in the transition process. The American Legion supports this legislation. 

CONCLUSION 

Millions of servicemembers depend on USERRA and SCRA protections while they 

are called to serve their country. USERRA and SCRA were created to prohibit discrimination against and eliminate the disadvantages faced by deployed servicemembers. Again, The American Legion recommends strengthening the enforcement on 

USERRA and SCRA. There needs to be effective consequences for non-compliance 

or proactive regulation of these Acts to ensure that veterans are not disadvantaged 

or unable to return to their previous jobs, due to their honorable service to our Nation. An individual should never be forced to choose between serving in the National 

Guard/Reserve and keeping their civilian employment. Such decisions could easily 

and quickly undermine our National Security. The American Legion urges this Subcommittee to send a strong message to Congress to ensure full protections and benefits under these Acts. 

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Thank you for the opportunity to submit the opinion of The American Legion on 

these issues. 

f 

Prepared Statement of James P. Mitchell, Chief of Staff, Director of 

Communications, U.S. Office of Special Counsel 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

Not all employers understand their obligations to their employees who, through 

active duty military service, meet their own obligations to our nation. Some servicemembers, mostly members of the National Guard and Reserve who return from active duty, are turned away by their civilian employers upon their return. Some, who 

also serve their country as Federal civilian employees, return from active duty only 

to find that the government that sent them to war is unwilling to welcome them 

back to their jobs. 

The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act 1994 

(USERRA) strengthened the enforcement mechanism for Federal employees by giving the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) explicit jurisdiction over USERRA 

violations by Federal executive agencies. 

Under USERRA, a person claiming a violation by any employer may make a complaint to the Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service 

(DOL–VETS) which must investigate and attempt to resolve the matter. If DOL– 

VETS cannot resolve a complaint involving a Federal executive agency, the individual may appeal to the MSPB, or request a referral to the U.S. Office of Special 

Counsel (OSC) for possible representation before the MSPB and, if necessary, the 

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. 

In 2004, Congress mandated a demonstration project whereby OSC would receive 

roughly half of Federal USERRA claims directly from claimants. By combining both 

the investigative and prosecutorial functions in one agency, Congress hoped to determine whether OSC could provide better service to Federal employees filing 

USERRA claims. 

OSC obtained corrective action for servicemembers in more than 30 percent of the 

claims filed with us and took less than 120 days on average to resolve cases. OSC 

achieved this high rate of corrective action through its thorough investigations, expert analysis of the law, ability to educate Federal employers about the requirements of USERRA, and a credible threat of litigation before the MSPB. We have 

the ability to get quick and effective relief, while providing a centralized point of 

contact for all servicemembers who work for the Federal government. 

The demonstration project expired on December 31, 2007, removing OSC authority to accept directly USERRA claims made by federally-employed servicemembers. 

Our role in USERRA enforcement continues; if DOL–VETS is unable to resolve a 

claim, a claimant may request that the matter be referred to OSC. We may then 

represent the claimant before the MSPB. 

Granting OSC exclusive jurisdiction over the Federal sector USERRA cases would 

benefit Federal employee claimants by having a single agency receive, investigate 

and resolve their claims. Moreover, given our expertise and experience in protecting 

Federal employees from prohibited personnel practices, Federal sector USERRA investigation and enforcement is a natural ‘‘fit’’ for OSC. We don’t know when our 

servicemembers will start returning home in greater numbers, boosting demand for 

USERRA enforcement. But, we believe that OSC has demonstrated to Congress that 

it should assign this important responsibility solely to OSC. 

INTRODUCTION 

Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin, Ranking Member Boozeman, and members of the 

committee: good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to testify today on important matters of concern to our servicemembers, their families, and ultimately our 

national security. 

My name is James P. Mitchell and I am Chief of Staff and Director of Communications of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC), an independent investigative 

and prosecutorial agency. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today 

to provide our perspectives on the enforcement of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, or USERRA. 

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel values the tremendous commitment of our military men and women. We are dedicated to protecting the employment rights of 

those who serve our nation both as members of the Federal civilian workforce and 

as members of our Armed Forces. We honor our commitment by vigorously enforcing 

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1 Under the demonstration project, OSC had exclusive investigative jurisdiction over Federalsector USERRA claims where: 1) the claimant’s Social Security Number ended in an odd digit, 

or 2) the claimant alleged a prohibited personnel practice (PPP), as well as a USERRA violation 

(regardless of Social Security Number). DOL–VETS retained investigative jurisdiction over all 

other Federal sector USERRA claims. 

USERRA on their behalf, including, when necessary, by prosecuting Federal employers before the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). 

While our servicemembers understand and fulfill their obligations to our nation, 

unfortunately, not all employers understand and fulfill their obligations to their employees who serve on active duty. Some servicemembers, mostly members of the National Guard and Reserve who return from active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan combat zones and elsewhere, are turned away by their civilian employers or not afforded their full rights and benefits upon their return. 

It is difficult to imagine an employer welcoming back a returning servicemember 

with words to the effect, ‘‘Welcome back—you’re fired!’’ But it happens. This is especially troubling when the very government that sent them to war does not welcome 

them back to their government jobs upon their return, or begrudgingly reinstates 

them, but with less pay, status, or benefits than they are entitled to under the law. 

Civilian employees of the Federal government represent about 25 percent of the 

National Guard and Reserve. Under USERRA, the Federal government is supposed 

to be a ‘‘model’’ employer. Yet the very government that sends its employees forth 

into combat might deny them their livelihood when they return home. 

PROTECTING JOBS OF VETERANS 

Protecting the jobs of returning veterans is not a new concept. The Veterans’ Reemployment Rights (VRR) law was enacted in 1940 to provide those protections. 

Over time, through a series of amendments and sometimes conflicting judicial constructions, it became cumbersome and confusing. It had enforcement loopholes as 

well, especially regarding the Federal government as a civilian employer. 

Enacted in 1994, USERRA improved job protections for veterans. It strengthened 

the enforcement mechanism for Federal employees by giving the MSPB explicit jurisdiction to adjudicate allegations of USERRA violations by Federal executive agencies as employers. 

Under USERRA, a person claiming a violation by any employer (Federal, state, 

local, or private sector) is permitted to make a complaint to the Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (DOL–VETS), which must investigate and attempt to resolve the matter. 

If DOL–VETS cannot resolve a complaint involving a private, state, or local employer, the individual may file a private lawsuit or request a referral to the Attorney 

General for possible representation in Federal district court. 

If the employer is a Federal executive agency, the individual may appeal to the 

MSPB, or request a referral to OSC for possible representation before the MSPB 

and, if necessary, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. 

USERRA thus expanded OSC’s role as protector of the Federal merit system and 

Federal workplace rights by giving OSC prosecutorial authority over Federal sector 

USERRA claims. However, it also established a bifurcated process in which DOL– 

VETS first investigates and attempts to resolve such claims, followed by possible referral to OSC for prosecution before the MSPB when there is no resolution by DOL– 

VETS. 

IMPROVING PROTECTION FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES 

Congress recognized the inefficiencies in this process, as well as OSC’s unique expertise in investigating and prosecuting Federal employment claims. In 2004, Congress passed the Veterans Benefits Improvement Act (VBIA), and included a demonstration project to determine whether OSC could provide better service to Federal 

employees filing USERRA claims. 

Under this demonstration project, roughly half of Federal USERRA claims were 

submitted directly to OSC for investigation and prosecution between February 2005 

and December 2007.1 During this period, the time-consuming process that shuffled 

Federal USERRA claims between different Federal entities, before being resolved by 

OSC, was eliminated. 

During the demonstration project, OSC obtained corrective action for servicemembers in over 30 percent of the USERRA claims filed with us, a rate that is significantly higher than that for most governmental investigative agencies. OSC achieved 

this high rate of corrective action through its thorough investigations, expert analysis of the law, ability to educate Federal employers about the requirements of 

USERRA, and a credible threat of litigation before the MSPB. 

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A Government Accountability Office (GAO) study of the demonstration project 

showed that it took less than 120 days on average for OSC to resolve cases (which 

includes prosecution as well as investigative time). 

Our centralized and straight-line process has ensured that the USERRA claims 

we receive are resolved efficiently, thoroughly, and, correctly—under the law. The 

numerous corrective actions we’ve obtained for returning servicemembers include 

back pay, promotions, restored benefits and seniority, time off and broader ‘‘systemic’’ changes that prevent future USERRA violations where they work. 

In addition to obtaining corrective action for the individual employee, in our role 

as protector of the Federal merit system, OSC seeks ‘‘systemic’’ corrective action to 

prevent future violations by an agency. For example, we have assisted agencies in 

modifying their leave and promotion policies to comply with USERRA, provided 

USERRA training to agency managers and HR specialists, and required agencies to 

post USERRA information on their websites and in common areas. 

In a specific case involving the U.S. Postal Service, OSC was instrumental in restoring military leave time that was denied to an Agency employee. In addition, we 

worked with the agency to ensure that managers accommodate employees who perform military duty by identifying and scheduling replacement workers and posting 

USERRA informational posters in locations accessible to employees. The claimant 

indicated that after the Special Counsel’s involvement, he noticed a greater interest 

in the agency’s efforts to recognize and support veterans. 

Congress tied the outcome of the USERRA demonstration project to a GAO evaluation. OSC participated in this evaluation, but GAO’s report did not meet the April 

1, 2007 deadline mandated by Congress. Instead, the final report was published only 

two weeks before the congressional August recess, leaving Congress with no opportunity to act on USERRA before the demonstration project would conclude on September 30, 2007. 

Moreover, the GAO report did not address the central question that the demonstration project was intended to answer: are Federal sector USERRA claimants 

better served when they are permitted to make their complaints directly to OSC, 

for both investigation and litigation, bypassing the bifurcated process of referral between agencies? We submit that the answer is an emphatic ‘‘yes.’’ 

The demonstration project was ultimately extended by Congress through the 

FY2008 Continuing Resolution to December 31, 2007, when OSC lost the authority 

to accept directly USERRA claims made by federally employed servicemembers. As 

a result, OSC’s role is again limited to providing representation to Federal employees who request that their USERRA claims be referred to OSC for possible representation before the MSPB when DOL–VETS cannot resolve their claims. 

OSC: POISED TO HANDLE ALL FEDERAL USERRA CLAIMS 

Although our role is now reduced considerably, we at OSC are privileged to be 

engaged in the Federal sector USERRA enforcement. Because the mission of OSC 

is to protect the Federal Merit System, our specialized USERRA unit is staffed with 

attorneys and investigators who are experts in Federal personnel law and have 

years of experience investigating, analyzing, and resolving alleged violations of Federal employment rights. 

We are proud of our achievements in enforcing USERRA. We filed the first ever 

prosecutions by OSC in the law’s history, obtaining corrective action in several cases 

that had been delayed for years or considered non-winnable. For example, in that 

prosecution, we obtained more back pay than originally requested by the claimant, 

attorneys’ fees, and interest on those amounts. 

The case of an Army Corps of Engineers employee, who was not reemployed after 

serving in the Air Force, remained unresolved until OSC received the case. We prosecuted before the MSPB and obtained full corrective action for the servicemember, 

including $85,000 in back pay, reemployment in his former position, and full restoration of seniority and benefits. 

When an injured Iraq war veteran returned from duty only to be sent home by 

his Federal employer because he could no long perform his former job, we convinced 

the agency to find him a suitable job consistent with his physical limitations, along 

with back pay. 

Another case involved a claimant who alleged that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) mischarged his leave and imposed a debt on him as a result 

of his service in the Air Force Reserve. At the USERRA unit’s request, DHS took 

a series of actions necessary to make the claimant whole, including restoring annual 

leave, canceling the debt, and reimbursing him for lost pay. 

Early this year, a more than sevem-year wait for USERRA relief ended for an Air 

National Guardsman, who lost his Federal job while on active military duty. The 

servicemember filed a USERRA complaint with DOL–VETS in November 2000. In 

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2004, after DOL–VETS had been unable to resolve his claim, he requested it be referred to OSC. It was not. However, within a few days of the matter being raised 

in a Senate hearing by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, the case was finally referred to OSC last November. Within a few months, OSC negotiated a settlement 

that provided the servicemember with 65 months of back pay plus interest, and restored his Federal retirement benefits as if he’d been properly reemployed in June 

2000. 

Many of the claimants described above could have received relief faster had OSC 

been able to receive and investigate their claims from the beginning, without the 

need for attempted resolution and referral by DOL–VETS. As the GAO report found, 

the referral process alone adds an average of over eight months to the resolution 

of such claims (i.e., from the time VETS completes its investigation and attempted 

resolution to the time DOL’s Solicitor’s Office refers the claim to OSC). In the last 

case described above, this process took years and delayed significant relief for a deserving servicemember. 

By authorizing OSC to directly accept some Federal USERRA claims from the 

time they are filed, the recently concluded USERRA demonstration project eliminated the cumbersome referral process and allowed claimants to obtain faster, more 

effective relief. Instead of having to rely on another agency’s investigation and frequently having to conduct additional investigation, OSC has control of the investigation throughout. Moreover, OSC can negotiate with the agency and more quickly file 

with the MSPB, if necessary. Agencies are aware of the credible threat of litigation 

by OSC and more willing to quickly resolve meritorious claims as a result. Claimants benefit from a more efficient, transparent process that increases accountability 

and communication by having a single entity handle and resolve their claim from 

beginning to end. 

In cases referred from DOL to OSC, OSC has often found that further investigation is needed to make a determination, or that the claim has not been fully or properly analyzed by DOL under the law. For instance, in two of the cases filed by OSC 

with the MSPB during the current Special Counsel’s term, DOL recommended that 

OSC not afford the claimant representation (i.e., that the claim was non-meritorious), but OSC disagreed and obtained full relief for the servicemembers. Authorizing OSC to directly receive and investigate all Federal USERRA claims would 

eliminate these problems and extend the benefits described above to all Federal 

servicemembers. 

OSC is committed to getting as much relief as the law allows for our brave servicemembers, and doing so as quickly as possible. These patriots have given their all 

in the service of this great Nation. They should never be hung out to dry by a long, 

drawn-out, confusing process. OSC is passionate about obtaining relief for all who 

come to us, and no less for the soldiers of our country who also serve as civilians 

in the Federal government. 

That passion extends beyond resolution of individual USERRA claims. Early this 

month, the Administrator of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a 

memorandum to heads of executive departments and agencies changing a leave policy for Federal employees returning from active duty. Previously, OPM’s guidance 

allowed five days of excused absence for a returning servicemember, but only upon 

return from a single deployment. The revised policy states that Federal civilian employees returning from active duty may receive five days of uncharged leave (excused absence) from their civilian duties each time they return from deployment. It 

also allows employees who have already returned to work and did not receive these 

five days of excused absence to take them at a time mutually agreeable to the employee and the agency. 

This policy change was the result of an OSC initiative: in a July 1 letter to OPM 

Administrator Linda Springer, the Special Counsel noted that the policy of allowing 

only a single five-day period of excused absence for a returning servicemember was 

inconsistent the OPM Administrator’s own sentiment expressed in a 2003 memorandum implementing the policy: 

‘‘Many of our employees have endured great disruption to their families 

and their normal lives as a result of their service in the war against terrorism. Therefore, I join the President in urging that agencies do everything 

possible to ease their return to civilian life.’’ 

The Special Counsel’s letter noted that many Federal employees have been deployed multiple times, and have suffered on multiple occasions the ‘‘disruption to 

their families and their normal lives’’ mentioned in OPM’s memorandum. He cited 

studies indicating an increased incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder and other 

psychological problems in those who have served multiple tours. Suggesting that returning military personnel have an even greater need for five days of administrative 

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leave after a subsequent tour than after their first, he requested that OPM change 

its guidance and OPM responded favorably. 

In sum, granting OSC exclusive jurisdiction over all Federal sector USERRA cases 

would benefit Federal employee claimants by having a single, specialized agency resolve their claims, as evidenced by OSC’s track record in USERRA enforcement and 

its performance during the demonstration project. For these reasons, and given 

OSC’s almost 30 years’ experience in investigating and resolving Federal employment claims, Federal sector USERRA investigation and enforcement is a natural 

‘‘fit’’ for OSC and its mission. Moreover, such a change would free DOL–VETS from 

having to navigate Federal personnel law (OSC’s particular expertise), allowing 

DOL–VETS to focus on serving the larger volume of USERRA claimants from the 

private sector and those in state and local governments. 

Thus, the benefit to servicemembers would be doubly positive—for Federal servicemembers who would benefit from OSC’s specialized experience, and for non-Federal servicemembers who would benefit from greater attention to their claims at 

DOL–VETS. 

USERRA ‘‘SURGE’’ AHEAD? 

Today, America is in the middle of the largest sustained military deployment in 

30 years. That deployment is not limited to the approximately 200,000 servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan at this moment. In recent years, the number of members of the National Guard and Reserve mobilized at one time peaked at more than 

212,000. As of August 6, the Department of Defense reported that 107,754 members 

of the National Guard and Reserve had been mobilized and were on active duty. 

With Federal employees comprising about 25 percent of the National Guard and 

Reserve, will we see a ‘‘spike’’ in the number of claims filed by returning servicemembers who have been turned away from their employers? Will the government 

demonstrate its support for our troops by being fully ready to provide prompt and 

effective action on these claims? 

We don’t know when they will start returning home in greater numbers, boosting 

demand for USERRA enforcement. We believe that adequate information has been 

developed to support a decision by Congress to assign the task of investigating and 

resolving USERRA claims by Federal employees to OSC. We are poised to assume 

this responsibility and to do our part in making their transition back to civilian life 

as smooth as possible. 

Thank you for your attention and I look forward to your questions. 

f 

Prepared Statement of John M. McWilliam, Deputy Assistant Secretary, 

Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, U.S. Department of Labor 

Madam Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin, Ranking Member Boozman, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee: 

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss employment and reemployment concerns 

resulting from deployments and multiple deployments of Active and Reserve Forces. 

The mission of the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) is to provide veterans and transitioning servicemembers with the resources and services to 

succeed in the 21st century workforce. One of the most important ways that we 

meet that mission is by providing employment protections for servicemembers as 

well as National Guard (NG) and Reserve Component (RC) members through the 

Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act 1994 (USERRA). 

Congress enacted USERRA to protect the employment rights of the men and 

women who leave their jobs while serving as members of our active military, National Guard and Reserve. USERRA authorizes the Secretary of Labor (in consultation with the Secretary of Defense) to prescribe rules implementing the law as it 

applies to private, state and local employers. On December 19, 2005, VETS issued 

regulations to implement USERRA as it relates to those covered employers. These 

milestone regulations established the rules these covered employers must follow as 

well as spell out the legal rights for eligible servicemembers. 

Since the onset of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, over 1.6 million 

members of the active duty military have served in these two theaters. In addition, 

many of the Nation’s National Guard units and Reservists have also been called to 

active duty in support of the Global War on Terror and have served in these theaters or elsewhere. 

In fact, the Department of Defense (DoD) reports that over 600,000 National 

Guard and Reserve mobilizations have occurred since September 11, 2001. This represents the largest deployment of the National Guard in the past half century. 

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65 

What Returning Veterans Face When They Come Home 

These deployments create significant challenges for servicemembers and their 

families. Many members of the National Guard and Reserve are married and employed. Long tours of duty overseas interrupt their normal roles as workers, parents 

and members of the community. Lengthy tours of duty also challenge employers as 

they deal with these absences and with the reintegration of servicemembers back 

into the workforce. In addition, some National Guard and Reserve members are selfemployed or own a small business. Extended deployments may mean they face special problems, including economic losses or other adverse effects. 

To put this into perspective, each year, nearly 320,000 military members return 

to civilian status—either through retirement, voluntary separation from active duty, 

demobilization or discharge from the National Guard or Reserve, or as a result of 

a discharge due to disability. 

Servicemembers Need Good Information and Assistance When They Return 

to Their Civilian Lives and Jobs 

Servicemembers transitioning to civilian life from active duty must have good information as well as the tools and skills to enable a smooth transition back to civilian life. This information and assistance comes from many sources. 

DoD and each of the military services strive to assist servicemembers as they separate from active duty or demobilize and return to their civilian life and jobs. Active 

duty members participate in formal separation counseling and transition assistance 

programs when they are preparing for discharge. National Guard and Reserve commanders provide information and assistance to their members when they demobilize, so their members know how and where they can receive help if they need it. 

States also assist. Most states have created programs to increase public support and 

awareness of returning servicemembers. Services include outreach and family support activities, financial assistance such as emergency funds, educational assistance, 

mental health and other comprehensive services and assistance to augment the 

services provided by the federal government, including the Transition Assistance 

Program (TAP). TAP consists of comprehensive three-day workshops which are provided at selected military installations nationwide. Workshop attendees learn about 

job searches, career decision-making, current occupational and labor market conditions, and resume and cover letter preparation and interviewing techniques. Participants also are provided with an evaluation of their employability relative to the job 

market and receive information on the most current veterans’ benefits. DOL has 

also offered to provide TAP employment workshops to returning National Guard 

and Reserve members. 

Protecting Servicemembers’ Employment 

One of our Department’s top priorities is protecting our military members’ jobs 

when they’re called up to serve. We work hand in hand with DoD and Justice 

(DOJ), and the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) to enforce USERRA. 

The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act 

USERRA protects the public and private sector civilian job rights and benefits of 

veterans and members of the armed forces, including National Guard and Reserve 

members. The law prohibits employer discrimination due to military obligations and 

provides reemployment rights to returning servicemembers. DOL’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) not only investigates complaints by servicemembers and veterans, it also administers a comprehensive outreach, education, 

and technical assistance program here in the United States and around the world. 

VETS works closely with DoD’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Reserve Affairs’ Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) to ensure that servicemembers are briefed on their USERRA rights before and after they are mobilized. 

We conduct continuous USERRA outreach and education to inform servicemembers 

and employers on their rights and responsibilities under the law. Since most complaints result from a misunderstanding of the USERRA obligations and rights, we 

took an important step in 2005 to make it easier to understand the law by promulgating clear, easy-to-understand regulations in question-and-answer format. From 

the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, through the end of March 2008, VETS 

has provided USERRA assistance to over 535,000 servicemembers, employers and 

others. This includes 341 USERRA mobilization and demobilization briefings given 

to 267,000 servicemembers. The 2006 Status of Forces Survey reported that National Guard and Reserve Component members received an average of two USERRA 

briefings each, and only seven percent claimed to have experienced USERRA-related 

problems. We believe that this low rate of reported USERRA problems is due, in 

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66 

part, to our extensive outreach and education; the agency’s user-friendly 2005 regulations; the collaborative efforts of DOL, DOJ, OSC and ESGR; and to the tremendous support the vast majority of employers show for the Nation’s men and women 

in uniform. 

Our record in enforcing USERRA shows that we vigorously investigate complaints, and when employers do not comply with the law we make every effort to 

bring them into compliance. VETS does this through a nation-wide network of over 

100 highly skilled federal employees who are veterans employment specialists. Almost all are veterans themselves. They are trained to meet the many workplace employment needs of today’s servicemembers. VETS’ federal employment specialists 

are located where veterans need them most, and they are in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. These specialists conduct outreach and provide 

technical assistance to employers, servicemembers, veterans, and veterans’ organizations on employment and reemployment issues at the national, state and local levels, including at locations where servicemembers are demobilized. 

VETS teams with ESGR, the OSC, and DOJ to ensure the employment rights and 

benefits for returning servicemembers are protected. ESGR engages in a number of 

efforts to ensure employer support for the Guard and Reserve is sustained. ESGR 

also reinforces the relationship between employers and employees through informal 

USERRA mediation. DOJ and the OSC help enforce USERRA by representing 

USERRA complainants when DOL is unable to resolve the complaint and/or when 

the servicemember or veteran requests their case be referred. 

VETS has a decades-long history of protecting the rights and interests of American service men and women employed in both the public and private sectors by investigating complaints under USERRA and its predecessor laws. Complaints under 

the Veterans’ Reemployment Rights Act (VRRA), the predecessor to USERRA 

(USERRA was enacted into law by Public Law 103–353, October 13, 1994) peaked 

in 1991 following mobilizations for Operation Desert Storm, when claims topped 

2,500. After 9/11, USERRA complaints rose again, from approximately 900 per year 

to approximately 1,500 in FY 2004 and FY 2006. Complaints in FY 2007 decreased 

to 1,365. As the chart below shows, complaints during the Global War on Terror 

have never approached the Desert Storm high. Once again, we attribute much of 

this result to VETS’ comprehensive outreach and education efforts; our work with 

DoD and DOJ; the 2005 regulations; and, the strong support of those who employ 

our Nation’s servicemembers. In our view, the enactment of USERRA in 1994 also 

played a role, as the statute provided stronger protections and other improvements 

that resulted in a better understanding of the job rights and benefits of veterans 

and members of the armed forces. 

USERRA AND VRRA CASES OPENED 

(NOTE: VRRA cases are those prior to the enactment of USERRA on October 13, 1994) 

VETS is committed to continuous improvement of our USERRA investigative 

processes and our reporting to Congress on investigations. As a result of that commitment, we have made a number of investments to our USERRA program, and 

more are planned. For example: 

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67 

• We have established a corps of Senior Investigators and stationed one in each 

of our Regions. The Senior Investigators are highly specialized experts who are 

in constant contact with the VETS National Office and with their respective Regional Solicitor’s offices, and provide training and support to investigators in the 

field. • In February 2008, VETS implemented a new USERRA Operations Manual, and 

all of our investigative staff has been trained on its use. The new manual is 

electronic and provides search functions to enable investigators to quickly locate 

appropriate procedures and pertinent sections of law and regulation. The new 

manual clarifies procedures for notifying claimants of their right to referral, and 

for recording the appropriate case outcomes in the VETS investigative database. • In order to continue to ensure the privacy of our electronic investigative data, 

VETS moved its investigative database out of a secure contractor facility to its 

current location in the Department behind the DOL firewall. • VETS is enhancing and expanding its investigator training, to include classroom, online distance learning, and regional training seminars. • VETS has implemented new procedures for enumerating cases reported to Congress in order to eliminate any duplication. • In order to ensure that every case is looked at by at least two individuals, VETS 

is requiring that each USERRA case is reviewed by a higher-level supervisor 

before a claimant is notified of the results of our investigation. 

• We are evaluating currently available systems that would enable us to move to 

complete electronic case management. This would facilitate higher-level reviews 

within VETS to assist our investigators and improve communications on specific 

cases between VETS and our Solicitor’s office and between our Solicitor’s office 

and DOJ and OSC. 

• VETS is conducting an evaluation of the USERRA investigative process to examine the current process and identify program improvement strategies to increase efficiency and effectiveness. 

Protecting the Employment Rights of Servicemembers in Arkansas 

From the start of the Global War on Terror, we observed an initial increase in 

USERRA complaints in Arkansas, including 17 in FY 2002, 22 in FY 2003, and 30 

in FY 2004, although complaints have steadily declined over the past few years. In 

FY 2005, complaints dropped down to 27, and in FY 2006 complaints dropped down 

to 17, a decrease of nearly 40 percent. In addition to everything that VETS has done 

to work with both servicemembers and employers alike to decrease the number of 

USERRA complaints, the State of Arkansas has been a more than willing partner 

in these efforts. 

The State of Arkansas has a recently signed Memorandum of Understanding 

(MOU) between the Adjutant General of the Arkansas National Guard, the Director 

of the Arkansas Department of workforce Services and the Assistant Secretary of 

Labor for Veterans’ Employment & Training. This MOU outlines the new proactive 

reintegration program for National Guard and Reserve members returning to Arkansas as well as the continuum of care needed to support a normal life after redeployment for our soldiers and families. 

The new reintegration program provides the following schedule of services: 

• A first meeting is held 30 days after demobilization. This is a one-day event, 

coordinated by the Reintegration working group, held offsite within the local 

community with family members and support activities. This event gives the opportunity for families to come together and meet one-on-one with a number of 

agencies. Booths available to assist the Soldiers and families are: Military One 

Source, ESGR, VET Center, Judge Advocate General, Department of Education, 

Department of Veterans Affairs, Chaplain, the Arkansas Employment Agency, 

and Military and Family Life Consultant (MFLC). The intent is to offer any 

services that a soldier or family might need to assist the soldier with reintegrating into normal life. 

• A second meeting is held 60 days after demobilization. This is a two-day event, 

coordinated by the reintegration working group, held offsite at a retreat-type 

setting with family members and appropriate support activities. 

• A third meeting is held 90 days after demobilization. This is a two-day event 

at the Guard unit’s local Armory. It includes follow-up briefings by Post-Deployment Health Reassessment (PDHRA), and VA Dental in-processing. 

So far in Fiscal Year (FY) 2008, DOL/VETS has participated in two joint Reintegration Briefings with approximately 90 returning National Guard soldiers in 

attendance. At each of these briefings, DOL/VETS has provided information on employment and reemployment, and we have teamed with the Arkansas Department 

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68 

of workforce Services to ensure all returning servicemembers are fully aware of 

their rights and that they know where and how they can get help if they need it. 

The Arkansas National Guard Transition Assistance Advisor, Ms. Barbara Lee, is 

preparing a schedule for the return of the 39th Brigade, approximately 3,000 soldiers, at the end of this year or early next year. VETS will be there on-site to provide those returning servicemembers information on their rights under USERRA. 

Enforcement is a major focus of VETS, and potential violations of USERRA are 

taken very seriously. VETS has made it easier for a servicemember to determine 

if he or she has a valid complaint and if so, to file a USERRA complaint online 

through our interactive USERRA elaws Advisor. The Advisor leads the user through 

a series of questions and based on the responses, provides the individual with customized information on his or her eligibility, rights and responsibilities under the 

law. The elaws Advisor is available at www.dol.gov/elaws/userra.htm. 

Conclusion 

The United States has the best, most capable, most technologically advanced military in the world. The dedication to service and the willingness of our military to 

sacrifice in order to support our National security is extremely important. The men 

and women in uniform are the guarantors of our freedom and preserve our way of 

life. Our servicemembers are known for their intelligence, strong work ethic, loyalty, 

discipline, and leadership abilities. They have the highly sought after marketable 

professional qualities. Our country is a better and safer place because of them. 

DOL takes seriously its responsibilities for assisting our veterans, especially those 

returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, in: returning to their previous employment; 

finding good new jobs and careers; and protecting their job rights. These brave men 

and women are protecting our National security and we must do everything we can 

to help protect their economic and job security. 

Thank you for allowing me to testify before this Subcommittee today. I am prepared to respond to your questions. 

f 

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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

Committee on Veteran’s Affairs 

Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity 

Washington, D.C. 

August 26, 2008 

Mr. John McWilliam 

Deputy Assistant Secretary 

Veterans’ Employment and Training Service 

U.S. Department of Labor 

200 Constitution Ave, NW 

Room S-2220 

Washington, DC 20210 

Dear Mr. McWilliam: 

I am sending you some questions in reference to our House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity Field Hearing on Uniformed 

Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act and Servicemembers Civil Relief Act Issues on August 18, 2008. Please answer the enclosed hearing questions 

by no later than September 26, 2008. 

In an effort to reduce printing costs, the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, in cooperation with the Joint Committee on Printing, is implementing some formatting 

changes for material for all full committee and subcommittee hearings. Therefore, 

it would be appreciated if you could provide your answers consecutively on letter 

size paper, single-spaced. In addition, please restate the question in its entirety before the answer. 

Due to the delay in receiving mail, please provide your response to Ms. Orfa 

Torres by fax at (202) 225–2034. If you have any questions, please call (202) 226– 

4150. 

Sincerely, 

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, 

Chairwoman 

U.S. Department of Labor 

Office of the Assistant Secretary for 

Veterans’ Employment and Training 

October 7, 2008 

The Honorable Stephanie Herseth Sandlin 

Chairwoman 

U.S. House of Representatives 

331 Cannon House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515 

Dear Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin: 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s Economic Opportunity Subcommittee Field Hearing on August 18, 2008, to 

testify on the U.S. Department of Labor Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) and its administration of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA). 

Subsequent to the oversight hearing, the Subcommittee forwarded a question for 

the record to the Department of Labor. Our response to that question is enclosed. 

In accordance with your instructions, we have also provided this response to Ms. 

Ofra Torres via email and facsimile. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee and for your 

continued support of employment services for America’s veterans. 

Sincerely, 

John M. McWilliam 

Deputy Assistant Secretary 

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Question 1: Submit a list of U.S. Department of Labor’s USERRA related claims. 

This list should include the date the claim was opened and the closing date from 

2005 to 2008. 

Response: Rather than listing the over 3500 cases closed by the Department of 

Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) over these years, we 

developed the following table to facilitate the Subcommittee’s analysis of the length 

of time USERRA cases remained open in VETS over the years in question. The 

table indicates that in each year, from FY 2005 through August 2008, approximately 

85 percent or more of all cases were closed in 120 days or less. 

USERRA Cases Closed by U.S. Department of Labor Veterans’ Employment 

and Training Service (VETS), FY 2005 through August 2008 

Case Age at Closing 

(days) FY 2005 FY 2006 FY 2007 

FY 

2008 

thru 

August 

<30 404 529 418 412 

31 to 60 299 315 313 312 

61 to 90 201 221 199 233 

91 to 120 100 97 111 115 

121 to 150 53 65 65 80 

151 to 180 39 34 35 44 

181 to 210 22 16 18 18 

211 to 240 5 16 12 17 

241 to 270 15 9 7 9 

271 to 300 9 5 4 4 

301 to 330 5 3 4 4 

331 to 365 3 6 1 4 

365+ 6 5 6 12 

TOTAL1 1161 1321 1193 1264 

1These total case closures differ from the total closures reported in VETS’ USERRA Annual Reports to 

Congress because multiple closures of the same case have been eliminated in this table. This is not possible 

in annual reports because cases might be reopened and then closed in a later year. 

Æ 

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