Thursday, August 19, 2004
BY LISA KLIONSKY
News Staff Reporter

For those who serve in the reserves or the National Guard, being called up to active duty doesn't just mean leaving behind their families, jobs and everyday life.

Often there's a loss of part of their paychecks - as local soldiers who've been deployed to Iraq or other places recently have discovered.

For many, military pay is considerably less than their civilian wages. The financial loss is on top of the emotional and day-to-day logistical challenges such deployments pose for many families.

When Tim Baker, 33, left his Washtenaw County corrections job temporarily to serve with the 303rd Military Police Unit as an Army reservist in 2002-03, he lost $1,224 a month in pay.

It was rough, he says, for his wife and two children. The biggest challenge was child care, he says. Normally when he's home, he watches their children after school two days a week while his wife works. "But with me gone, it'd be five days of a baby-sitter."

For some families, the economic effects have outlasted the deployment itself.

Brian Coles, a National Guard soldier from Ann Arbor, and his wife Kathy are already bracing for another potential deployment as early as January, while they are still trying to recover financially from his most recent call-up.

Coles, 34, returned from duty in May after being away 14 months with the Michigan Army National Guard 156th Signal Battalion in Iraq. While he was away, Coles received no supplemental pay from his civilian construction job, said his wife, Kathy. He returned to work in July.

Kathy Coles, 40, says that the 14 months her husband was away were financially hard for her and their 7-year-old son Cody. "We had pretty much budgeted for the year. But around Christmas, it started getting really hard because his pay had been cut almost in half," she said.

The military's housing supplement, food allowance and separation pay helped, "but still, when you added everything up, we did take a pay cut," Coles said.

Then, Coles lost her job while her husband was gone.

"I was thrown into being a single parent, so if my son had a doctor appointment or wasn't feeling well, the employer felt I was missing too much time," Coles said. She worked at the same company as her husband.

"We're still feeling the effects," Coles said. "We're still trying to get some past bills caught up."

Earlier this month, Ryan Cavanaugh, a Washtenaw County sheriff's deputy and an Army reservist, went before Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners asking for supplemental pay for himself and other county employees when they are called up for active duty.

Washtenaw County does not supplement the pay during deployment, although county commissioners are exploring the possibility for county employees who are in the reserves or National Guard.

In early 2003, Washtenaw County found a half-dozen of its employees were in the reserves or Guard but took no action to supplement their pay, said Bob Guenzel, county administrator. Washtenaw County does offer supplemental pay for two weeks of military training during the summers, he said.

Some counties do make up the pay difference. Monroe County supplements the pay for its sheriff's department employees who are deployed. Sheriff Tilman Crutchfield said a deputy sheriff and a corrections officer have received such pay.

"I requested this through the county Board of Commissioners, and I did that because I was involved in Desert Storm and I worked for the State Police, and the state didn't subsidize. It creates a hardship for employees who go into the military at a lower-paying position," Crutchfield said.

Crutchfield said he'd like to see supplemental pay for other Monroe County employees who take military leaves,

The state has a rule for emergency military leaves for its employees that covers the reserve and National Guard, said Joe Slavensky, public information officer with the Michigan Department of Civil Services. It makes up the difference between state salary and the salary they receive when they're called up, he said.

Yet even for those who receive no supplemental pay, deployment isn't always an economic loss.

"Not everybody loses money when they get deployed. A lot of our soldiers are young kids. Maybe in college. So when they're deployed, they make money," said Capt. Dawn Dancer, spokeswoman for Michigan's National Guard.

Dancer also said that the guard has funds to which a lot of soldiers and retirees contribute.

"We try to take care of any family or soldier having financial trouble, or any other troubles," she said. "We truly try to take care of our own."

For the Taylor family of Brighton, looming far larger than any financial strain are the emotional and day-to-day aspects of deployment.

Bradley Taylor, 42, is in Tennessee, where he's been deployed since February as an optometrist and officer with the Tennessee Air National Guard under Operation Enduring Freedom, a part of the Homeland Security order, said his 42-year-old wife Catherine. He also was deployed from October 2001 until April 2003 in Tennessee.

When he's in Tennessee, he's away from his civilian job as an optometrist with the University of Michigan's Kellogg Eye Center; he receives no pay from U-M while deployed.

Having her husband deployed stateside hasn't "been a terrible hardship because President Bush has given military personnel raises and that has helped, and my husband has been promoted to lieutenant colonel, so financial hardship is not an issue, except for when he travels home," said Taylor said.

That travel bill must be footed by the Taylor family and is not paid for by the National Guard.

Harder though, says Taylor, a physical therapist, "is the separation. That's been the toughest, when he can't be at our children's activities. Financially is not much of a concern."

What's hard "is him being away and missing out on all the special things that are a part of family life."

Still, Taylor says, since it's the second time around in the past four years, "we're a little better prepared. I've been able to deal with it better this time around."

Rebecca Cummings, 43, of Milan, also found the emotional aspects tougher to deal with than financial issues during her husband's deployment in Iraq. Her husband Steven, a senior noncommissioned officer, returned from Iraq with the Michigan Army National Guard 156th Signal Battalion in May.

"It wasn't such an issue financially as it was emotionally," Cummings said, particularly for her youngest son, who is 9.

Cummings said she had begun taking classes at Eastern Michigan University prior to her husband's recent 14-month deployment. She hopes to pursue clinical psychology work.

The EMU classes, she said, "kept me sane while my husband was gone. Between that and my kids, they kept me from going nuts."