Employers gear up for National Guard deployment
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| Photos by Alex T. Paschal/SVS Sgt. 1st Class Rick Godman places a picture of his children Joshua, 11, and Katlyn, 8, back on his toolbox at his job at Dixon Ford. Godman helped recruit two of his co-workers, and all three will be deployed to Afghanistan this summer. |
BY OLIVIA COBISKEY
SVS REPORTER
ocobiskey@svnmail.com
They deliver our mail, collect our trash and keep our streets safe.
They are members of the Illinois National Guard, and when they are not wearing a uniform and carrying a gun, they are working regular jobs in the community.
When a unit deploys, it creates a vacuum employers must fill for a year or more.
"It's not just Dixon, it's not just Aurora, it's all the towns between. The 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team pulls soldiers from the entire state of Illinois," said Sgt. 1st Class Rick Godman, of Dixon, who will be shipping out this year.
More than 3,000 Guard members - nearly a third of the state's 10,000 - are gearing up for the largest Illinois National Guard deployment since World War II. The 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team will spend a year in Afghanistan. That includes the 2nd Squadron, 106th Cavalry, made up of Dixon's Bravo Troop and units from Aurora, Kewanee and Pontiac.
Eighty-one soldiers based in Dixon will be a part of this deployment.
That means employers must hire and train temporary workers or redistribute tasks among their other employees.
"As far as my employer (Pat Moss) goes, he's been very helpful," said Godman, a mechanic at Moss' Dixon Ford Lincoln Mercury Volkswagen and Mazda. "He's family first. It's the same with the military. I have no problem taking time off if I have to take time off for the military, he's been an excellent employer, with him being prior military, he knows what it's like."
Dixon Ford will lose three employees to the deployment - Godman, Spc. Ryan West, 22, and Pvt. Jacob Thompson, 21.
"Usually, people step up and keep the business on track," said Godman, 37, who has worked at the dealership for 18 years. "It's tough when the soldier comes back. What do you do with the person you've trained?"
And it becomes more complicated with specialty jobs like his - Godman is the dealership's only Ford senior master mechanic.
Scott Moss, the dealership's service and parts director, said the deployment will spread the department a little thin, but the dealership is part of a group of 13 dealerships, and Dixon Ford hopes to borrow employees from the others to keep them going.
Regardless, the men will have their jobs when they return, Moss said. He's an Army veteran, and his brother, Pat, was in the Air Force.
"I can really appreciate what they are going through," Scott Moss said. "Always being on call. These guys are the reason why we live in a free country. If nobody did that, then where would we be?"
This deployment will be the second time the Illinois State Police loses one of its investigators.
Sgt. 1st Class Michael Kuba spent 18 months in Iraq in 2004 and '05, and he is expecting to deploy to Afghanistan this year.
"It leaves quite a hole when someone as talented as Mike leaves," said his supervisor, Keith Owano, a master sergeant with the department's Medicaid Fraud Control Bureau.
Like many employers, the State Police can't simply hire temporary workers to fill in, Owano said. Kuba's cases will fall to the remaining investigators, while some will be set on a back burner until he returns.
"Obviously, we hate to lose talented people, but when it comes to the Guard, we've got to support them, the work they're doing is important," Owano said.
That's something Maj. Gen. William Enyart, the state's National Guard Adjutant General, loves to hear. The support of Illinois employers is necessary for the Guard to succeed, he said.
"Guard is like a three-legged stool. The three legs of that stool consist of the soldier, the family and the community and employer," Enyart said. "Without any one of those legs, the stool topples over."
This deployment is expected to last no more than 12 months, three of which will be training.
"The concept is that we don't want to take these soldiers out of their homes, out of their communities, out of their jobs for any longer than we absolutely have to," Enyart said. "So, what we're doing is giving them a lot of training in advance now. We give it to them on weekends, on extended weekends and before they ever go, so that we don't have to have them gone for 15 months, 18 months, 20 months."
Reach Olivia Cobiskey at (815) 625-3600, (815) 284-2222 or (800) 798-4085, ext. 570.
