Ind. Company Fires Guardsman, Apologizes

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Ind. Company Fires Guardsman, Apologizes
By Associated Press
7:43 AM PDT, June 22, 2007

GREENSBURG, Ind. -- A company that sent a termination
letter to an Indiana National Guardsman serving in Iraq
has retracted it and apologized to his family.

A human resources manager at the Delta Faucet Co. plant
in Greensburg sent the letter last week saying David
Veerkamp was being fired because he had not returned
from a yearlong leave of absence.

He was called to active duty in June 2006 and remains
deployed to Iraq.

-snip-

Maj. Rob Palmer of the Employer Support of the Guard and
Reserve agency said managers at Delta's corporate office
in Indianapolis overrode the termination letter after he
talked to them.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-termination-letter,1,170658.story

[northzax]

1. probably a simple clerical error

the computer sees someone hasn't come back from a leave of absence and spits out a letter. the system was probably never coded to include indefinate leaves for Guard service, since that wasn't really an issue before 2003.

good for the company for being responsive and apologizing.

[HereSince1628]

2. True, but a symptom of how compartmentalized the cost of this war

actually is. Direct payment for the war is buried out of sight by taxation. It's probably not cost effective for the company to implement code that inserts the exception, but, consider the impact on the guardsman.

It's just the old SNAFU.