WBD Employee Supported During Military Duty

August 5, 2020

WBD Employee Supported During Military Duty

By Brooke Davis, WBD Lead Consultant

WASHINGTON – For many Guardsmen, stepping away from employers due to an activation can be an incredibly stressful time. As a Public Affairs Officer, I’ve helped a lot of people navigate these challenges by linking them up with Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve resources. Educating employers on understanding protections to service members by the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act is a valuable tool when deployments and activations happen.

I am so grateful to WBD leadership for being supportive of me throughout my recent activation as a National Guardsmen. I felt supported and welcomed back to the team once my orders ended. Sometimes employers don’t understand why we get called away to support when disasters happen, but WBD is a veteran-owned small business and it shows. Understanding the intensity of supporting a military duty, WBD leadership frequently checked in on me to see how I was doing throughout my activation.

Just when my orders supporting COVID-19 operations were set to end, I was activated as part of the protest response. It was Sunday afternoon after my husband and I had been out hiking all day. I found myself frantically packing a bag for three days, throwing on my uniform and heading to the District of Columbia National Guard Armory.

For the next few weeks, it was chaotic and intense. I felt secure knowing I would be able to return to my job. Many of my fellow Guardsmen struggled to balance civilian duties while activated, but I was able to focus on serving.

When I returned to work full-time at WBD, I realized that co-workers might not understand the mission of our National Guard. So what are we doing? Let me share with you that presently, there are more than 69,000 Guard men and women engaged in homeland and overseas missions.

National Guardsmen are working with first responders to help with COVID-19 testing, helping protect national monuments, supporting food banks, conducting COVID mapping, assemble test kits and process unemployment claims. National Guard professionals continue COVID-19 response efforts in all 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia.

Nearly 32,000 National Guard members are supporting domestic operations across the United States at the direction of their governors as of July 15. This includes support to COVID-19, civil disturbance, and natural disaster missions such as floods and wildfires.

I’m proud to be able to serve our country during this time of pandemic and civil disturbances, which are both very challenging for our country.