Army National Guard Major Selina Herndon recently did an interview with the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she was asked how well her unit did once back home following a year-long deployment to Iraq in 2008-2009. She replied:
The only thing I had an issue with is that no one reported that they were having any post-traumatic stress issues in theater until they came back, and then I had Soldiers over at the Wounded Warrior Program and I’m wondering, “What the heck are you doing over there?”
They reported nothing in theater, and when we came back, I had four Soldiers hanging out over there. That kind of affected me a little bit because I wondered if they had played the system trying to get more money.
I do not know, sometimes for National Guard when you come back, your job is not always waiting on you. If your job was downsized, they can let you go just because the company has downsized. I do not know if they were staying on it because they did not have a job to come back to. If so, I guess I can kind of see that, but there were four who went there.