Companies try to fill gaps for veterans

Preparing for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, 300 Illinois Marine reservists found themselves in Kuwait poised for combat but without tools to maintain their vehicles.

Feverish attempts at swaps, trades and favors proved fruitless. So Marine reservist Chuck Brewer improvised, sending e-mail to his private-sector employer, Hoffman Estates-based Sears.

"Next thing we knew there were $10,000 worth of Craftsman tools in Kuwait City," said Brewer, a USMC major and a Sears vice president. "It was like Christmas in the summertime for us."

It's one of example of how local companies and nonprofit groups continue to be an essential part of the U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, filling in gaps for servicemen and women while they're serving and when they come home.

While programs exist to help returning vets keep their homes and find jobs, there's nothing all-encompassing. And some returning veterans, with finances in disarray, are losing their homes to foreclosures. And then there's the cost of making homes accessible for seriously injured vets.

Local companies, including Sears, are trying to help in this area as well.

Sears Holdings celebrated its military ties and programs Wednesday with a ceremony in the atrium of its Hoffman Estates headquarters, attended by active duty military personnel and Sears employees.

With 540 active reservists, Sears pays the difference between an employee's military pay and their pay at Sears. It also allows them to continue all their benefits for 60 months from the time of deployment.

Deerfield-based Walgreen Co., which also makes up the pay differential, offers similar benefits for 42 months after deployment.

"It's very reassuring that when you are deployed that your family will not face financial hardships," said Brewer, who has completed two tours in Iraq.

Employers are required to give returning veterans their jobs back. But health benefits and pay differentials while away are not required.

And some reservists come from businesses not easily left unattended.

"I knew a lot of doctors and dentists that came back and their businesses had just dried up," said Lt. Col. Michael Pyle, who heads a six-person Allstate office in Evanston.

As a reservist, the Allstate agent served nine-month tours in Bosnia and at Fort Sheridan while his business operated without him. Allstate supplements its employee pay, but Pyle is an independent contractor whose paycheck hinges on his sales.

Still, he said Allstate's support and his staff kept his business alive.

"There's always the concern about coming back to the office and locks on the doors and everything is in hock," Pyle said. "I could have been a lot different without a well-trained staff and the company support that I got."

But some businesses don't survive the extended tours and some returning non-reservists don't have pre-military service jobs to return to.

Helping to fill that void is the Fairfax, Va.-based United States Association of Veterans in Business, a trade association that assists many entrepreneurial-minded returning veterans through seminars, outreach programs and counseling.

Elgin-based entrepreneur Jerry Paulsen is an Army veteran and an active member of the Veterans in Business association.

Paulsen donates his time for a program he developed named "Service to Success," daylong seminars counseling veterans on issues from applying for federal procurement contracts to management skills.

Recently named the 2008 U.S. Small Business Administration Veteran Business Champion of the Year, Paulsen works with small-business development centers at local community colleges to reach out to veterans.

"After my last seminar at McHenry County College in May, the (small-business development center) started working with 13 new veteran businesses," Paulsen said.

Some nonprofits focus much of their efforts on providing household assistance, according to John Revell, a spokesman for Radcliff, Ky.-based nonprofit USA Cares.

"Some of these people left pretty high-paying jobs when they left and, unfortunately, got (adjustable rate mortgages), which along with the reduced pay means they're getting hit hard," Revell said.

One of Sears' initiatives is called "Heroes at Home," which provides volunteers to provide necessary repairs or adaptations for military households.

Locally, newly discharged, homeless, unemployed and disabled veterans get a helping hand from Stand Down for Veterans in Algonquin.

Still, although such public and private assistance may be considered innovative, it is not unprecedented.

"As much as the military attempts to anticipate the needs that arise as the result of service, it is not always successful at anticipating those needs," said David Cortes, a Chicago businessman and USA Cares donor. "America has a long tradition of filling that void with charitable or nonprofit organizations."