He served in Iraq, loses job back home

By Ray Rivera
Seattle Times staff reporter

	ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Dana Beaudine, with son Blaine, 3, and daughter Brianna, 7, was wounded in Iraq. He says that after he returned home, he felt distant from family and friends but, "I wasn't suicidal or homicidal or anything like that."
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Dana Beaudine was wounded in a mortar attack near the town of Basra in Iraq. But after he came home a decorated war veteran, he found himself facing a fight of another kind.

For the past six months, Beaudine has been trying to get his job back with Securitas Security Services USA, the nation's largest private security firm, which counts among its clients the federal government.

Beaudine, 34, worked as a guard at the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building in downtown Seattle before he was called up, serving in Iraq as a corporal in an Oregon National Guard infantry unit.

Wounded in action, Beaudine also was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, an ailment that alarmed Securitas but which Army psychiatrists said does not prevent him from returning to work.

Today, Beaudine finds himself in the company of thousands of other citizen soldiers who — despite federal law — are struggling to get back or keep the jobs they left behind.

Nearly 3,200 job-related complaints have been filed with the U.S. Labor Department by returning Guard and Reserve soldiers since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

While that number is small compared with the 361,000 Guard members and reservists mobilized in that time, labor officials acknowledged the numbers may begin to spike upward. "We haven't had a lot of problems so far because most of the reservists in Iraq haven't come home yet," said Vern Hagen, state ombudsman for the Employer Support for Guard and Reserves, a Defense Department agency that uses volunteers to mediate disputes between soldiers and employers.

Soldiers who come back with disabilities can face an added level of difficulty in returning to their jobs. Under the American with Disabilities Act, however, employers are required to find a job that can be performed by a veteran with a disability.

Cleared to work

Beaudine, who says he will sue Securitas in federal court to get his job back, worked at the Jackson building for about 10 months before he was deployed in December 2002.
 
Three months later, he was caught in a firefight and slammed to the ground by an enemy mortar. Beaudine said the blast left permanent nerve damage in a leg. He was sent home to recover at Fort Lewis, where his wife works as an Army finance specialist.

Initially, Beaudine said, he had difficulty readjusting to normal life. Friends and family felt distant. "I wasn't suicidal or homicidal or anything like that," he said. "I just found it difficult interacting with my kids and friends."

He saw an Army psychiatrist, who told him he had post-traumatic stress disorder, which afflicts up to 30 percent of combat veterans, according to the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Patients often relive the trauma through nightmares and flashbacks, have difficulty sleeping and feel detached or estranged.

Beaudine said his symptoms were mild and he was never prescribed medication. In October, the Army cleared him to work on weekends while he awaited his honorable discharge.

At the time of his deployment, his employer was Argus Services, a Spokane-based company that held the security contract for all federal buildings in the Pacific Northwest. His record with the company was unblemished, he said.

When he came back, Securitas had taken over the $12 million contract.

Securitas initially returned him to his post at the federal building. His duties consisted mainly of screening people as they entered the building. In fact, he said, neither the nerve damage nor the post-traumatic stress disorder kept him from doing anything in his job description.

But he was back on the job only a few days. The company, after learning secondhand about his injuries, asked him not to return to work until he supplied more information about his health, he said. In particular, Securitas wanted to know more about his diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.

'Raising the bar'

The company asked him for a list of all his medications, a signed release so it could review his medical records and a letter from Army psychiatrists saying he was fit to work.

Beaudine said it took time working through Army channels, but he met the company's requests. In a November document to Securitas, the chief of psychiatry at Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis and a second Army psychiatrist found Beaudine "mentally competent" to do his job.

Securitas then requested he undergo a "fitness-for-duty exam" with a psychiatrist of its choosing. At that point, Beaudine balked, saying the Labor Department had advised him such a screening was unnecessary.

"They just kept raising the bar on me," said Beaudine, a father of three from Spanaway.

Securitas declined to be interviewed for this story. A spokesman said the company did not want to talk about employment practices nor its dealings with Beaudine, describing that as a pending personnel dispute.

Securitas warned

In a Jan. 26 letter to the company, the Labor Department stated that after reviewing information from Securitas and Beaudine, it concluded the company was in violation of the Uniformed Service Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, a 1994 law that stiffened job-protection guarantees for returning soldiers. Securitas also got a warning letter from the human-resources director of the Oregon National Guard, who recommended Beaudine be allowed to return to work.

The company, however, resisted. In a Jan. 27 letter, the company's regional human-resources director, Felecia Clarke, informed Beaudine that unless he consented to the company's psychiatric exam, "we have no choice but to determine that you have chosen to quit."

Beaudine said he also sought help from the Federal Protective Service, the agency that oversees Securitas' contract, but to no avail. Contacted by The Seattle Times, the agency's regional director, Ken Spitzer, said he would look into the complaint. "I've asked for a brief on that this week, and I'll see what Securitas has to say also."

Securitas, a subsidiary of Swedish security conglomerate Securitas AB, employs some 93,000 people in the United States. In its literature, it states that hundreds of its employees are Guard and Reserve members and that their service to this country is appreciated.

Securitas also won an award last year from the Tennessee office of the Employer Support for Guard and Reserves for its support of the men and women deployed in the war on terror.

Which is what makes Beaudine's case so perplexing, said his lawyer, Charles Meyer.

Beaudine, who received several war medals, including a Purple Heart that soon will be awarded, said at this point all he wants is back pay and legal fees.

He said his family has been scraping by on his unemployment checks and his wife's income. Meanwhile, he spends his days taking care of his three children — a 7-month-old son, a 3-year-old son and a 7-year-old daughter — and looking for another job.

"You pull a National Guard guy out of his life and ask him to risk his life over there," said Meyer, "and this is how you treat him."

Ray Rivera: 206-423-4700 or rrivera@seattletimes.com

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