In a repeat of events that occurred during the Gulf War, the Defense Department has begun to call up reserve troops---and workers, their families, and their employers are already beginning to feel the strain. Federal law requires private businesses to hire back reservists at their previous salary and seniority levels after their tours of duty are finished. As a result, companies are confronted with the difficult choice of shouldering the cost of hiring and training replacement employees only to lay them off when reservists return, or spreading the workload of called-up reservists among their other employees. Reservists and their families for their part must deal with an oftentimes enormous drop in family income.
See CARRIE JOHNSON, The Washington Post, September 18, 2001