Woman Fired for Seeing Her Husband Off to War

On October 16, Army Spc. Jerry Boler gathered with a group of other soldiers in his National Guard unit at an airfield in Indianapolis. Boler, 45, and his unit were being transferred to Fort Dix, NJ, for training, and from there they would be deployed to Iraq. The soldiers will be helping to guard convoys from insurgent attacks. Boler’s wife, Suzette, made plans to go with her husband of 22 years to see him off as he prepared to go to war.

Suzette asked for permission to take off work the week leading up to the day her husband was to depart. Suzette was a part-time employee at Benefit Management Administrators, Inc. As a part-time employee she wasn’t entitled to vacation pay or leave, so she wouldn’t be compensated for her time off. However, she told her bosses that she would try to return to the office on October 17, the day after her husband left, and if she couldn’t she would definitely be back on October 18. So on October 16, the 40-year old mother of three and grandmother of three went with her husband to the airfield and said her goodbyes, hugging her husband before he left to embark on what will surely be a dangerous mission serving his country. Suzette left that night and drove back to Michigan, probably crying all the way.

Suzette Boler didn’t realize it at the time, but another reason for crying was waiting for her in Michigan. She got home late and fell into bed, completely drained by the emotional ordeal. The morning of October 17 she was still not feeling up to par so she decided to wait until the next day to return to work, as she had arranged with her bosses. But that afternoon she received a call from work, telling her to come in the next day and pack up her things because she was being fired. "It was a shock," said Boler. "I was hurt. I felt abandoned by people I thought cared for me. I sat down on the floor and cried for probably two hours."

A spokesman for Benefit Management Administrators confirmed that Boler was let go when she didn’t report to work the day after she returned from saying goodbye to her husband. "We gave her sufficient time to get back to work," said Clark Galloway, vice president of operations for Benefit Management. Speaking to the Grand Rapids Press, Galloway added that other factors were involved in the decision to fire Boler, but he would not comment further on what those factors were. Boler has no idea what factors would have led the company to fire her for not being able to hurry back to work after a teary farewell to her husband. "If I had even an inkling that I would be fired for not coming in Monday, I would have been there," she said.