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closeFrom the Editor: Guardsman fights to change ‘archaic’ law
Heather Meier
As a boy, Bryan Grenon wanted to be just like his dad — an officer in the Army. But he also had dreams about being a police officer.
The National Guard has allowed him to do both, working as a Seattle police officer while serving as a weekend warrior. It’s a commitment he’s willing to make because he enjoys what he does and he’s well aware of the sacrifices.
Bryan is also becoming an advocate for guardsmen throughout the state. He testified at a hearing in Olympia last week to increase military leave from 15 days to 30.
Things have changed since Sept. 11. Bryan, a lieutenant colonel with the 81st HBCT, spends all of his police department vacation training for future deployments with the guard.
“I don’t think a lot of people are aware of the situation it puts families in,” his wife, Monica, said.
Back in 2003, his unit was deployed for 18 months, including six months of training at Fort Lewis, before heading to Iraq. That presented a problem for many of the guardsmen to be away from home for such a long time. So the Guard changed the length of time to 12 months overseas without any real training time beforehand.
That’s a problem, Bryan says. There’s still training that needs to be done, but now there isn’t time. Guardsmen are granted only 15 days of leave. That time has to come from somewhere and generally it is robbed from their personal lives.
It doesn’t have to be that way, though. When Bryan learned that California’s Guard gets 30 days of leave, he wrote a letter to Rep. Dawn Morrell suggesting a change in policy. A bill was drafted that passed 98-0 in the House of Representatives last year, but failed in the Senate Elections and Operations subcommittee without even a hearing.
A new bill this year — House Bill 1127 — again proposes 30 days of leave. Bryan testified at a hearing in Olympia last Friday.
“I’m optimistic that it will go further,” he said. The law would only impact government employees but he’s hoping it would have an influence on the private sector.
Thirty days of military leave would allow him to be a guardsman, a police officer and a dad who attends his children’s sporting events. That hasn’t happened since he returned from the Middle East in 2005.
When he first joined the Guard, his one weekend a month commitment consisted of Saturday and Sunday. It’s now Thursday through Sunday. For the past 10 months he’s had to take off a half-day from work every week to attend meetings. Not to mention two weeks in the field. Fifteen days of military leave doesn’t begin to cover his Guard requirements, so he has to dip into his vacation time to the point of exhausting it.
Monica said her husband constantly apologizes for missing family outings but there’s not much else he can do. Still, it’s hard for Bryan and his family, especially knowing that he’ll be returning to the Middle East soon. He feels his family suffers at times.
But Bryan doesn’t regret his choice to serve his country. He would just like to see an “archaic” law updated.
“It would be an understanding of how the National Guard and Reserve have changed,” he said.