Today, the GAO issued a new report regarding reservists and
National Guard professional licensing. And with all we have heard now
about the problems with troops coming home to financial hardships, you
would think they would at least pay attention to this issue. Well, we
are talking about the Bush Administration, so I guess this should be no
surprise. From the report....

Since 2001, the Department of Defense (DOD) has relied on more
than 600,000 members of the National Guard and Reserve components to
support various operations abroad and at home. In particular, from
September 2001 to July 2007, the department deployed more than 434,000
reservists to support operations in DOD's Central Command area of
responsibility that includes Afghanistan and Iraq. Furthermore, DOD has
modified its mobilization policy, which had previously limited the
cumulative amount of time that reservists could be involuntarily called
to active duty for the Global War on Terrorism. Under DOD's new policy,
which went into effect in January 2007, involuntary mobilizations for
reserve component service members are generally limited to no more than
12 months, and there are no cumulative limits on these involuntary
mobilizations. While on active duty, reservists may be unable to take
the required professional development courses or periodic tests needed
to retain their professional currency in fields such as accounting or
software engineering. The Uniformed Services Employment and
Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) protects rights of qualifying National
Guard members, reservists, and certain other members of the uniformed
services returning to their civilian employment after being absent due
to military service. The act, however, does not explicitly address issues related to licenses and certifications.

And of course, no one has even explored this issue...

The degree to which reservists serving on active duty have had
difficulty maintaining professional licenses or certifications in their
civilian careers is unclear, because neither DOD's Office of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs nor the reserve
components collect the necessary data to track and monitor the issue.
While all members of the Ready Reserve are required to provide their
civilian employment information upon joining the reserves and to review
and update that information each year, the required information
includes employment status, the employer's name, the employer's mailing
address, the civilian's job title, and the total number of years in the
current occupation, but does not include information on the impact
active duty service potentially has on maintaining licenses and
certifications.

Now I can tell you that in health care fields, getting your
license back after they have been expired can be a costly and time
consuming problem. First you have to take the continuing education
courses (which cost) then you have to pay for your license to be
re-instated (which costs more than a simple renewal.

But on the bright side, they can pay for and assist in such license renewal...

In a related action, the National Defense Authorization Act for
Fiscal Year 2006 gave the Secretary of Defense authority to pay for
expenses for members of the armed forces to obtain professional
credentials and necessary examinations as long as the credentials were
not a prerequisite for appointment in the armed forces, 15 and the
Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness
issued a memorandum 16 on February 12, 2007, establishing DOD policy
and guidance for setting up discretionary programs for the payment of
professional credentialing expenses to military members. According to
the memorandum, military departments may pay credentialing expenses if
the preponderance of a servicemember’s assigned military duties are
covered by the credential and the credential has been approved for
those assigned duties.

But as I mentioned already, they haven't been monitoring the need to do so. A kinda "don't ask, don't help" if you will.
With some showing as many as one in four vets from this war being homeless, I kinda doubt that ignoring their
occupational licenses and allowing them to expire has helped matters
much. Supporting the troops my rear...