Debra Muhl, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, is a military nurse who has served in combat zones for 30 years. She works for Sutter Health, a health care provider in the Bay Area, as administrative director of the joint cardiac program

Or rather, she used to work for Sutter Health.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, she was fired last June just two days after letting her supervisor know that she was being sent to Iraq. Now, she has filed a federal lawsuit and it promises to be a very interesting case:

A military nurse who has served in combat zones for 30 years today sued her civilian employer, Sutter Health, alleging the company violated federal law by firing her after she told her supervisor she was being deployed to Iraq.

The federal lawsuit, filed in San Francisco, accuses Sutter Health of violating the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 — USERRA — by firing Debra Muhl, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, in June 2006…

…Muhl, 56, said she worked at Sutter from 2002 to 2006, most recently as administrative director of the joint cardiac program. She was called up to active duty status several times during that period, including in March 2003 for 10 months and twice in 2005 for military training.

In her complaint, Muhl alleges that her supervisor, Richard Gray, the cardiac program’s medical director, found her deployments frustrating, at one point instructing her to file a complaint with Congress seeking to get out of the military. As a compromise, Muhl said, she requested a transfer to a unit with fewer deployments.

Nevertheless, in late December 2005, she learned she would be going back to Iraq for several months. Gray was visibly angry by the news, Muhl said, and two days later called her into his office.

“You had news for me on Tuesday, now I have news for you,” Muhl recalled Gray saying. “You will not have a job when you return from the desert.”

Interestingly, a Sutter Health brochure I found via Google touted Muhl’s service a few years ago. Here’s a screenshot:

A recent USA Today highlighted other reservists facing similar problems with employers:

The number of reservists and National Guard members who say they have been reassigned, lost benefits or been fired from civilian jobs after returning from duty has increased by more than 70% over the past six years.

The sharp spike in complaints brought to the U.S. Labor Department reflects the extensive use of part-time soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the largest call up of reserves since the 1950-53 Korean War.

About 500,000 of the 850,000 reservists and National Guard members eligible for duty have been mobilized since late 2001, said Maj. Rob Palmer, spokesman for a Pentagon office that tries to resolve job disputes.

Not all have been treated well by their employers when they return home.

After the 1991 Gulf War, “I was welcomed home with ticker tape,” said Marc Garcia, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves. “This time, I get the door slammed in my face.”

Garcia, a member of the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, has been called up twice since Sept. 11, 2001, once for Afghanistan and the last time for stateside duty.

Garcia, 44, had been a supervisor in the Miami office of the security bureau. When he returned to work early last month, he was given a desk job in Washington with no clear responsibilities, he said.

Last month, a judge in Atlanta ruled that the State Department violated Garcia’s rights under a 1994 law, which requires employers to give returning reservists their old jobs or equivalent positions. The law was passed to address employment problems faced by veterans returning from the 1991 Gulf War.

The Labor Department said it handled 1,548 complaints from returning service members in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, up from 895 in the year that ended Sept. 30, 2001. About a third of the cases are resolved in favor of employees, the department said.

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