By Howard Wilkinson
The Cincinnati Enquirer

As head of the Southwest Ohio Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve organization, Mark Wiete goes from one National Guard armory and military reserve center to the next, telling young men and women in uniform about their rights under the law.

Mark Wiete's son, Eric, 23, is a Marine stationed in Kuwait. (Steven M. Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

But whenever Wiete stands at the podium and looks out across a sea of young people in desert camouflage, he sees his son - a 23-year-old lance corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps and a gunner in an artillery battery.

"I look at them, and I see Eric sitting there," Wiete said.

Just a few weeks ago, Eric Wiete was at Camp Pendleton in California. He volunteered to go to Kuwait with an advance party to prepare the way for the main Marine force in anticipation of a war with Iraq.

For his parents, Mark and Donna, and their younger son, Kyle, a senior at Elder High School, feelings of enormous pride rest uncomfortably alongside anxiety and fear.

Wiete is the brand-new senior vice president and chief financial officer for First Financial Bank in Hamilton. Until recently, he was an executive with a Cincinnati bank.

But for the past two months, since the U.S. military buildup began, he has spent much of his time wearing his Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) hat, explaining what soldiers can expect from their civilian employers in the event they are called to active duty.

TELL US YOUR MILITARY STORIES

Hundreds of Tristate men and women in the U.S. armed forces are being deployed as the chance of war with Iraq increases. The Enquirer wants to tell the stories of those who serve, as well as the family left behind. If you are serving in the military, or if you have a family member overseas, and are willing to share your story please contact reporter Howard Wilkinson. • E-mail: hwilkinson@enquirer.com •Telephone: (513) 768-8388 or • Mail to Howard Wilkinson   The Cincinnati Enquirer   312 Elm St.   Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.

ESGR was created to encourage employers, big and small, to support employees in military reserve and National Guard units. It also helps employers understand that reservists and Guardsmen have rights under a federal law passed in 1994, the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act.

Under the law, employers must take back an employee who leaves for active duty military service and can't require an employee to use vacation time to fulfill their training obligations.

The agency depends on a nationwide network of 4,500 volunteers who act as ombudsmen, trying to resolve conflicts between employees and employers.

In Southwest Ohio, that person is Wiete.

He coordinates several other local volunteers. Under ordinary circumstances - when the nation is not preparing for war - Wiete makes regular rounds of Guard and reserve units in Southwest Ohio.

Now, with whole units being called to active duty and thousands of Guardsmen and reservists scrambling to take care of their personal business before being shipped out, Wiete has been concentrating on crowded and somewhat chaotic "family readiness" meetings held by each unit just before they ship.

The meetings, Wiete said, "are just an opportunity to remind them that, when they get back, we're here to help."

A reassuring voice

At the family readiness meetings, he is one of a string of speakers who march to the microphone and try to be heard above the din of yelling kids and crying babies.

"I do the short version of my speech at those meetings, because those guys are in information overload at that point," Wiete said. "There's just too much going on."

A month ago, Sgt. Anthony Spriggs of Forest Park heard Wiete and others talk to the Marines of Communications Co., Headquarters Battalion, at their family readiness meeting in Walnut Hills.

"If nothing else, they give reassurance," said Spriggs. "They can convey to the Marines that there are people who will look out for their interests and their families' interests while they are gone."

At the family readiness meetings, Wiete hands each soldier or Marine a packet that contains a luggage tag with the ESGR logo and toll-free number and a card that can be folded up and placed in a wallet detailing what the law allows.

"I just want to give them a reminder that we are here for them," said Wiete.

Wiete got involved with ESGR about six years ago when he was working at a bank in Charleston, W.Va.

He was chosen for a trip to Fort Bliss, Texas, for a "boss lift" - a program where business executives are flown to a military base to get a taste of what their employees face when they go on-duty.

"I got a good appreciation for the sacrifices these people make," Wiete said.

So he became the West Virginia state chairman. When he returned to his hometown of Cincinnati for a new banking job, he volunteered to be the Southwest Ohio chair.

"I didn't serve in the military myself, and I have always regretted it," Wiete said. "This is my way of making up for that."

"The phone rings a lot; it takes up a lot of time," he said. "But it is a small sacrifice compared to what these young men and women are doing."

A photograph of one of those young men in full-dress Marine uniform sits in an alcove, just inside the front door of the Wietes' home near Mack.

"We're quieter around the house than we used to be, a little more serious," Wiete said. "We're not laughing and joking around as much as we used to."

Communications with Eric are few and far between. His parents sit at home hoping that he will get access to a radio telephone to call them.

"You know how you sometimes get that pause on the line when a telemarketer calls you?" said Donna Wiete. "We used to just hang up the phone when we would hear that silent pause. Now we stay on the line, because it might be a call from Kuwait."

Eric asked that they send his brother's Elder High School rugby shirt so he could wear it in the desert, take a picture of himself and mail it back home to 17-year-old Kyle.

"He's a good kid," Wiete said, "They're all good kids over there."

E-mail hwilkinson@enquirer.com