Marine Mom Forced To Choose Between Injured Son, Job

The law allows family members of injured service members up to 26 weeks unpaid leave to care for their loved one.

This is something every injured serviceman or woman's family needs to know. They do have rights under the law to protect their jobs. This is also something every parent should pay attention to. Think of how much you help your own adult kids. Getting them through college, supporting them when they don't make enough money on their jobs or when they lose the jobs. Helping them make car payments and insurance premiums. What average people are willing to do for their 20 something offspring's is astonishing but then add in when they are in the military and ended up wounded serving this country.

IED blasts have blown off limbs, bullets hit brains and other body parts and fires have burnt off skin. Add in the fear these parents have to go through when their kids are deployed and then the fear of the unknown when they are able to survive but then having to worry about keeping their jobs and paying their bills. It is a story that is repeated over and over again across the country.

Marine Mom Forced To Choose Between Injured Son, Job
By Nicole Ferguson

HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. – A Hopkinsville Marine mom said she was given an ultimatum in June. She could leave her injured son's bedside or lose her job.

"Before this happened I'd only missed a one day in over a year's time, and that was the day they put my mother on life support," said Susan Powell, a CNA at Western State Hospital. "I'd work overtime, never called in, so I just never thought they'd tell me my job was at risk."

On May 24, her 21-year-old son, Lance Corporal Franklin Powell, stepped on an IED in Afghanistan. Doctors determined much of the young Marine's leg would need to be amputated.

Powell said Western State Hospital had no problems letting her go to her son's bedside at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda Maryland on May 30.

The problems began a week into her second trip beginning June 16.

"They told me if I couldn't come back by Friday to work, my job would be terminated," said Powell of the phone call she received from Crown Services, a corporate office of Western State Hospital. "Once my situation allowed, I could come back and reapply."
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