Lieutenant Colonel Debra Muhl of the U.S. Air Force Reserve got fired from her job at Sutter Health two days after she told her supervisor she was being deployed to Iraq. Now she filed a lawsuit.
“Colonel Muhl is an honest-to-goodness war hero,” her attorney said. “She has treated thousands of wounded individuals and service members …”
Sutter Health insists that Muhl’s termination was based on internal economics only.
While I’m not qualified to comment on the legal merits of the case, I do recognize a major blunder when I see one. Whether the firing was lawful or not, the PR nightmare of firing a military hero (and wherever we are on the Iraq war issue, we have to recognize her as such, not being in an active combat position but saving lives) .. anyway, repairing the PR damage from firing a war hero will far outweigh the savings from whatever “internal economics” Sutter Health referred to.
Sutter Health could not have made a more stupid decision.
(full story at the San Francisco Chronicle)
Thankfully, lt Col Muhl survived the ravages of war…the same will not be true for Dr. Dick (-less wonder) Gray when Sutter is forced to settle to make right what he did; I expect they’ll also sh–can him for his gutless, unsupportable action.