When The Washington Army National Guards 81st Heavy Brigade Combat Team deployed to Iraq in 2008, a series of tremors were beginning to rock the U.S. economy. The housing bubble was about to burst. Banks were teetering. Stocks were tumbling. And companies were scaling back budgets and laying off employees. Many deploying troops who would otherwise have been unemployed were on active duty. Tom Riggs, the transition coordinator for the Washington Guard, understood that many soldiers would need help when they returned home. "We knew that we would have a pretty high unemployment rate when they came back," says Riggs.
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