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KIRKSVILLE, MO -- For 21-year-old Dakota Innes, serving his country has always been a dream, but the nightmare of finding employment with his obligations as a National Guard member seemed to scare some businesses away.

"I've always wanted to serve my country, but as well on the civilian side I thought it would help with finding employment and it really kind of surprised me and disappointed me that I was more or less discriminated against because of it," Innes said.

After some self employment work, he hadn't had a steady job in nearly four month, but it wasn't like he wasn't trying. He had been turned down for four jobs in that span.

"It really had me worried for a while," Innes said. "I had my family to worry about and I had just been laid off from a job and it was getting really rough for a while."

Then, Heather Condon of Broyles Transfer and Storage in Kirksville came into the picture. She and her husband, Lt. Jacob Condon, own the company. Of their eight employees, five have served or are serving our country.

"To be able to offer them that and to say 'we understand you're going to be gone for training, we understand you'll be gone for drills' and different things, that's just part of their life and duty to our country, and we owe it to them to offer them jobs," Heather Condon said.

Innes has been employed there nearly two months, but leaves for basic training Sept. 5. He'll be gone for 21 weeks, and with his wife, child and now another one on the way, having a job to come back to is that much more important. "It's a wonderful feeling. I don't have to worry about where my paycheck is going to come from when I get back home," he said.

Also, we've learned of a company out of Pennsylvania that wants to hire military veterans. It has three branches in Missouri -Mexico, Rolla and St. Louis.