On a sunny Saturday morning in April 2004, Maj. Ed Winkler posed with his family on the front steps of their West Linn home. Ed, recently returned from Iraq, was in his desert fatigues holding Hunter, the child born seven months earlier while he was stationed south of Baghdad. Ed's wife, Brenda, stood next to him, her short hair tucked around a small hearing aid — the result of a stress-related condition she contracted while Ed was away. Chase, 7, and Ryann, 4, filled in around their parents.

Brenda's mom snapped the photo. Later, Ed inserted the digital image into a business letter that he mailed to current and former customers of Fresh Aire, the small janitorial products company he and Brenda run out of their house.

The letter said, in effect: I've been fighting for my country in Iraq. Now I'm back and I want your business.

When Ed Winkler was called up in February 2003, Fresh Aire had 1,800 accounts servicing air fresheners in apartment complexes, offices and industrial shops. But that client list dwindled over the course of his deployment, as a Seattle-area competitor steadily chipped away at the customer base.

Now, the smiling face of Fresh Aire was back in town with a war story to tell. Winkler, 39, stands 6 feet 2 inches, with spiky blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. He has learned to speak in slow, clear sound bites about the three ideas he deems worth fighting for — "God, country and family."

Armed with what he'd seen and learned during his Oregon National Guard battalion's 91-day mission to protect American supply routes on the road to Baghdad, Winkler figured he was his own best weapon in the struggle to get back the customers he'd lost. "The average American wants to be associated with soldiers who are strong, who represent humanity," he says.

In the letter announcing his return, Winkler offered to show his customers a homemade DVD presentation about his tour of duty. It begins with pictures of Iraqis he got to know during his deployment, and ends with a short segment of American flags blowing in the breeze. Celine Dion sings God Bless America in the background.

"I don't have a problem using my war experience to forge and foster relationships that can help my business," says Winkler. "It personalizes what we do, so it's not just an air freshener up there on the wall but a family with a rich history."

Having survived a dangerous deployment, many Oregon National Guard soldiers are now returning to a turbulent economic landscape. Federal law ensures that guardsmen can have their jobs back when they return, even be eligible for promotion. And it's clear that today's Iraq War veterans enjoy more public support than vets have in generations. They're coming home to a hero's welcome, including a call by Gov. Ted Kulongoski, himself a Vietnam-era vet, to "Give 'em a job."

But more than a third of those who have been mobilized didn't have a steady job to begin with. And many others, like Winkler, left behind small businesses that couldn't grow — or even tread water — while they were away. Now, they're having to get creative as they hang up their combat fatigues and face Oregon's still-struggling economy.

MORE THAN 8,000 MEMBERS of the Oregon National Guard, and many more active-duty soldiers from the state, have mobilized since 9/11. Approximately 2,100 guardsmen went to Iraq and Afghanistan, and close to two-thirds of them are now back home. As troops have returned, state legislators have moved forward a raft of proposals to increase death benefits, health care options, higher education opportunities and tax breaks for returning soldiers.

Lancair in Bend has offered up 100 positions for the veterans, and the Bonneville Power Administration is holding slots open. Small outfits across the state — printshops, housepainters and landscapers — are seeking out vets. "It's starting to hit home with businesses," says Guard spokeswoman Kay Fristad. "There's not a community in the state that isn't affected."

The U.S. Small Business Administration is having mixed results helping Oregon guardsmen get back on their feet. Response has been tepid to the SBA's offers of business coaching and lower franchise fees on chain restaurants. Capt. Jeff Croy, a reintegration officer for the Guard, says many returning soldiers are wary of resumŽ writing, interviewing and prospecting for small-business loans. "When you haven't been in a normal operating society and haven't seen a traffic light for a year, that normal stress becomes heightened," he says.

When Croy mobilized in February 2003, he left behind a wife, two teenage daughters and a six-figure salary managing a Portland-area call center for a national bank. He figured he'd be home by August, but summer dragged into fall, and in October, Croy got a letter in Balad, Iraq, where he was stationed. His bank had been purchased and shut down. "The letter said, 'Thanks for your service, the severance check is in the mail,'" Croy remembers.

Croy now counsels returning guardsmen looking to bulk up their education credentials. The state board of higher education recently approved measures to waive all tuition costs for returning guardsmen and reservists, to supplement the $4,500 they get for education under the federal G.I. Bill. Croy, who has an MBA from Marylhurst University, says the waiver will help many returning soldiers who are considering a full-fledged career change. "They've been pouring concrete for five years, and now they're looking to get into an office environment," he says.

Croy sees fellow guardsman Ed Winkler's situation as a watershed opportunity as well. "If I was in business for myself, when I got back I would go explain to my customers what I went through," he says. "I'd play [the war] up, try to leverage it if I could."

THE WINKLERS STARTED FRESH AIRE in March 1995. They were looking for a home-based business, and Ed's father-in-law, who runs a local janitorial company, helped them sketch out a business plan to service about 300 air freshener accounts per month.

The technology is low-tech. Inside the plastic box of an air freshener is a metal cup of fragrance liquid and two or three thick paper wicks that draw up the liquid. Above sits a battery-operated plastic fan the width of a racquetball. To service an air freshener, you change the wicks, add more fragrance and replace the battery when it's dead.

Ed generated his initial client list by working the crowd at local chamber of commerce lunch meetings. He also sought out neighbors, parishioners at the Mormon church he attends, the guy who fixed his car — anyone who might spend $10 a month to sweeten the air with mulberry or apple jack scent.

By the time Chase, the Winkler's first child, was born in 1997, there was enough income for Brenda to leave her 9-to-5 job at a contracting company. In 2001, Ed was able to ramp down the equipment-leasing operation he ran on the side. The family settled into a two-story home on a quiet street, with a 35-inch TV, a leather mechanical massage chair in the playroom and the sweetest-smelling garage in Oregon.

Then came Sept. 11, 2001. Winkler, who grew up in a military family in Florida and spent two years on active duty before becoming a guardsman, was ready to go. He and Brenda had already streamlined the billing and inventory system so she could run the company smoothly from home. They also added service people so Fresh Aire could maintain accounts without Ed. "The business could survive, it just couldn't grow," he says.

In April 2003, Winkler's unit deployed to Kuwait. By then, Brenda was pregnant. Ed left a poignant letter saying that if he never saw their new child, he was certain they'd be together throughout eternity. "I thought I was as good as dead," he remembers.

Winkler was in command of 168 Oregon Guard soldiers, and their first assignment was to provide security for a naval base in Kuwait. But in July 2003, Winkler got orders to take his men into Iraq to patrol a stretch of the main American supply route 25 miles south of Baghdad. The area, called 7B, hugged a six-lane highway running past mud-and-brick farm compounds and fields bordered by irrigation ditches. It had been under steady attack from Saddam loyalists, and American soldiers skirmished with insurgents almost daily. It was, says Winkler, "the real thing."

EARLIER THAT SPRING, Brenda Winkler started getting calls from her service staff and clients, saying that customers were leaving Fresh Aire for a Washington-based competitor called Pacific Breeze.

At Center Commons, a mixed-income apartment complex that perches above I-84 in Northeast Portland, community manager Megan Fraction says Pacific Breeze's Oregon sales rep offered her air fresheners with new enzymes that would neutralize the complex's overpowering cooking smells. She switched suppliers. "The place stinks," she explains.

At Hathaway Court in Wilsonville, assistant manager Heather Turner liked Pacific Breeze's offer to consolidate air freshener maintenance and bathroom paper service. Turner felt bad taking business away from the Winklers during Ed's deployment. "But my priority is this property," she says, "and any time you simplify things, that's great."

Jim Shulevitz, who runs Indoor Bill-board, a Portland company that provides industrial laundry and janitorial products, says it's common in the business to call on a competitor's customers. "It's much harder to go out and get a virgin account," he says.

But Brenda Winkler didn't want to do battle. She says she called Pacific Breeze and asked the company not to target her customers for six to eight months, when she hoped Ed might return. But the client losses continued. Ultimately, Fresh Aire's business shrunk by 25%.

Pacific Breeze's prospecting angered Charlie Cabrera, a close friend of the Wink-lers who operates a Vancouver air freshener company and helped Brenda service Fresh Aire's clients. "Here's Ed out fighting for their freedom and they're running around trying to take his business," says Cabrera. "They weren't being very patriotic."

But Capt. Jeff Croy, the Guard reintegration specialist, doesn't criticize Winkler's competitor for grabbing some of Fresh Aire's customers while the guardsman was away. "I don't have any heartburn for a guy trying to improve his business," he says. "If I had my own business, I'd expect that to happen."

Meanwhile, the decline of the family business and the imminent arrival of her child were getting to Brenda. Doctors told her she had Meniere's disease, an ear malady that manifested itself in

12-hour periods of extreme nausea and dizziness, and was likely due to stress.

In Iraq, Ed tried to remain detached about the company's client losses. "I decided there's nothing I can do about it right now so I'm not gonna worry about it," he says.

ED WINKLER RETURNED FROM IRAQ in the spring of 2004 and quickly started calling on customers again.

He also called Pacific Breeze general manager Chris Wytovicz, deciding that a little diplomacy wouldn't hurt Fresh Aire's comeback. Winkler explained his "abundance theory" — that there were more new customers out there than could ever be served, so it didn't make sense for the companies to be targeting each others' accounts.

As Winkler remembers the conversation, Wytovicz replied that every day in business is like a battle. "You don't have to tell me about going to war," Winkler says, his adrenaline pumping. "I'm capable of fighting my own fight and fighting for others, too." (Wytovicz would not answer questions for this story, other to than to acknowledge that he spoke to Winkler).

Around that time, Winkler walked into the Linn City Pub, where his family frequently ate dinner. The bar was using Pacific Breeze air fresheners, and Winkler left his card, asking the owner to think about how many Pacific Breeze employees patronized the restaurant. Two weeks later, the pub switched to Fresh Aire.

That spring, Winkler also strode into the lobby of Center Commons, shook Megan Fraction's hand and smiled. "I was so happy he was home, I was totally relieved," she says. She switched back to Fresh Aire and asked Winkler to come back and do his tour-of-duty road show for her staff.

The DVD presentation, which Winkler has now done in offices and community rooms across the Portland area, focuses on the time his Guard unit spent south of Baghdad in area 7B. Winkler narrates as photos of Iraqi villagers and U.S. soldiers flash on a screen.

During the first few weeks on patrol, Winkler had come to think most local Iraqis were unlikely guerrillas, even though attacks were sometimes launched from their land. "They were just trying to survive," he says.

So Winkler began a hard-sell PR campaign to convince Iraqis in 7B to cooperate. He

visited homes, snapping family portraits with his digital camera and showing pictures of his kids back home. He distributed clothes that Brenda sent over, while a medical assistant cleaned kids' cuts. His men fixed farm equipment and spent several days removing un-exploded bombs from a field where a farmer had lost his three sons in an accident.

Winkler's men were shot at sometimes, and in one incident they killed two Iraqis in a firefight. Winkler threatened to come down hard on Saddam loyalists if they attacked American troops. But mostly, he urged restraint — so much so that his men complained about how little they used their rifles. And his unit didn't lose a single soldier at 7B.

WINKLER HAS DONE about 80 of his DVD shows since he got home. And Fresh Aire now has 2,000 accounts, more than it had before he left. He expects to gross close to $500,000 in 2005.

It's hard to say whether it's Winkler's patriotic presentations or his mere presence that have gotten the business rolling again. The Iraq spiel certainly cements bonds with some customers. "It's powerful," says Paul Buss, a principal at Oregon Realty in East Portland who is also a fellow veteran.

On the other hand, Heather Turner of Hathaway Court strongly opposes the war and hasn't heard the stories. But she brought Fresh Aire back anyway. Some new customers don't have a clue Winkler was ever away.

In any case, it's impossible to separate Winkler from his time in Iraq. "I'm a full-time soldier, I just have part-time responsibilities," he says.

Jeff Croy thinks the war experience is actually helping some soldiers make a successful re-entry into the workaday world.

"From the overwhelming response we've gotten recently from businesses, we know these guardsmen have value," he says. "If that's the way people feel about a vet employee, they're also going to feel that way toward them as potential business partners."

[SIDEBAR]
FACTS ABOUT THE OREGON NATIONAL GUARD

• Number of guardsmen activated since 9/11: more than 8,000
• Number of guardsmen deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq since Sept. 11, 2001: 2,100
• Guardsmen still in Iraq as of May 10, 2005: 650
• Guardsmen still in Afghanistan as of May 10, 2005: 100
• Guardsmen killed since Sept. 11, 2001: 11 (9 in action, 2 noncombat fatalities)

Source: Oregon National Guard.

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