I called the Department of Corrections about this issue on Wednesday and asked them what the heck they were thinking. Why force this requirement on soldiers who have been away from home for a month? I then followed up again yesterday. I would have had something in today’s Capitol Fax but there was no Capitol Fax today. Here’s the AP story.

State prison workers returning from the Iraq war will no longer have to leave their families for more than a week of weapons training in Springfield, officials announced Thursday.

Veterans returning from the battlefield are required to go through the same 56-hour training course they took when they were new employees. The Corrections Department rule applies to any gun-carrying employee returning to work after a leave of at least two years.

But the corrections officers’ union — the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees — has argued it was pointless for soldiers who toted weapons around the clock on the battlefield to go through retraining at Corrections headquarters in Springfield. That arrangement meant more than a week away from home for veterans who had just been reunited with their families.

The Corrections Department said it now will let returning veterans undergo weapons training near their homes, so that they can spend the nights with family.