Every person employed by a community college district as a contract or regular employee in an academic position who enters the active military service of the United States of America or of the State of California, including active service in any uniformed auxiliary of, or to, any branch of such military service, created or authorized as such auxiliary by the Congress of the United States of America or by the Legislature of the State of California, or in the service of the United States Merchant Marine, or in full-time paid service of the American Red Cross, during any period of national emergency declared by the President of the United States of America or during any war in which the United States of America is engaged, shall be entitled to absent himself or herself from his or her duties as an employee of the district.
Such absence shall not affect in any way the classification of the employee. In the case of a contract employee, the period of the absence shall not count as part of the service required as a condition precedent to the classification of the employee as a regular employee of the district, but such absence shall not be construed as a break in the continuity of the service of the employee for any purpose.
The dismissal or termination of any contract employee because of reduced attendance due to war conditions, after his or her entry into the active military service or service in the American Red Cross, shall not deprive him or her of any of the benefits of this section.
Within six months after the employee honorably leaves the service or has been placed on inactive duty he or she shall, subject to the provisions of this section, be entitled to return to the position held by him or her at the time of his or her entrance into the service, at the salary to which he or she would have been entitled had he or she not absented himself or herself from the service of the district under this section.
If the employee was employed under a lawful contract for a period in excess of one year in a position in which he or she had not become a regular employee of the district, he or she shall be entitled to return to the position for the period his or her contract of employment had to run at the time he or she entered the service. Notwithstanding any provision of this code to the contrary, a person employed to take the place of any such employee shall not have any right to the position following the return of the employee to the position.