Simon Sunderland Cummins : The Veterans Cummins Likes To Remember

Veteran-content season appears to have started early at Cummins. On 22 September, Life at the Company introduced “John D.”, a former US Marine who rose from technician to Area General Manager and now helps place wreaths on veterans’ graves in Michigan. Cummins left his surname behind an initial, then supplied enough biographical breadcrumbs to make the exercise faintly ridiculous. Public sources identify him as John Duquette. His military service is real, his community work is real, and none of that needs sneering at. The interesting bit begins when Cummins’ beautifully curated veteran storytelling is placed beside another name the company remains considerably less enthusiastic about remembering: Simon Sunderland, the Territorial Army infantryman who returned from a 12-month tour of Afghanistan, was selected for redundancy at Cummins Darlington and successfully challenged the decision under legislation protecting reservists. Funny how remembrance works when Corporate Communications controls the guest list.

Poppy season is not quite upon us yet, but somebody at Cummins appears to have started unpacking the decorations. John Duquette’s particular story is American rather than British, and his work with Wreaths of Honor leads towards December rather than 11 November, but the corporate ingredients are instantly recognisable: military service, sacrifice, discipline, community, leadership and a long-serving employee whose experience can be folded neatly into a story about what sort of company Cummins would like people to believe it is.

That tune is not new. Cummins played it through late summer and autumn last year, with a succession of military and veteran profiles spanning the United States and Britain. There was former Marine Adam, Peter’s British military-to-Cummins journey, Aisha’s transition from the US Air Force and Christian’s route from the Coast Guard through SkillBridge into civilian diesel work. Cummins also has a dedicated veterans recruitment operation, a Veterans Employee Resource Group, an Armed Forces Covenant commitment in Britain and a Silver Defence Employer Recognition Scheme award.

Cummins knows exactly how to tell a veteran story.

TCAP merely keeps noticing the one that never seems to make the fucking seasonal programme.

John D. Has A Surname

Cummins calls its latest subject John D., Area General Manager for Grand Rapids and Saginaw. Then, having apparently decided the surname is too sensitive for publication, the company tells us that he grew up in Holland, Michigan, entered the US Marine Corps after instability in the oilfield-services industry disrupted his early career, worked in a jet-engine rebuild shop, returned to Holland after active service, joined Cummins as a technician in 1987 and has accumulated 22 combined years with the company across several spells.

Then comes the outside-work detail. John is one of the founders of Wreaths of Honor in Zeeland, Michigan, an organisation which places wreaths on veterans’ graves. At that point, “John D.” stops looking like anonymisation and starts looking like somebody setting a fucking crossword clue for people with broadband.

Wreaths of Honor’s own public material identifies its Vice President as John Duquette, a Holland native, Zeeland resident and United States Marine Corps veteran. Public professional material also connects a John Duquette in Zeeland with Cummins Sales & Service. Put Cummins’ own clues beside those public records and the identification is overwhelmingly straightforward.

So, yes, John D. has a surname.

John Duquette.

Cummins gave us the Marine Corps, Holland, Zeeland, Wreaths of Honor, Grand Rapids, Saginaw and nearly four decades of career chronology, then apparently expected the final letter of the alphabet to perform witness protection.

Absolute bollocks.

The Story Cummins Wants You To Read

The John Duquette profile is almost laboratory-grade Life at the Company material. There is childhood curiosity, mechanical aptitude, trade school, military service, diesel technology, night school, perseverance, internal promotion, employee safety, mentoring, customer uptime and a final reflection on lifelong learning as retirement approaches. It has been assembled with the bolts torqued exactly to corporate specification.

Marine Corps service becomes discipline. Cummins becomes opportunity. Management becomes service. Wreaths of Honor becomes community impact. Twenty-two combined years with the company become proof of culture and career mobility. There is nothing inherently dishonest about that construction; companies profile employees precisely because those employees help illustrate the values and identity the employer wants to project.

John Duquette does not need to have done anything wrong for the framing to be obvious. His service belongs to him, his work with Wreaths of Honor belongs to the people involved, and neither becomes fake simply because Cummins spotted a good story and wrapped it in corporate bunting.

The problem begins when Cummins repeatedly uses veterans as evidence of what sort of employer it believes itself to be while another veteran remains sitting in the historical paperwork with his hand very much in the fucking air.

His name is Simon Sunderland.

Simon Sunderland Came Home From Afghanistan

Simon Sunderland was not a veteran somebody in Communications found for an autumn content calendar. He was already inside Cummins. He worked as a production operative at the company’s Darlington engine plant, served as a Territorial Army infantryman and spent 12 months in Afghanistan.

When Sunderland returned, he was informed that he had been selected for redundancy. Contemporary legal commentary records that he challenged the decision under the Reserve Forces (Safeguard of Employment) Act 1985, with the dispute going before the Employment Reinstatement Committee established under that legislation.

Sunderland succeeded.

That one fact changes the texture of every glossy Cummins veteran profile published afterwards. This was not some argument over whether the canteen had enough poppies or whether Cummins had remembered to post a tasteful Remembrance Day graphic. A reservist served for a year in Afghanistan, came back to his civilian employer, found himself selected for redundancy and successfully invoked legislation specifically designed to protect reservists returning from service.

Cummins’ veteran story already contains a chapter written in statute.

It is simply a bastard of a chapter for Corporate Communications.

The Law Remembered Him Even If The Newsroom Doesn’t

The Reserve Forces employment protections exist for a fairly obvious reason. Calling people away from civilian work to serve the country becomes considerably less attractive if they return to discover that their job has vanished while they were away in uniform. The law therefore recognises that military service creates a special employment context which ordinary workplace processes cannot simply bulldoze through as though the absence occurred because somebody fancied a year somewhere sunny.

Sunderland’s case became notable enough to generate employment-law commentary warning other employers about the treatment of reservists in redundancy exercises. The lesson was hardly subtle. If an employee has been absent because he was deployed to Afghanistan, the employer needs to be extremely bloody careful about how that absence interacts with selection criteria, reinstatement obligations and the statutory protections specifically created for reserve service.

Cummins learned that lesson through litigation.

Yet the modern corporate veteran narrative is much prettier. Military experience transfers beautifully into civilian leadership. Veterans bring discipline, adaptability and technical expertise. Cummins welcomes them. Careers flourish. Employee resource groups provide support, recruitment programmes actively seek former service personnel and the company can point towards awards recognising its Armed Forces commitments.

Lovely.

Simon Sunderland would probably have appreciated that fucking version.

Last Autumn, The Parade Was Already Forming

This is not TCAP looking at one John Duquette article and reverse-engineering some grand theory from it. Cummins spent last year’s late-summer and autumn period producing a recognisable run of veteran-positive editorial material, with each story presenting military experience as something the company values and knows how to convert into civilian careers.

In August 2025 came Beyond the Uniform: A Veteran’s Mission to Keep Others Safe, featuring Adam, a former Marine with 22 years of service who moved into Cummins’ Health and Safety organisation. On 10 October, Cummins published From Military Precision to Sustainable Innovation: Peter’s Journey at Cummins, giving a former British serviceman the full modern transformation narrative. TCAP noticed the seasonal drift at the time and published The Poppies and The PR Parade.

Then Veterans Day arrived. Aisha M.’s US Air Force story appeared on 11 November, followed later that month by Christian R.’s journey from the Coast Guard through the Department of Defense SkillBridge programme into Cummins. Earlier material had already featured other veterans moving from military service into the business, while Cummins maintained an entire recruitment proposition specifically aimed at former service personnel.

That is not a random pile of unrelated newsroom content. Veterans are a defined recruitment, reputation and employer-brand constituency for Cummins. The company actively wants to be associated with military service and the qualities it believes veterans bring.

Fair enough.

But once you start polishing the medals for public display, people are entitled to look in the fucking drawer underneath.

Cummins Has The Covenant, The Badge And The Brochure

In Britain, Cummins has formalised that veteran-friendly image beyond editorial content. It signed the Armed Forces Covenant in 2022 and later received the Silver Award under the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme. Cummins’ own announcement describes commitments to reservists, veterans, military spouses and the wider Armed Forces community, while highlighting its Veterans Employee Resource Group, recruitment efforts and participation in events including Armed Forces Day and Remembrance Day.

That modern record matters. Organisations can change, improve policies and learn from past mistakes. People responsible for old decisions leave, procedures develop and a company which once mishandled one reservist can later build systems that genuinely support others. There is no intellectual value in pretending corporate behaviour must remain frozen forever simply because TCAP has found an ugly historical case.

But progress does not buy amnesia.

If Cummins wants the modern praise, the historical record remains attached. You do not get to wear the Armed Forces Covenant on Monday, collect a Defence Employer Recognition Scheme award on Tuesday and then behave as though Simon Sunderland belonged to some unrelated company which happened to use the same logo and build the same fucking engines.

Corporate improvement should mean being able to look backwards honestly as well as forwards proudly.

History does not disappear because the employer brand got nicer.

Neither does Google.

John Duquette Is Not The Contradiction

It is worth saying clearly that John Duquette is not the problem. TCAP has no interest in shitting on a Marine because he helps place wreaths on veterans’ graves. His military service is his own, and Wreaths of Honor is doing work which exists independently of whatever Cummins decides to publish about one of its founders.

The contradiction belongs to Cummins and the way corporate memory is assembled.

Cummins can find John Duquette’s service history, explain how the Marine Corps shaped his discipline and leadership, describe his community work honouring dead veterans and place all of that inside a carefully produced story about Cummins opportunity and values. It can find Adam, Peter, Aisha and Christian. It can maintain a veteran recruitment portal, run an employee resource group, sign the Armed Forces Covenant and celebrate formal recognition as a military-friendly employer.

What appears much harder to find in that polished narrative is Simon Sunderland Cummins Darlington, because those words lead somewhere considerably less comfortable: Afghanistan, redundancy, employment protection law and a successful challenge by the reservist.

That story does not sit quite so comfortably beside the poppies and the fucking corporate lanyard.

Corporate Remembrance Has An Editing Suite

Companies do not merely remember their histories.

They curate them.

A corporate archive is not some neutral warehouse where every episode receives equal shelf space according to historical importance. It is an editing suite. Some stories are restored in 4K, given uplifting music, polished captions and a social-media rollout. Others sit in the dark until somebody with a search engine, too much coffee and a vindictive little publishing platform drags the bastards back into daylight.

Cummins’ veteran narrative is full of exactly the language you would expect: service, leadership, adaptability, sacrifice, opportunity, community, integrity and teamwork. Simon Sunderland fits every one of those themes perfectly until the chronology reaches Cummins itself.

Then suddenly the vocabulary changes.

Afghanistan becomes redundancy.

Service becomes selection criteria.

Employer support becomes statutory challenge.

The uplifting soundtrack scratches off the fucking record.

That tonal shift is why Sunderland matters every time Cummins publishes another immaculate military-to-civilian career story. Not because every veteran profile is secretly about him, but because Cummins has chosen veterans as part of its corporate identity and therefore invited examination of the whole record.

Remembering The Convenient Veteran

The contrast becomes particularly sharp as another remembrance season approaches. Cummins can tell audiences about a former Marine helping place wreaths on veterans’ graves. In Britain, the company can participate in Remembrance Day, point towards its Armed Forces Covenant credentials and celebrate the work of its Veterans Employee Resource Group. Recruitment teams can explain, correctly, that former service personnel bring valuable skills into civilian employment.

TCAP has no objection to any of that.

What TCAP objects to is selective memory masquerading as complete virtue.

Because beneath the wreaths, the medals and the beautifully lit employee photography sits Simon Sunderland, a Cummins worker who served in Afghanistan and then had to invoke the Reserve Forces employment-protection regime after being selected for redundancy.

There is no need to claim that Cummins published John Duquette’s profile specifically to bury Sunderland. We cannot establish that intention, and forcing the argument that far would only weaken it. The observable pattern is strong enough without inventing a control room full of moustache-twirling PR bastards.

Positive veteran stories accumulate.

The uncomfortable veteran story does not.

Cummins supplies one side of its own memory.

TCAP supplies the missing page.

The Veterans Cummins Likes To Remember

That is why John Duquette belongs in Cummins Confidential rather than passing through Life at the Company untouched. Not because Duquette has done anything wrong, but because his profile fits an established editorial pattern in which military service becomes another piece of Cummins’ employer-brand machinery.

Marine Corps discipline becomes leadership. Air Force experience becomes strategy. Coast Guard experience becomes technical skill. British military service becomes sustainable innovation. Wreaths on graves become community values. Cummins can take each service history, translate it into corporate virtues and place another veteran-shaped brick into the wall around its preferred identity.

Then there is Simon Sunderland.

His military service leads to Afghanistan. His return leads to redundancy. The redundancy leads to a statutory challenge, and the challenge succeeds. No polished transition story is required because the facts already have enough fucking voltage.

That veteran story does not need a lifestyle photograph, a leadership quote or a tasteful poppy graphic.

It needs memory.

So when Cummins starts rolling the veterans back through the newsroom this autumn, TCAP will continue doing the bit Corporate Communications seems considerably less enthusiastic about.

We will remember all the names.

Including the one who came home from Afghanistan.

Simon Sunderland.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project

Cummins Confidential : The Veterans Cummins Likes To Remember