Suskie's 1 year as JAG in Iraq cut by 6 months

LITTLE ROCK — Maj. Paul Suskie, chairman of the state Public Service Commission, was allowed to cut short his tour of duty in Iraq as top legal officer for Arkansas' 39th Infantry Brigade despite orders to deploy for the entire year.

His shortened deployment is a privilege not afforded other soldiers and directly conflicts with U.S. Army policy.

According to U.S. Army Personnel Policy Guidance for Contingency Operations in Support of the Global War on Terror, soldiers are allowed to return early from wartimedeployments only under exceptional circumstances such as financial hardship, personal emergency, mental stress or physical injury.

Suskie of North Little Rock met none of those criteria for early release from active duty.

The justification was listed as "End of Tour" on the official request for Suskie's release fromthe Iraq theater of war signed by Col. Kendall Penn, commander of the 39th.

It was far from the end of Suskie's scheduled deployment, however, according to his deployment orders.

He was mobilized Jan. 5, 2008, on 400-day orders identical to those issued to all 3,000 soldiers of the 39th currently in Iraq. The orders account for a 365-day combined train-up at Camp Shelby, Miss., and deployment to Iraq, five days of demobilization and a maximum of 30 days leave accrued in that time.

Suskie served as the 39th's top legal adviser - its staff judge advocate general, or JAG officer - from January through early July. His tour of duty lasted just over six months, of which less than four were spent in Iraq.

"When asked by [Col. Charles Singleton, the state JAG] if I was willing to be the 3rd JAG ... I volunteered," Suskie wrote in an e-mail last week. "My volunteering was regardless as towhether it was for a year or a mid-tour rotation."

Many brigade soldiers have been denied requests to return home for family funerals, births and family emergencies because the grounds didn't meet the policy's strict requirements.

As word of Suskie's early departure spread through the brigade's battalions over the past few weeks, soldiers across the ranks openly asked how it was possible. Suskie was already home by the time many soldiers heard about it. None wanted to speak on the record about their feelings for fear of reprisal.

One noncommissioned officer who asked not to be named said simply, "I'd like to know how he pulled that off. We don't have that option."

Arkansas National Guard officials say shorter tours for military attorneys are necessary to retain the JAGs they have and to help recruit them. The deployments are a strain that could further shrink an already small JAG pool in thestate, they said. Short tours were not offered to all the brigade's JAGs, however.

According to Department of Defense documents provided by Suskie on Friday, he was released from active duty July 16 at Camp Shelby after 193 days of service. He received about two weeks of paid leave, of which he is finishing now.

On Wednesday, he will resume his post at the Public Service Commission to which he was appointed last year by Gov. Mike Beebe.

The 4th Infantry Division, under which the 39th Brigade headquarters serves in Iraq, released Suskie from duty in Iraq on July 9, according to documents.

In a memo to the chief of personnel for the 4th Infantry Division dated June 28 requesting Suskie's departure, Penn wrote, "Major Suskie is no longer operationally required and is being replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Fleming. This officer move has been approved by the Commanding General."

The same personnel policy that limits conditions under which a soldier can cut short a deployment - financial or personal hardship - also specifically addresses soldiers deemed "no longer operationally required."

Chapter 10, Section 5, Paragraph A(1) of the policy allows commanders to request through their division personnel chief that individual National Guard or Reserve soldiers be released from active duty and return home if found "no longer operationally required."

The policy further states, "Soldiers who are determined as no longer operationally required are not authorized a replacement ....Replacements are authorized for Soldiers who [are released from active duty] early because of a justifiable hardship." The word "not" is underlined in the policy.

Suskie was replaced, however, as documented on the request for his release from the war.

Lt. Col. Matt Fleming of Fort Smith, another Arkansas National Guard lawyer, arrived in Iraq in early July to relieve Suskie and serve out the remaining six months of the deployment. Fleming, a deputy federal prosecutor in the Western District of Arkansas, worked at his civilian job until called to deploy in late June.

Further complicating the justification for Suskie's return - that he was no longer needed - is the recent expansion of the 39th's legal staff from two to three lawyers. Capt. Jason Fritz, a reservist from Wisconsin, arrived at brigade headquarters in Baghdad late Thursday.

Singleton, a Little Rock attorney and chief JAG officer for the Arkansas National Guard, said Wednesday that he made the decision to bring Suskie home early and replace him with Fleming.

He said the need to rotate military lawyers in and out of deployments early has to do with recruiting and retention difficulties. It's a plan he said he proposed to state officials almost two years ago. He did not explain why Suskie was placed on orders for the duration if he was coming home early, however, and did not return phone calls Friday to clarify the issue.

"The decision had nothing to do with MAJ Suskie or any of our other JAG officers," Singleton wrote in an e-mail last week, "it is simply the best way for us to provide legal services to the 39th during this mobilization and, at the same time, avoid the risk of losing additional JAG officers who will be vital to our future missions."

As state JAG, however, Singleton does not have the authority to pull a deployed lawyer off active duty. According to the policy, that must be initiated by the brigade and pushed up through the chain of command in Iraq. No one questioned the lawyer swap despite the conflict with current policy.

Maj. Gen. Bill Wofford, Arkansas' adjutant general, said the idea of rotating JAGs spun off the Army policy that allows Army doctors to deploy for four months.

"All I can say is we were trying to do something different and unique by taking care of another group of professionals," he said. "We thought it was a good idea to bring back the JAGs early, just likedocs."

ROTATION VERSUS DURATION

According to the Department of the Army and the National Guard Bureau, military lawyers deploy for the duration of their unit's tour of duty. There is no provision for an early release from active duty like Suskie received.

If he had been mobilized on six-month orders, like Fleming was as Suskie's replacement, the swap of the two lawyers wouldn't have been in violation of current Army policy that restricts early termination of active-duty orders. Suskie's orders, however, were for the duration.

"It's part of a rotation plan that [Singleton] and the National Guard Bureau put together," Fleming said.

The National Guard Bureau denied approving such a plan.

Fleming also said a rotation plan was attempted during the brigade's first Iraq deployment from 2004-05. No such rotation occurred, and the one officer who returned to the U.S. early did so to attend additional military training. None of the 39th's JAGs were given a shorter tour.

Maj. Randy Short, National Guard Bureau spokesman, wrote in a recent e-mail, "I just spoke to the head JAG here at [the National Guard Bureau] and he assures me that no deals have been cut, all JAGs deploy for one year. They have to follow all the rules the other Soldiers do."

Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, spokesman for the Department of the Army at the Pentagon, said that while medical doctors are allowed to deploy for four-month tours, that policy does not applyto military lawyers.

"They [JAGs] would deploy according to their unit's deployment cycle," she wrote in an e-mail this week.

Suskie said last week via e-mail that rotating military lawyers is a common occurrence.

The Army has a shortage of lawyers and has been calling for volunteers to fill the needs of deploying units for several years now. Such voluntary deployments are typically shorter rotations - four to six months - with orders to match. Suskie and Fleming volunteered for short tours in Afghanistan - Suskie in 2005 and Fleming in 2006. Each served on special four- or six-month orders as fillers.

"The [1st Cavalry Division] did this during the 39th's first deployment," Suskie wrote in an e-mail last week.

Division officials said they did not rotate lawyers. The one military lawyer who returned home did so to attend required training for his promotion to lieutenant colonel.

"If there are [Department of the] Army and National Guard policies which dictate that JAGs cannot be rotated during a deployment, I have never seen them," Singleton replied to an e-mail query this week. "To the contrary, [the Department of the] Army hasbeen rotating JAGs in theater from the beginning of our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan ... to the best of my knowledge, they are still doing it."

There are vast differences between the way active-duty Army lawyers and National Guard lawyers deploy. When an active-duty JAG returns home, he commences work as a lawyer at his home base. When Suskie returned early from deployment, he didn't rotate to the rear detachment and remain on orders. He returned to his civilian job.

Coming home early is not an option for the younger military lawyers in the state or other soldiers in the brigade.

"I will fully admit that it may not be fair to other business owners," Wofford said when asked about the bevy of small-business owners in the brigade who have lost customers and possibly their livelihoods because of repeated deployments. "It certainly wasn't intended to show favoritism to any one person."

LEFT BEHIND

Fellow JAG officers Capt. Jeff Wood of Sherwood and Capt. Jake Jones of Little Rock were called to duty Oct. 1, with the rest of the brigade's 3,000 soldiers for predeployment training and will remain on active duty until the brigade leaves Iraq in December.

Wood, who is a state legislator and works in a private law practice, has been in Iraq since the brigade arrived in March. He was scheduled to spend the entire year in Iraq, but Arkansas National Guard officials said Thursday that a plan is under way to rotate Wood home in the next month or so.

Unlike Suskie, however, Wood will be required to stay on orders and serve as the rear detachment military lawyer for the remainder of the deployment, handling the brigade's home legal issues as Jones has done since January.

Jones would then deploy, swapping the two lawyers between brigade jobs, keeping them on orders for the duration.

Suskie and Fleming are the only state JAGs allowed shortened tours, and Fleming is the only military lawyer who deployed on orders saying so.

Wood, Jones and the rest of the brigade's soldiers will have served 15 months - three months training in Arkansas from October to January and 12 months on active duty - when the 39th returns home at the end of the year. About half of the brigade's soldiers also deployed with the 1st Cavalry Division in 2004-05. Those soldiers were on active-duty training in Texas and then deployed a total of 18 months. Between 2004 and the end of this year, those soldiers will have spent 33 out of the past 60 months away from home.

Army policy allows repeat deployments for any soldier who has been home for one year.

Fleming served for 12 months as the military lawyer for the rear detachment during the brigade's 2004-05 tour to Iraq and deployed for the voluntary six-month Afghanistan tour.

"As for my two tours over the last 3 1 /2 years to Afghanistan and Iraq," Suskie wrote in an e-mail response to questions last week, "I have been on active duty orders 13 out of the last 43 months which includes 12 months away from my family. While the total lengths ofmy tours are not as long as some, it is longer than others."

Suskie was allowed to skip the three months of mandatory training from October to January required of all other brigade soldiers. At the time, Suskie said, "I am not in the brigade. I am not required to be there."

Suskie wasn't moved into the brigade until mid-December. He joined the brigade Jan. 5 for training at Camp Shelby, Miss.

Singleton said the younger lawyers could use the experience and training that comes with a full deployment.

"Capt. Wood and Capt. Jones are both new officers who, in my estimation, needed additional time with the Brigade for training so they could be better prepared for mobilization," Singleton wrote in an e-mail. "Since MAJ Suskie has been around a while and had deployed with the Army in Afghanistan, I didn't think he needed the train-up as much as the juniorCaptains needed it."

RETENTION

Singleton believes that shorter tours are needed to retain the state's few remaining JAGs, even though short tours have been offered only to the higher-ranking officers.

"Since the 39th Brigade received notice of mobilization in 2003, we have lost 7 JAG officers and, as a result of current conditions, we have not been able to replace all of them," he wrote in an e-mail response to questions. "My JAG Section must cover all JAG requirements for all our Guard units and we are currently stretched very thin. Therefore, I believe I have to do everything I can to make sure we keep the JAGs we currently have for as long as possible."

The state has 10 JAG officers, two of which are deployed.

Rotating military lawyers through shorter tours lessens the time away from home but increases the chances that they will deploy.

"[I]t is now pretty much common knowledge, based on our recent history, that any new officer coming into the Arkansas Army National Guard will probably be required to deploy to one of our war zones," Singleton said.

Shorter tours are more palatable, he said, and will help keep lawyers in the National Guard.

Recruiting and retention are problems across the National Guard right now, not just in the legal ranks. The 39th as a whole had difficulty filling its ranks for the current deployment - its second to Iraq in four years.Soldiers from every unit in the Arkansas National Guard were pulled into the brigade to fill vacant slots.

Col. Penn, the 39th's commander, said he's just glad to have legal support for the deployment.

"I wouldn't go so far as saying it's fair or unfair," he said, adding that "anyone who serves in Iraq makes a sacrifice."