Guard plaintiff
tied to island unit

The California soldier who has sued to prevent the Army from keeping him in the military is attached to the Hawaii-based 29th Infantry Brigade, which has been activated for duty in Iraq.

The soldier's enlistment with the National Guard was scheduled to end later this year but was extended under the Army's so-called stop-loss policy, in which military personnel are prevented from leaving the armed forces despite completing their enlistment.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco, was under the name of "John Doe" because his lawyer said the soldier wants to maintain the privacy of his family and because people might misconstrue his actions.

The soldier, according to the California National Guard, belongs to Company B, 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry. That unit is based at Camp Polk in Dublin in the East Bay area near San Francisco. The 184th Infantry is one of three combat units of the 29th Infantry Brigade placed on active duty Monday in anticipation of a year-long deployment to Iraq in February.

Maj. Chuck Anthony, Hawaii National Guard spokesman, said he does not know who the California soldier is. "The lawsuit speaks for itself," he said.

The suit said the soldier served for more than nine years in the Army and the Marines, including a year of combat in Iraq. He joined the California Guard in December under a one-year enlistment. The suit says he is being treated at a veterans' hospital for post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from combat in Iraq.

But on July 6 the soldier said his enlistment had been extended by two years and that his unit was mobilizing for duty in Iraq. He was supposed to report this week to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, along with other members of the 29th Brigade's mainland units in California, Oregon and Minnesota.

Members of the 29th Brigade from Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, the Marianas and Saipan will report to Schofield Barracks tomorrow for six weeks of training before they fly to Fort Bliss.

The California soldier is believed to be the first soldier to challenge the legality of the stop-loss policy's application to deployment in Iraq. Opponents have criticized the policy as a "back-door draft."