Reservist seeks exemption from 5th deployment - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Reservist seeks exemption from 5th deployment

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Army Reserve Sgt. Erik Botta has been sent to Iraq three times and to Afghanistan once. He thinks that’s enough.

Botta said he wants a court to block the military’s plan to deploy him for a fifth time Sunday, most likely to Iraq. He isn’t against the war — he simply thinks he’s done his duty and it’s time to spend time with family and pursue his education.

Botta’s longest deployment was seven months, and the shortest was less than three weeks, as part of a special operations team. He was last deployed three years ago.

“This has nothing to do with protest of the war. ... I have nothing but respect for the people on the ground,” Botta said today, one day after he filed his petition in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach. “But I feel I do need a fair decision and a fair review.”

Botta, 26, of Port St. Lucie, contends in his petition that the Army’s refusal to exempt him from deployment “constitutes unlawful custody.” Botta argues that the Army did not consider the length and nature of his previous tours “to assure a sharing of exposure to the hazards of combat.”

He also contends that the new deployment would hinder his academic pursuits. He is enrolled at Palm Beach Community College, pursuing a degree in electrical engineering. He is married and is employed by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. as a senior technician working on Black Hawk and Seahawk helicopters.

“I’ve been out for three years now. I haven’t had any affiliation with the military, and they granted me a deferment for my education, and I’m much further along in my engineering studies now,” Botta said. “I know from the bottom of my heart I’m doing a better service for my country right now by continuing my education.”

Botta said he was shocked when he received notice of his latest deployment orders.

“My heart sank through the floor,” he said. “I’ve sacrificed all my time into this new life I have now. On any given day, I leave before the crack of dawn to go to work and then I go directly to school. ... This isn’t the situation I wanted to start a family under.”

Botta enlisted in the Army Reserve in October 2000. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, he requested transfer to active duty, which occurred Oct. 31, 2001, according to the petition.

Botta was deployed to Afghanistan for about seven months in 2002. He then had three deployments to Iraq — about a month in 2003, three months in 2004 and 15 days later that year.

Army spokeswoman Maj. Cheryl Phillips noted that Army Reserve units deploy for 12 consecutive months, and that Botta had only accumulated about 10 nonconsecutive months of deployment. She also noted that Botta was under an eight-year service contract.

“The Army leadership acknowledges the hardships and sacrifices of our soldiers and their families and is aggressively pursuing means to lessen their strain,” Phillips wrote in an e-mail today. “We evaluate each request for deferment or exemption from mobilization independently to determine if a deployment will cause undue hardship for the soldier or the family.”

She said that out of 649 deployment delays requested by soldiers since the start of the Afghan war in 2001, the Army has granted 561, or 86 percent. Of the 5,708 exemptions that have been requested, 2,983 or 52 percent, have been granted.

Botta’s previous deployments in Iraq were as a communications specialist with 3rd Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and were shorter than most tours because they were “emergency deployments,” said his attorney, Mark Waple.

After his release from active duty Oct. 30, 2004, Botta has not been required to participate in training, he said.

The petition claims the Army has denied Botta’s requests to be exempt from redeployment, even after granting him an initial exemption last year based on his studies. He had been scheduled to deploy last January.

Botta now wants a federal judge to stop his current deployment until the situation is resolved. If a resolution is not reached, he said he will follow orders and deploy Sunday to Fort Jackson near Columbia, S.C.

Waple said the Army’s decision to re-deploy Botta and to deny his request for exemption is arbitrary and goes against actions in similar cases where academic exemptions were granted.

“We’re just concerned that they’re granting these exemptions in some cases and denying them in others without any real meaningful methodology in making that decision,” Waple said.

Waple also noted that Congress requires the Defense Department to “take into consideration the reservist’s prior military service to be certain that there is uniform exposure among reservists to the hazards of combat, and the Department of the Army has failed to do that in Sergeant Botta’s case.”

There was no immediate word as to when the court would take up the case.