The military says she is a deserter, but an Oklahoma Army Reservist denies that

Tuesday, March 22nd 2005, 10:17 am

By: News On 6

The US military says a Green Country soldier is a "deserter" for failing to return to Iraq after a two-week leave. She says she was willing to return to duty, after she took care of some personal issues.

News on 6 anchor Tami Marler explains why this soldier is looking over her shoulder.

The US military takes desertion very seriously. The number of deserters has gone up from about 1,500 in 1995, to more than 5,500 since the war in Iraq began. During wartime, the punishment for desertion ranges from reprimand, to death. "I don't have the strength or the nerve to fight anymore." Staff Sgt Theresa Russell deployed with the 172nd Corps Support Group to Iraq in January of last year.

She loved her job, but received news in October that her daughter's father had passed away back in Oklahoma. "I freaked out and cried. That was on the 4th of October. I finally got a release on the 8th of October. My daughter was on the streets for four days until I got back to the states."

While she was home, medical records show, Russell saw a doctor for a problem she'd had in Iraq. A problem she says requires surgery she couldn't get over there. "Where I was at in Balad, Iraq it was more like a band-aid hospital unless you got hit with shrapnel, then they sent you to Lanstuhl, but they didn't have the facilities." Russell showed us the flurry of e-mails she sent to her superior officer in Iraq, requesting more time, to get her children, and her health, in order. "And on the 24th of October, that afternoon, I received an email from my commander that he didn't approve my emergency leave, extension, which I needed to return back to the airport on the 23rd. And this was a day later. Even though I was sick I was still wanting to go back, I mean that was my job. I enjoyed my duties."

It's been a difficult few months, in and out of hospitals, helping her children to cope with their loss, now this. "People look at you as, you got that label as deserter and you know you've got this black cloud hanging over you, and I'm not a deserter. I mean, why would I throw away 17 years of my time?"

Tami Marler spoke with a JAG officer about "desertionâ€, in general. He could not comment directly on Russell's case directly, but he said, someone with 17 years of military experience should know the proper channels that would avoid this kind of trouble and that any deserter would benefit from turning herself in to the nearest military police.

Russell says her daughter doesn't need her only surviving parent behind bars.