A hero US pilot claims his bosses at the New Jersey Turnpike Authority have harassed him for years because they want him to “quit playing soldier” in the Reserves.
Col. Jack O’Connell, 50, who was wounded in Baghdad and flew 30 combat missions during Operation Desert Storm, says the agency denied him leave to attend military training in Nebraska last month, and he fears he’ll be fired.
He is already suing the Authority, alleging it blocked his promotions and raises for years because of his five active-duty tours in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay.
“When you’re in the military you have an obligation,” O’Connell told The Post. “I get an order, and I go.”
O’Connell, of South Amboy, NJ, began his military career flying Navy F-14 fighter jets off aircraft carriers during the First Gulf War in 1991. He was decorated for valor after flying dozens of strike missions in and around Baghdad.
O’Connell left active duty in 1993 and earned a law degree at Seton Hall. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the newly minted attorney joined the Air National Guard.
“When 9/11 happened, I felt an obligation,” he said. “They wouldn’t let me fly anymore and asked me to be a judge advocate.”
O’Connell was hired by the Turnpike Authority in August 2002 as in-house counsel in its Woodbridge headquarters.
He had to leave his job five times to serve his nation, once to oversee legal operations at Guantanamo Bay in 2004-2005. He also worked as legal adviser to Gens. George Casey and David Petraeus in Iraq. His first tour of duty lasted 14 months. He missed nearly six years at his civilian job in total because of the deployments scattered over 13 years.
In 2007, he was wounded in Iraq while running for cover during a rocket attack.
But despite his heroic military duty, O’Connell says he was badgered and bullied whenever he returned to his civilian job at the Turnpike Authority. The colonel claims in his suit his belongings were boxed and shipped out while he was on duty overseas and his work e-mails were hacked.
Bosses demanded to see copies of his military orders and were suspicious of his long absences, with one of them asking, “How do we know he was in Baghdad and not on a beach in Key West?” court papers say.
During conversations with two high-ranking bosses about a promotion opportunity, he was told, “I’d like to move you up, but you need to quit playing soldier,” the suit says.
Reservists’ jobs are protected by state and federal rules. If they are called up for duty, employers are required by law to pay them for 90 days of active duty per calendar year.
They are also obligated to protect reservists’ jobs even if their tours of duty run up to five years, and time spent in combat zones is not counted against that threshold, said Richard Galex, a lawyer representing O’Connell.
“His claims of harassment were thoroughly scrutinized by the district court and were found to have no merit,” said Thomas Bigosinski, an Authority lawyer.
O’Connell said his employer does not recognize the sacrifice he and fellow soldiers are making for their nation.
“Four-star generals have said to me that we cannot do our mission without the reserves,” he said. “If it’s not us doing it, then who does it?”
