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Air Force reservist provides legal counsel in Iraq

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. K.L. Kimbrell
  • 931st Air Refueling Group Public Affairs
It was March when the 931st Air Refueling Group judge advocate here packed her bags and gear, boarded an aircraft and set off to work at the largest legal office in the Department of Defense.

Last month Lt. Col. Deann Lehigh returned from a five-month tour of duty with Task Force 134's Detainee Operations Legal Office at Camp Victory in Baghdad, Iraq.

"We operated in three locations, including the U.S. embassy and Abu Ghraib Prison," said Colonel Lehigh. "We ensured that detainees received their due process rights under Article III of the Geneva Convention (vice Article IV--POW)."

The colonel served as the officer-in-charge of her office while deployed.

"I ran the office that did all post board and post-trial processing, special requests for release and special release boards," she said. "Essentially if you removed our organization it would have been a prisoner of war operation not a detainee operation."

Colonel Lehigh was in charge of the mass release of prisoners from the infamous prison in early June that coincided with the new Iraqi government.

When she wasn't in the office, she spent her time in a hardened "trailer" and made trips to the showers in flip-flops.

"My trailer had concrete barricades and sandbags all around it because the locals would on occasion lob mortars and rockets at us," said Colonel Lehigh.

The forward-operating base was equipped with a dining hall.

"The food was incredible," she exclaimed. "The selection was beyond description."

The dining experience was one way to escape the surroundings.

"You have to understand that chow was the highlight of our day," she said.

Colonel Lehigh said she received plenty of support from the home front before, during and after her deployment to Iraq.

"I can't even begin to tell you how much the group helped me," she said. "From the moment I got the word I was going, everyone did everything they could to make my life easier.

"It made me so proud to tell everyone I was a reservist from the smallest organization in Air Force Reserve Command," the colonel said. (AFRC News Service)