OT ——

One seriously pissed UW (University of Washington, Seattle) Alumi here.

Reserve soldier sues UW, alleges discrimination

Employed by UW as an electrician since 1992, Army Reserve Lt. Col. James Lukehart had risen in the ranks of the university’s facilities department and was working as a maintenance manager when he was ordered to deploy to Iraq in June 2006.

Before he went overseas, a group of his coworkers had told him he would be “engaging in immoral, if not illegal, action” if he went to Iraq as ordered, Lukehart asserts in court documents. Still, the reservist went to war less than three weeks after receiving notice that he’d be deployed.

According to military news reports, Lukehart served as an executive officer in an engineering brigade stationed at Ballad Air Base, 70 miles north of Baghdad. Among Lukehart’s duties while deployed, according to an August 2007 edition of the Camp Anaconda Times, was the construction of a water-treatment plant in rural Iraq.

Hoping to return to work in September 2007, Lukehart found that his manager had launched an investigation into allegations of misconduct made against him while serving overseas, according to court papers.