NEWS IN A MINUTE: Guardsman says serving in Iraq cost him his son

August 22, 2005

Courts

Guardsman says serving in Iraq cost him his son

Army National Guard Spec. Joe McNeilly claims that he lost shared custody of his 10-year-old son because he was serving in Iraq.

"You want to make a soldier cry, you take his son away," McNeilly, 33, of Grand Ledge said in a Lansing State Journal story printed Sunday. "It's devastating."

The boy's mother, her lawyer and the Ingham County Friend of the Court disagree, saying McNeilly didn't lose custody because of his deployment. But McNeilly is getting some support in the custody dispute.

"He would still have his son if he hadn't been deployed," said Maj. Dawn Dancer, public affairs officer for the Michigan National Guard.

Don Reisig, director of the Ingham County Friend of the Court, said confidentiality laws bar him from saying much. He said the court's recommendation in May had nothing to do with McNeilly's military service.

But a report from a court hearing said the court favored Joey's mother, Holly Erb of Mason, because she was the "day-to-day caretaker and decision maker in the child's life" while McNeilly was deployed.

Erb's lawyer, Theresa Sheets of Lansing, said Erb wanted full custody because she no longer found McNeilly to be a fit father.

McNeilly had shared custody of Joey, his only child, before being deployed in 2004. But Erb had petitioned the court for full custody 7 months after McNeilly joined the National Guard in 2003.

McNeilly agreed to give Erb temporary full custody until he returned from duty. A custody order originally said the issue would be revisited when McNeilly returned from Iraq.