Soldier's family moves on — with help

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Some legal experts say Linda Dexter didn't have to move. She could have stood her ground and insisted on living in the house she and her husband agreed to lease before he left for Iraq last February with the 1457th Engineering Battalion.

But the landlords needed the house back. They raised the rent $450 a month and sent a constable with a summons the day before Thanksgiving.

"I signed a paper saying I'd get out by the evening of the 15th," Dexter said. "If I did that, they wouldn't sue me for damages."

So Saturday was moving day — and she had plenty of help.

Two roads in her neighborhood were almost completely blocked about 9 a.m. by a convoy of trucks, trailers and troops assisting Dexter's move into another home in the same area.

"I've never seen anything like this," she said.

More than 40 young single adults from the Cottonwood 17th LDS Ward — marshaled by their Young Single Adult leader, Kevin Watts — left Salt Lake City at 8 a.m. to help. A host of neighbors and friends were busily boxing up toys, packing dishes and directing traffic. And soldiers from the Regional Training Institute at Camp Williams military installation came to heft boxes, lift furniture and show their support.

"This just shows, you don't mess with the military," said Karla Hardcastle, Dexter's friend and president of the local family support chapter, surveying the organized commotion.

Dexter is moving despite the fact that military officials and others say she's protected by the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act of 1940 — an act that is designed to hold all legal actions such as divorce proceedings and evictions until the soldier can return home to defend himself.

"You can't expect a soldier to leave his foxhole and be coming in from Baghdad to make an appearance," said Col. Lawrence Schmidt, an officer with the Judge Advocate General's office. Schmidt said he feels the exorbitant raise in rent was purposefully done to skirt the limit of $1,200 in the Civil Relief Act. Language in the 63-year-old law says as long as the rent is below $1,200, the protection against eviction exists for military families.

The Dexters had been paying $1,050 to rent the three-bedroom home.

"Who raises the rent from $1,050 to $1,500?" Schmidt said. "The reason it matters here is because of the $1,200 threshold."