NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Spc. Ralph Isabella says he had two enemies when he deployed to Iraq with the Army National Guard.

The obvious ones were insurgents with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. They killed two members of his unit. One man died in the arms of Spc. Isabella, who was a combat medic with the 1st Battalion, 120th Infantry.

As for his other foe, Spc. Isabella says it is the Pennsylvania court system. He says judges in Lawrence County ignored the fact that he was fighting overseas and allowed divorce, domestic violence and child-custody cases to proceed in his absence.

Spc. Isabella, 34, says two judges violated the federal Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act, which says civil court actions must be delayed if a serviceman is called to active duty. He maintains that the judges broke the federal law when they failed to appoint an attorney for him so his rights at home would be protected while he was at war.

"They must have thought I was some dumb, redneck hillbilly," Spc. Isabella said. "I fought for this country, and it was my right to have representation. The judges' ignorance of the law is no excuse."

While Spc. Isabella was still on active duty, he says, one judge robbed him of his children by holding a conciliation hearing on custody. He lost the case when he did not appear.

Spc. Isabella has not seen his children, James, 10, and Cassandra, 8, in the year since that ruling. Though the former soldier is now living and working in Western Pennsylvania, the judge's decision prohibits visitation.

Only recently, Spc. Isabella says, did a kindly lawyer help him file for another hearing so he could challenge the decision.

Spc. Isabella has filed misconduct complaints against two judges who presided in domestic cases involving him. Neither of them, Common Pleas Judge Thomas Piccione of Lawrence County and visiting Senior Judge Clinton Smith of Lycoming County, responded to requests to be interviewed for this story.

In Lawrence County, where Spc. Isabella lived when his 12-year marriage began to crumble, not everybody is sympathetic to him.

His wife, Christina, 34, calls him a stalker, philanderer and liar. She says she fears him, and considers him too unstable to have unsupervised visits with their children.

Others, from secretaries in law offices to courthouse employees, say Spc. Isabella is overbearing, unreasonable and often ignorant of the laws he quotes.

He went on a public tirade against Judge Piccione even before any lawsuits were filed in his case. Spc. Isabella sought an emergency court order to see his children in February 2004, after he and his wife had separated and he was about to be shipped to Iraq.

The judge said he had no authority to intervene in a domestic dispute in which no lawsuit had been filed, but he encouraged Spc. Isabella to try to make peace with his wife. Perhaps then she would let him see the children.

In response, Spc. Isabella accused Judge Piccione of hypocrisy, asking how could the judge sit in a courthouse graced with American flags but refuse to help a soldier.

After narrowly avoiding being held in contempt, Spc. Isabella went to the home in Volant, Lawrence County, that he formerly shared with his wife and children. The children were not there, but he demanded that his wife let him see them.

With emotions running high, he says, his wife attacked him. In turn, she accused him of domestic violence and filed for a protection-from-abuse order.

With that, the Isabellas' dispute grew from an ugly family blowup to a court case that would change his life and become his obsession.

Spc. Isabella says notice of a civil lawsuit on the protection order did not reach him until he was in a war zone.

Mark Krochka, a lawyer with Neighborhood Legal Services in New Castle, represented Mrs. Isabella in her quest for the protection order. Mr. Krochka says he knew Spc. Isabella was serving in Iraq, so he made certain no action in the case occurred immediately. Only when Spc. Isabella came home on leave, Mr. Krochka says, did state police serve him papers and order him to appear in court in the protection-from-abuse case.

Spc. Isabella signed an agreement saying he would stay away from his wife. But he contends that the civil protection case against him was illegally open for a year until the court hearing was scheduled.

He blames Judge Piccione, saying he was obligated to appoint an attorney for him. Had that happened, Spc. Isabella says, the case would have been thrown out for lack of evidence.

While Spc. Isabella was in Iraq, District Judge David Rishel found him not guilty of a criminal charge of harassing his wife. She did not appear at the hearing, so the case was dismissed.

Likewise, Judge Rishel found Mrs. Isabella not guilty on a cross complaint. Spc. Isabella could not appear to testify against her, as he was in the desert of Iraq.

Because Spc. Isabella was acquitted of the only criminal charge against him, he maintains his wife's request for a protection order has no credibility.

"I never struck her or abused her in any way," he said. "There was no basis for the protection-from-abuse order."

Mr. Krochka disagrees. He said Spc. Isabella had "mental health issues" and once wrote a rambling letter saying he planned to kill himself.

Spc. Isabella conceded that he wrote a suicide letter in 2003, but said it happened at the lowest point in his life. His marriage was dissolving and he knew he was about to go to war.

But by the time his wife sought the protection order, he says, he had been examined by Army doctors and cleared for combat duty.

The order barring Spc. Isabella from seeing his children sprang from a different case, the divorce action his wife filed.

Spc. Isabella says her divorce attorney, Angelo Papa, of New Castle, intentionally gave the court an incorrect Pennsylvania address for him, knowing full well that he was in Army.

Because notice of the hearing did not reach Spc. Isabella, he says, he could not ask for a delay or try to arrange leave from the Army so he could appear.

"They did this for purpose of gaining a default judgment against me," Spc. Isabella said.

Mr. Papa says Spc. Isabella's claim is ridiculous.

"Nobody tried to take advantage of him," Mr. Papa said. "I would never dream of doing anything that would prevent him or anybody else from appearing at a hearing."

Mr. Papa said Judge Smith's order barring Spc. Isabella from seeing his children was not final. In fact, Mr. Papa said, Spc. Isabella was free to ask for a new hearing at any time, but, until recently, never did.

"I don't buy this idea that he was treated unfairly because the court didn't give him a lawyer," Mr. Papa said. "He could have asked any judge for another hearing, and he would have gotten it."

Spc. Isabella also blames Judge Piccione and Judge Smith for not protecting his rights. Their own case files, he says, showed that he was in the Army, not in Pennsylvania, when the custody conference was scheduled.

Spc. Isabella says Judge Piccione's staff had mailed paperwork on the protection case to Fort Stewart, Ga., and that it had been forwarded to him in Iraq.

But it seems unlikely that Judge Smith had much background about the custody case. Court Administrator Michael Occhibone said Judge Smith worked in Lawrence County only a day or two, handling family court cases, because the normal complement of judges was depleted.

While making his numerous complaints against judges and lawyers, Spc. Isabella found an ally. County Public Defender Harry Falls decided that Spc. Isabella had been treated unfairly, so he agreed to represent him at no cost.

With the help of Mr. Falls, Spc. Isabella was granted another conciliation hearing so he could make his case for child-visitation rights. The case is scheduled for Friday before newly elected Lawrence County Common Pleas Judge John Hodge.

No longer on active duty, Spc. Isabella works at an auto dealership in Allegheny County. He usually wears a business suit and a bracelet carrying the names of Capt. Christopher S. Cash and Spc. Daniel A. Desens Jr. They died June 24, 2004, when some 300 insurgents attacked an Army unit of 35 in Baqubah, Iraq.

The better-armed Americans killed about 200 of the Iraqis that morning. Spc. Isabella has been nominated for the Bronze Star for valor in combat.

He says one reason he is pressing misconduct charges against lawyers and judges is personal. But another factor, he says, is that he never wants another soldier to worry about court cases at home while fighting a war.