For years Col. Jack O’Connell, now 50, has been harassed by his bosses at the New Jersey Turnpike Authority for continuing to serve his country as legal counsel for the Air National Guard, according to the former Navy pilot who says that small-minded suits at the highway authority bullied him to “quit playing soldier”.

The veteran, who flew 30 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm and was wounded in Baghdad claims that the agency wouldn’t let him leave for military training last month in Nebraska and threatened to fire him if he did.

He didn’t.

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[O’Connell] is already suing the Authority, alleging it blocked his promotions and raises for years because of his five active-duty tours in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay.

“When you’re in the military you have an obligation,” O’Connell told The Post. “I get an order, and I go.”

O’Connell, of South Amboy, NJ, began his military career flying Navy F-14 fighter jets off aircraft carriers during the First Gulf War in 1991. He was decorated for valor after flying dozens of strike missions in and around Baghdad.

O’Connell left active duty in 1993 and earned a law degree at Seton Hall. After the Sept. 11 attacks, the newly minted attorney joined the Air National Guard.

“When 9/11 happened, I felt an obligation,” he said. “They wouldn’t let me fly anymore and asked me to be a judge advocate.”

The former military aviator is in-house counsel for the Turnpike and headquartered at their offices in Woodbridge, New Jersey. He was hired in 2002.

(photo: J.C. Rice – New York Post)