Pace, Fla. ? Two Florida National Guard soldiers who married Iraqi women against their commander’s wishes are being investigated for allegedly defying an order, their families said.

The men, both Christians who converted to Islam so they could be married under Iraqi law, had expected to return this month to Florida, but a new Army policy that requires troops to remain in Iraq for 12 continuous months may keep them there until April.

In the meantime, Sgt. Sean Blackwell, 27, of Pace, and Cpl. Brett Dagen, 37, of Walnut Hill, want to send their wives to the United States because of threats from anti-American Iraqis.

Vickie McKee, Blackwell’s mother, said Friday her daughter-in-law had asked that the women not be identified for that reason. Both women are physicians.

“She’s being threatened over there on almost a daily basis,” McKee said. “He just wants to know that she’s safe.”

McKee, who said the Army was trying to prevent the women from coming to the United States, has delivered letters from her son and his wife to the district office of U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller. Spokesman Dan McFaul said the congressman could do nothing until the women requested visas.

Blackwell’s wife, now working as an interpreter for an American firm in Baghdad, wrote that the Army had prevented him from contacting her since the Aug. 17 double wedding.

“Is this freedom in U.S.?” she wrote. “Where is the human right? Where is justice?”

Lt. Col. Ron Tittle, spokesman for the Florida National Guard in St. Augustine, said the soldiers’ battalion commander, Lt. Col. Thad Hill, had said he was worried the marriages might distract his troops from their mission and compromise their safety.

Florida National Guard Sgt. Sean Blackwell, of Pace, Fla., right, exchanges wedding bands with his Iraqi bride, who did not want to be identified, at their wedding Aug. 17 in Baghdad, Iraq. Family members say Blackwell, 27, and another Florida guardsman, Cpl. Brett Dagen, 37, of Walnut Hill, are being investigated for allegedly violating an order against marrying Iraqi women.