Reservist must readjust after 10 months with military police
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By Jerome Burdi
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Sheriff’s Deputy Adams Lin is back to patrolling Palm Beach County after serving in a war zone.
Lin, a U.S. Army reservist who returned Sept. 20 from a 10-month stint in Afghanistan, was a sergeant with the military police assigned to Kandahar and Bagram.
Here’s what sticks with him: watching the flag-draped coffins of fallen comrades marched into the air base on their way home, then having to guard the enemy detainees accused of killing them.
Everyone stands at attention when the coffins come in. Lin once saw nine coffins enter at once.
“That’s a lot to take in,” he said.
Experts say coming home often is a tough transition.
“A police officer’s main job is to keep the peace, whereas a soldier’s job is actually to kill,” Boca Raton psychologist Laurence Miller said. “There’s a shift in mind-set.”
Lin became a military policeman in 2000. He wanted to gain experience to help him get ajob as a sheriff’s deputy, a dream that came true for him in 2004. He volunteered to go to war so he’d have something to show for his duty. Oct. 31 was his first day back on the job, and he had to go through re-entry training to get caught up on new policies, technology and tools, including the laptops deputies now have in their cruisers.
Lin is one of eight Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies who have been called to military service since January 2007. Twenty-seven Florida police officers are on active military duty, according to the Florida Police Benevolent Association.
For servicemen and women returning, there’s also a shift in environment. Lin, a 31-year-old Palm Beach County native, wouldtake a hurricane over a sandstorm any day.
“At least with the hurricanes you can see them coming and have a week to prepare,” Lin said.
Sandstorms come without warning, last for a day and cover everything. “You can’t see in front of your face,” Lin said.
When Lin arrived in Afghanistan in December 2007, it was the first snowfall he had ever seen. The temperature dropped to 15 degrees below zero, and heaters froze.
Before he left, it hit 120 degrees.
“I’ll never complain about wearing a [bulletproof] vest in the Florida heat again,” said Lin, a patrol deputy who works west of West Palm Beach.
Sheriff’s Cpl. Bart Jezewski, a Florida Army National Guardsman who also served in Afghanistan, was Lin’s training officer in Palm Beach County. Getting law enforcement officers back into the swing of things after military service, he said, depends on their personality and what they experienced.
“What you can shoot at overseas and what you can shoot at here are different,” Jezewski said. “There’s not too many people who are going to sue the Army for several million dollars like they will the sheriff’s department.”
Jeffrey Ian Ross, an associate professor in University of Baltimore’s Division of Criminology, said there should be more studies of police officers returning to duty after serving in the military. The readjustment for military men and women returning to normal society as police officers, particularly in quiet, rural areas, is something relatively unexamined.
“Most police officers may not fire their service revolver in their entire career. [In the military] they’re going to be holding on to it on a regular basis,” he said.
The prisoners held in Afghanistan, who included Taliban, spit at Lin. The desperation of the civilians was shocking. They sent their children into minefields, Lin said, so they could be admitted to U.S. military hospitals and treated for other ailments.
The horror, he said, is juxtaposed against the beauty of the mountainous country.
“If it weren’t for the mines and the people trying to kill you, that is a damn nice country,” Lin said.
Putting on the green uniform of a deputy, he said, was a pleasure after war.
He said he’s happy to be back.
“It’s always a huge applause when the pilot announces you’re in U.S. airspace,” Lin said.
Copyright 2009 South Florida Sun-Sentinel