Coming Home From Combat To Cop

Cops returning from war zones: 6 keys to easing back to the street

10-8: Life on the Line
with Charles Remsberg

Editor's Note:

This series deals with the potential problems of LEOs attempting to reintegrate into domestic policing after serving military combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our reporting is based on the presentations of experts at a unique, invitation-only symposium for law enforcement and mental health professionals at the Washington (D.C.) Metropolitan Police Academy, organized by Dr. Beverly Anderson, clinical director and administrator of the Metropolitan Police Employee Assistance Program. PoliceOne was the only communications agency permitted to attend.

In Part 1, we explored the battlefield culture, the mental injuries war commonly inflicts, and the fact that returning veterans will inevitably be changed, sometimes in negative ways, by what they have experienced. Part 2 outlined a variety of post-combat symptoms frequently evidenced after vets reach home that may negatively impact their performance in policing if not recognized and resolved.

Most law enforcement agencies seem to have given little formal thought to how best to reintegrate combat veterans back into domestic street assignments. Those that have addressed the problem have put measures in place that run from the simplistic to the sophisticated.


At one end of the spectrum, a chief in South Carolina is alleged to have said that he simply doesn't bring any officer veteran onto his force until he or she has been back from a war zone for at least three years. Period. On the other hand, the Los Angeles County (Calif.) Sheriff's Dept. processes returning personnel through a four-day "repatriation" program, developed under the agency's chief psychologist, Dr. Audrey Honig.(For a day-by-day description of LASD's program, go click here.)

Another psychologist, Dr. Ellen Marshall, a traumatic stress researcher and criminal justice instructor at Delaware Technical & Community College and the Union Institute and University, attended the Washington symposium as part of her research in assisting the Delaware State Police to design a cutting-edge reintegration program. The symposium's organizer, Dr. Beverly Anderson, is updating and expanding procedures and services for the Washington Metropolitan Police Dept., which already offers confidential debriefing and therapy to returning cops and their families.

And a fourth psychologist, Dr. Laura Zimmerman, who researches police issues for the consulting firm Applied Research Associates/Klein Associates Division, is collaborating with the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police on a project aimed at fully exploring the issues involved in hiring or reintegrating combat vets. The goal is to make recommendations for future research and training and to provide resources to veterans and agencies confronting reintegration challenges.

"Reintegration procedures should be part of an on-going comprehensive plan that all law enforcement agencies put in place to take care of their officers," Anderson told PoliceOne. "Short-term strategies produce only limited results and high officer turnover. An effective, well-implemented, long-term post-deployment program is what's needed. Started today, it will help prevent problem behavior in the future."

Whatever the details end up being, the seminar presenters offered six fundamental concepts that should be considered when formulating a reintegration plan:

1. Pre-briefing/debriefing. Preparing an officer to return to the streets should begin even before he leaves for combat duty, advised Maj. David Englert, chief of the Behavioral Analysis Division of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

Among other things, in addition on realistic information on what to expect in the war zone, the officer can be referred to CDs and websites that offer practical instruction on stress management. Family members should be included in pre-briefings so their concerns can also be surfaced and addressed.

On return, the officer should be debriefed in a process similar to that which occurs after a critical incident. ("If being in Iraq is not a critical incident, I don't know what is," one speaker observed.) "The debriefing should include specific education on post-traumatic stress disorder and on other potential problems encountered by returning combat vets," said Dr. William Bograkos, a colonel who heads the Warrior Transition Division of the military's North Atlantic Region Medical Command.

Capt. Aaron Krenz, a criminal justice-trained reintegration operations officer and Iraq veteran with the Minnesota National Guard, recommended discussing in detail what he called the "reintegration cycle." This consists of six phases that combat veterans may transition through as they adjust from battlefield to home front:

• The Honeymoon
• Disillusionment
• Alienation (including frustration and anger)
• Re-engagement
• Acceptance
• The New Normal.
While not every returning officer will necessarily struggle through this cycle, many will, and it helps to know that these are normal reactions to the abnormal circumstance of being in war.
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