Mark DesLauriers has traded his camouflage fatigues for the shirt, jacket and tie he had been long accustomed to as a probation officer in Attleboro District Court.
DesLauriers, who recently returned from a tour of duty as an intelligence analyst in Kabul, Afghanistan, was back to work in the probation department this week, where he has been employed for 10 years.
“I’m proud that I did it, but being away from your family is difficult. Being away from your life is difficult,” said DesLauriers, a married 38-year-old father of two young sons.
DesLauriers has been a Navy Reserve officer for seven years. And, like other Navy reservists and Air Force reservists called upon in the War on Terror, he underwent Army training at Fort Dix last year to bolster strained military forces serving overseas.
The Army training included using an M-16 rifle and how to drive a Humvee. After completing the training, DesLauriers headed to Kuwait, and then to Afghanistan late last September.
He came home for two weeks of leave in February before returning to Kabul, where he worked seven days a week poring over intelligence information and preparing intelligence summary reports for the Pentagon and the CIA.
“I took a lot of pride in that,” DesLauriers said, noting the reports he wrote went through the chain of command to the highest levels in Washington, D.C.
DesLauriers said he was happy to be stationed in Afghanistan, which was less volatile than Iraq at the time, because it is where the Taliban and Al-Qaida hatched the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
DesLauriers was home last month in time to celebrate Father’s Day with his wife, Narvy, and their sons, Ethan, 3, and 4-month-old Aidan.
Afghanistan has since been rocked by violence and a resurgence of the Taliban. Earlier this month, a suicide bomb exploded down the street from the base where DesLauriers was stationed, killing more than 40 people.
“We’ve come a long way,” DesLauriers said of that country, “but we’ve got a long way to go.”
He said he talked to many Afghanis while serving there, and said they want the United States to help stabilize their country.
But now, DesLauriers is back at his desk at the probation department or in court making sure its orders are enforced.
“I have to learn how to tie a Windsor knot again,” DesLauriers said.
Source Author:
DAVID LINTON SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
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www.thesunchronicle.com