AGE: 43

RESIDENCE: Austintown

SERVICE BRANCH: U.S. Army

MILITARY HONORS: Bronze Star, multiple achievement awards

OCCUPATION: School resource officer, Boardman Police Department

FAMILY: wife, Jennifer

AUSTINTOWN — U.S. Army veteran Paul Poulos put in over nine years in the U.S. Army, then returned to civilian life to become a police officer.

He is going into his 10th year as Boardman High School’s school resource officer and said he enjoys protecting and serving others.

Poulos is a 1998 West Branch High School graduate. He said he was somewhat rambunctious in school and knew attending college would not have been a good decision.

“I went straight into the service out of high school,” Poulos said. “I signed on to be a paratrooper.”

His first stop on his military career was for basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. After basics, he received his first duty assignment with the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was assigned to the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment and put in three years from 1998 to 2001 at Fort Bragg, which is now known as Fort Liberty.

“I left Fort Bragg with orders to go to South Korea,” Poulos said. “We were turning in our equipment right after the Twin Towers were hit on Sept. 11. We were put on alert, but continued to head to South Korea.”

In South Korea, Poulos was made a team leader in the 503rd Air Mobile ReconnaissancePlatoon.

“We were the scouts and snipers,” he said.

He worked his way up to staff sergeant and put in two years, mostly in training. At the end, he said he had done all he could do there and it was time to move on.

He reenlisted in June 2003 and was assigned to Germany for four years, until the ground war started in Iraq. Poulos’ unit was deployed to Iraq in February of 2004.

“We went to FOB (forward operating base) Omaha (in Tikrit, Iraq),” he said. “We covered an area as far south as Samarra and north to Mosul. We secured Mosul so they could have their first free election. For the first time, women could vote.”

That happened in the winter of 2004-05. Poulos said it was very cold in Mosul compared to the hot climate of the earlier deployment to Tikrit, and he said he was glad to head back to Germany in February 2005.

“We sadly did not come home with everyone we left with,” Poulos said.

While in Germany, Poulos’ fiancee, Jennifer Skeliski, visited and the couple got to spend a short time together. The decision to get married was put on hold until Poulos completed his military service.

“I made her wait until I got out,” he said.

In September 2006, he came home and planned to end his military experience. However, the military has a stop loss program where a soldier can be kept on active duty after an anticipated discharge date.

“The Army said I was staying and heading back to Iraq,” Poulos said.

This time, his unit was assigned to Ramadi, Iraq. Poulos said U.S. forces had lost control of that region and it was his unit’s task to assist in taking it back.

“It was ugly,” he said. “The first six months were the hardest time of my life. We had constant conflicts with al-Qaida.”

He said most of the fighting was in urban settings and a lot of lives were lost to IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

He said the good thing that came out of that war was when tribal leaders grew tired of al-Qaida’s atrocities, they switched sides in what was called the Anbar Awakening.

For 15 months, Poulos served in his second Iraq deployment. He finally came home with an honorable discharge and a Bronze Star in November 2007.

Back in civilian life, he went on to attend the police academy at Kent State University at Trumbull. He graduated and in May of 2009, he married and started a career with the Boardman Police Department. In 2014, Poulos became the high school resource officer, a position he enjoys.

He continues his passion for animal life. He has three dogs, four cats and three snakes.

“The dogs and cats are all rescues,” he said. “The snakes I have loved since I was a young man.”

He said he still keeps in touch with some of his military brothers, and he interacts with students who have questions about a military career.

“I do not do any recruiting in any way,” Poulos said. “But when a student at BHS is looking at a military career, administrators will often tell them to come and talk to me.”