VETERANS TOOK DIFFERENT PATHS TO CAREER IN POLICE FORCE

Policing has gone high-tech in the past decade, but the main job
requirement is still people skills, said three veterans who recently
retired from the Shaler Police Department.

"You've got to like people," said Tom Haser, who retired as a
lieutenant after 35 years on the force.

Haser, 57, became a police officer after being drafted and serving as
a military police officer in 1968 and 1969.

"The best part of my career was when I worked undercover," he said.

Haser spent four years penetrating drug rings in Pennsylvania, Ohio
and West Virginia.

"I had long hair. I had earrings and a ponytail. I had just moved to
my new house. I looked like a real bum," he said with a laugh.

In a movie, Haser's undercover work would be driven by a hatred of
drug dealers. In reality, "I was always one of those guys who liked
the action part. I didn't like the paperwork."

Most of the drug dealers he encountered in the 1970s actually were
likable people, Haser said.

"When you make the arrest, you're just doing your job," he said.

If he could rewrite his life, Haser said he would have gone to work
for the CIA, FBI or the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"That would have been my career if I could have done it over again," he said.

The DEA's loss is the Shaler Area High School softball team's gain.
Haser is an assistant coach for the squad. It's become his passion in
the past 10 years.

"My first love is softball," he said.

Randy Vulakovich's first love was being a police officer.

"It's something I wanted to do ever since I was a little boy," he said.

Vulakovich, 55, retired as a sergeant after 27 years on the force.

Before joining the force, he worked 10 years in the grocery business.
He then worked for a year in a U.S. Postal Service bulk mail facility
after a strike shut down the store where he was the assistant manager.

One of the first lessons he learned as a police officer was to take
other people's concerns seriously.

"If it's important to the people, you have to at least give it a fair
shake," he said. "Even if it sounds ridiculous, you owe it a certain
amount of time to weigh it."

In the late 1980s, an accident caused him to devote about six years
of his life to the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program in the
public schools. A drunken driver crashed into a car driven by a
pregnant woman. Her car ignited, and she and her baby died.

"It's kind of what set me to try to do something with the kids," he said.

"It's kind of what set me to try to do something with the kids," he said.

For the first few years, the program didn't seem to have much impact.
In meetings with parents, he found that most viewed some drug and
alcohol use by their children as normal.

"That's the mistake we make," he said. "In the fourth or fifth year,
the attitude of parents began to change."

Jack Reiber, 58, has also seen attitudes change during his 36 years
on the force, but not for the better.

Serving in the Air Force and home from Vietnam, Reiber took the
qualification test for the police force almost on a lark.

"That was the last thing I wanted to be. It's just that the Lord
guided me here," he said.

Reiber served in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. He came in first on the
police test, so he joined the force when he was discharged from the
Air Force in 1968.

"Society was so much different," he said. "It was like a friendlier
society. Whereas now, people are making bigger money, they're more
into themselves. People aren't as friendly -- people aren't as
helpful as they used to be."

At the same time, the job has become so complex that even a simple
traffic accident takes two hours of paperwork, he said.

"I think we're doing more work for the insurance companies (than the
public)," he said.

Add in the increased legal liability that police officers face, and
the job has become "very tough," Reiber said.

"The guys that are in it now, God bless them," he said. "Not only do
they have to deal with all that, they have to watch their lives. You
can get shot over the stupidest stuff."