A Douglas County Sheriff’s deputy who has just returned from guarding military prisoners in Afghanistan said it was “shocking” for him to see photos that apparently show U.S. troops abusing prisoners in Iraq.

Robert Berryman, a Douglas County Sheriff's deputy, is back in the United States after nine months of Reserve duty guarding prisoners in Afghanistan. He said photos of treatment of U.S. prisoners in Iraq were shocking and damaging to the U.S. military effort there.

“I think they should be embarrassed of what they did,” said Robert Berryman, a court-security officer at the Judicial & Law Enforcement Center, 111 E. 11th St.

Berryman, 30, returned last month from a nine-month tour of duty with an Army Reserve military-police unit at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. The United States is keeping an undisclosed number of prisoners there guarded by people like Berryman, who spent his years on active duty guarding the U.S. military’s disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth.

Berryman said that for security reasons he was required to sign a paper pledging he wouldn’t reveal details about the prison at Bagram, including who he was guarding and how many people were there.

But he did say that inspectors from the International Red Cross periodically visited the prison. He said he was trained to follow the rules of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit abuse of prisoners, and said he never saw anything like the events pictured in the photographs from Iraq, which have caused an international uproar.

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“I think it’s pretty damaging,” Berryman said. “We’re the U.S. We’re supposed to be a higher standard.”

Berryman said he thought the Bush administration should have acted more quickly in responding to the scandal. He said the soldiers who committed the acts should be punished but shouldn’t be scapegoats.

“I think they were told” what to do, he said.

Berryman learned on April 1, 2003, that he had to report immediately to Fort McCoy, Wis., where he spent about three months in training before going to Afghanistan. He belongs to the 317th Quartermaster Battalion, a Lawrence-based supply unit, but because of his experience in security he was deployed with the 327th Military Police Battalion of Arlington Heights, Ill.

He has two sons: 18-month-old, Zach, who was just an infant when his father left, and 5-year-old Andrew, who was full of questions throughout the absence. Andrew once asked his mother, Monica, if they could go have a sleepover in Afghanistan.

“It’s been nice having Daddy home,” Monica Berryman said.