Military members who can no longer fight the wars overseas are battling a new enemy at home: the murky online spaces where sexual predators prey on children.

They are members like Jabryeth Christian, formerly with the 75th Ranger Regiment, who is one of 13 medically retired, injured or ill warriors who took an oath Friday to serve in a mission that Christian said is "more important than anything we've ever done, and more important than anything that we will do."

"There's not a lot that these guys can't do," he said. "We now have the opportunity to make a difference, whether it's in one child's life or hundreds of children's lives."

The newly graduated veterans will participate in the one-year Human Exploitation Rescue Operative Corps unpaid internship. They will assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with criminal investigations involving the sexual online exploitation of children.

The second annual "HEROs" program, a partnership between U.S. Special Operations Command, ICE's Homeland Security Investigations directorate and the National Association to Protect Children, will give these wounded warriors the ability to expand their expertise in computer forensics at HSI offices across the U.S.

"The reason why this partnership works so well is in your careers from the military, you've already learned a great set of talents and skills that will really enable you to work well here at ICE," said ICE Deputy Director, Daniel Ragsdale, in his remarks to the graduates.

The members recently completed 11 weeks of training at the Weiss Child Rescue and Protection Technology Center in Houston, Texas, and at HSI's Cyber Crimes Center in Fairfax, Virginia. Much of the training prepares them for what they'll see during the internship.

"They learn what a child predator is, who a victim is, [and] they actually have victims come in and talk to them," said ICE Chief of Strategic Recruitment Joseph Arata. Arata said the HEROs members also learn from doctors, psychologists and prosecutors how children and their families are impacted from the crime.

At the cyber crimes center, they are provided the same cyber forensics training as HSI special agents.

"In the first eight days they're there, they do about a semester's worth of college classes in those eight days," Arata said.

With any new assignment, there are obstacles, Christian said, but having a military background means the 13 members representing all branches of the military "can be trained to do anything."

For Dustin Mallow, who medically retired as an Air Force fire fighter and combat controller this year, the only adjustment for him will be his new location in Kansas City, Missouri.

"I was trying to hunt down bad guys overseas and now I'm hunting down bad guys stateside," Mallow said.

After one year, ICE will choose which members will be offered full-time jobs with the agency. All 15 members from the 2013 class were offered permanent positions.

Members working under HSI arrested more than 2,300 child predators in fiscal 2014.

ICE is looking to expand the program for next year's class to give more opportunities to military members beyond SOCOM, Arata said, but the "creed of this junction remains that they must be wounded warriors or injured."

"This is an opportunity to serve again ... and it didn't take a second for me to make the decision," Christian said. "What could I really be doing that would be more important than that?"

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