For 28 years, David A. Hemler said Sunday, he has lived a secret, though rather mundane life in Sweden, far from his native Pennsylvania. Under an alias, he married and fathered three children and worked at a hamburger restaurant and a nursing home before finding a job with the Swedish government. 
 
 Before that, though, he was an airman who had enlisted straight out of high school and joined the United States Air Force’s 6913th Electronic Security Squadron based in Augsburg, Germany. But on Feb. 10, 1984, distraught over a broken relationship and angered by the foreign policies of President Ronald Reagan, Mr. Hemler, then 21, deserted and hitchhiked to Sweden. Until a month ago his family had presumed he was dead. 
 
 “I never planned on it being this long,” Mr. Hemler said by telephone from Uppsala, the university town where he has lived for nearly three decades. “Days went and weeks, and I started to realize that maybe the military police weren’t coming. I just felt so good. I had a delayed teenage rebellion, you could say.” 
 
 This month, Mr. Hemler, 49, who was born in Cleona, Pa., said he decided it was time to call the family he had left behind, first telling his story to the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. He also sent an e-mail to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which still considers him a fugitive, opening up a host of legal questions that could cloud his future even as he seeks to clear up his past. 
 
 Linda J. Card, a spokeswoman for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, confirmed in an e-mail that a man identifying himself as Mr. Hemler contacted her agency 10 days ago. She said it was investigating the veracity of his claim. “We really want to catch this guy,” she added. 
 
 It is not precisely clear how Mr. Hemler eluded detection for so long. He said he was picked up by at least 10 drivers on his way to Sweden, failing to arouse notice even though an international warrant had been issued for his arrest. His desertion was all the more embarrassing to the Air Force because he once had top secret security clearance for work that he said involved a covert American program directed against Russia. 
 
 “It’s just unthinkable that I could just disappear in one city and turn up 800 miles away,” he said. 
 
 But he did. A year and a half after he arrived in Sweden, he was given a residency permit. He adopted an alias, which he would not reveal, and he told new acquaintances, his new girlfriend and the Swedish government that he was the son of drifters. He learned Swedish and now speaks English with an accent. 
 
 He currently lives with his wife, a Swedish citizen, and their two young children. He also has a 22-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. And now he is trying to reconnect with his mother, father and younger brother, Thomas. 
 
 Reached by telephone, Thomas Hemler, who is 46 and lives in New Jersey, said Sunday that when he heard the man who claimed to be his brother speak over the phone for the first time in years, he believed it was him “almost immediately.” Just to be sure he tested him, asking a few personal questions, including the name of their childhood pet turtle, Scooby. He passed the test. 
 
 Thomas Hemler said his immediate reaction was joy, with little room for anger. “Twenty-eight years ago we thought we had lost him forever, and him coming back is just a blessing,” he said. “We’re only interested in today and tomorrow, not the past.” 
 
 He said the family wanted to reach some sort of resolution with the Air Force so that his brother could return to the United States to visit their parents, who are in their 70s. 
 
 The military may not be so forgiving. “Once you run from the military and you desert that’s something that follows you for the rest of your life,” said James Dillard, a spokesman for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. 
 
 He and Ms. Card acknowledged, however, that punishing Mr. Hemler, if he is who he says he is, would be difficult if he remained in Sweden. Sweden has an extradition treaty with the United States, but it does not allow for extradition for military or political offenses. 
 
 But even so, after all these years, David Hemler said, he just wanted to go home. 
 
 “I may be safe, but my parents may never able to see me if I cannot come home,” he said. “I think I have been punished. I’ve been worrying my parents to death for 28 years.” ||||| STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A U.S. Air Force deserter who has lived secretly in Sweden since 1984 has revealed his identity and contacted his family in the United States who were overwhelmed to hear he was still alive, a Swedish newspaper reported at the weekend. 
 
 Dagens Nyheter said David Hemler had deserted aged 21 while serving at a U.S. Air Force base in Germany, after getting involved with a pacifist church and becoming disillusioned with the policies of former President Ronald Reagan. 
 
 He hitchhiked via Denmark to Sweden where he settled down, living under an assumed name for the last 28 years and not revealing his true identity to anyone. 
 
 "I never planned on not telling the truth in the beginning. I intended to come to Sweden until I felt better (after his experience in the airforce), I expected a week or so," Hemler told the newspaper in a video on its website. 
 
 Now aged 49, he is married to a woman from Thailand, has three children and works for a Swedish government agency, but would not let the newspaper print his assumed name. 
 
 After his desertion, he became one of the U.S. Air Force's eight most wanted fugitives, according to the newspaper, and had expected at any time to be arrested by military police with both Interpol and Europol looking for him. 
 
 Hemler told the newspaper he had missed his parents after he deserted but went on to have a child and had not wanted to be separated from her. 
 
 He had decided to come forward after his third daughter turned two and could go to day care, so his wife would be better able to cope if he was arrested. 
 
 He first contacted his U.S. family four weeks ago, speaking to his brother Thomas who was in Massachusetts at the time on a business trip. 
 
 "DREAM SCENARIO" 
 
 "I heard immediately it was David, even if he had a strange European accent after all these years," Thomas Hemler, who lives in New Jersey, was quoted on Sunday as saying. 
 
 He said he had asked questions to confirm the man was indeed his brother David. Members of his family in the United States are now planning to visit him in Sweden. 
 
 The website of the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations lists Hemler, who was born in Pennsylvania, as having deserted on February 10, 1984 from the 6913th Electronic Security Squadron in Augsburg, Germany. 
 
 Its Air Force Fugitives page shows a photo of Hemler as a young man, and a photo digitally enhanced to show how he might look aged 47. 
 
 The newspaper said Hemler was registered in Sweden as a citizen of an unknown country who was born in Zurich. 
 
 His lawyer, Emma Persson, told Reuters he had approached her firm for legal advice about a month ago. 
 
 "My opinion is that he will not lose his permanent residence permit in Sweden, it is very unlikely," she said. She also thought it unlikely he would be extradited to the United States. 
 
 A U.S. embassy spokesman declined to comment on the case. 
 
 "My dream scenario is that the responsible authorities realize I have already been punished quite severely for my actions ... I have been living 28 years in lies," Hemler said. 
 
 (Reporting by Patrick Lannin; Editing by Sophie Hares)
– A US Air Force deserter is "back from the dead" after being AWOL since 1984. David Hemler says he walked off a base in Germany 28 years ago and hitchhiked to Sweden, where he only planned to stay a week but ended up building a new life under an alias, Reuters reports. Hemler, now 49, says he deserted at the age of 21 after getting involved with a pacifist church and becoming disillusioned with Ronald Reagan's policies. He is married to a Swedish citizen and has three children. His family in Pennsylvania had assumed he was dead until they heard from him a few weeks ago. Hemler says he decided to finally come forward after his youngest daughter turned two—old enough for his wife to put her in day care if he was arrested. A spokeswoman for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations says Hemler contacted the agency about 10 days ago. "We really want to catch this guy," she tells the New York Times. It's not clear what punishment Hemler will face for deserting—or whether the Swedes will be willing to hand him over. "My dream scenario is that the responsible authorities realize I have already been punished quite severely for my actions," he says. "I have been living 28 years in lies."