Courtesy Fox 31 News Denver

Lance Hering's mug shot.

Boulder Marine Lance Hering will spend his first night in military custody Saturday sleeping in a brig at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, a Marine spokeswoman said.

The Lance Corporal was picked up by a contingent of military “chasers” — service members specially trained to perform prisoner transfers — at the Washington state jail at 10:15 a.m. Mountain Time Saturday, officials said.

A $5,000 bail was posted for Hering on Thursday, clearing the way for him to be taken into military custody. The bail was exonerated in Clallam County Superior Court on Friday and will be returned to the poster, Hering’s parents.

Major Kristen Lasica, spokeswoman for Camp Pendleton, said Hering arrived by plane at the California base about 7 p.m. Mountain Time.

He was taken directly to the base duty officer, who signed off on a “confinement order” to hold Hering at the base’s brig, Lasica said.

She said there were no immediate plans to move Hering to any other military or civilian holding facility.

Hering told a detective that he was on his way to Virginia for an all-day evaluation with a psychiatrist who specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder when he was arrested on an airport tarmac in Port Angeles, Wash. last Sunday, according to an interview transcript released Friday.

The 23-year-old lance corporal, who disappeared just a couple of weeks before he was supposed to report back to military duty in September 2006, never directly said in the interview that he suffered from PTSD.

Lasica said she did not know whether Hering was being treated for any medical or mental-health conditions, or whether he was cooperative during his flight to California. She did say there were no reported incidents during the transfer.

She also said “no decisions have been made whatsoever about what charges, if any,” Hering might face under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

It remained unclear Saturday, Lasica said, exactly how Hering’s court appearances will be handled since he is wanted both in Boulder County on a probation violation and false reporting charge, and by the Marines, who suspect him of desertion.

Hering’s civilian attorney in Boulder, Alex Garlin, said the young Marine knew the military was coming for him Saturday, and that he was happy about it.

“It’s working out the way Lance had wanted it to,” Garlin said.

Garlin said Hering felt it was his duty as a Marine to handle his military obligations first, but he remains “fully cooperative” in his Boulder case.

Hering told Port Angeles Col. Barbara McFall that he had been advised by his military lawyer to meet with a forensic psychiatrist before turning himself in to Marine officials at Camp Pendleton.

“And he said that, uh, the first thing that he wanted me to do was to have me talk to a psychologist,” Hering told McFall a few hours after his arrest. “Specializing somewhat in um, cases relating to PTSD ... and military issues and stuff also.”

Tom Grieger, a forensic psychiatrist, confirmed Friday that he had an appointment set up with Hering earlier this week. But that meeting never took place, as Hering was apprehended by Port Angeles police Sunday as he boarded a Cessna piloted by his father.

Hering faces a charge of desertion from the Marines, as well as a probation violation and false reporting charge in Boulder County, stemming from an attempted burglary and the staged disappearance.

His father, Lloyd Hering, 60, was cited for rendering criminal assistance to a fugitive. He was released.

Grieger, a 30-year Navy veteran who works with patients suffering from abuse or trauma, said he hadn’t read any of Hering’s files or met the young Marine, but he said that 20 percent to 30 percent of soldiers returning from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have some variant of PTSD.

“It clearly impacts people’s ability to make decisions and react to the environment,” he said.

Boulder neuropsychologist Jim Waters said PTSD can actually lead to brain deterioration detectable on enhanced MRIs.

Waters testified at trial earlier this month in Greeley on behalf of an Iraq war veteran who was convicted of killing his pregnant wife. Waters told the judge that Ricardo Cortez, 25, suffered from PTSD partly brought on by his experiences as a medic in Iraq.

“I don’t think people realize how serious it is — people think that sufferers are just having nightmares,” he said. “This is kind of the hidden toll of the war. These people walk around looking normal, but they’re not.”

It’s not clear what kind of trauma, if any, Hering suffered while in Iraq.

His friend Steve Powers told the Camera last year that Hering didn’t want to return to his unit because he had witnessed something his fellow Marines had done and was afraid for his life.

So the two men staged a climbing accident in Eldorado Canyon State Park on Aug. 30, 2006, that set off the most expensive search and rescue operation in Boulder County history.

Investigators later concluded the story was an elaborate ruse. A security camera inside a Denver Greyhound station captured the young Marine buying a bus ticket less than an hour after his friend reported him missing from the canyon.

Hering’s Louisville-based lawyer, Alex Garlin, said the plan is still to have Hering fully evaluated, though he wasn’t clear when that might happen given Sunday’s arrest.

According to the transcript, Hering also told McFall that he had been in contact with his father in the two weeks prior to his arrest and used the help of military lawyer James Culp to arrange — via e-mail and cell phone — a rendezvous with him.

He said he only recently decided to turn himself in to the Marines because he wanted to see his family again. He also said he had accepted “that it is right to go deal with this, even though I have, like, issues with it.”

He called his arrest at Fairchild International Airport in Port Angeles “fortunate,” according to the transcript.

“Even though it’s not what I expected, I’ve been preparing and I’ve been in the mindset of like, OK, I’m ready to go address this,” Hering told McFall.

He said just a year earlier, he would probably have run away at the prospect of being picked up by police.

Garlin wouldn’t speculate why his client had started laying the groundwork for his surrender to military authorities after more than two years on the run.

“Life as a fugitive gets tiresome, and one realizes there’s very little percentage of future in it,” he said. “And there are also issues of conscience.”