As a marine, Paul Madriz believed in the motto” leave the place better than you found it.” As a Recruit Training Officer at Bakersfield Police Department, Detective Madriz realized early on that if he wanted to leave the police academy better than he found it, he would need to find a way for veterans to become police officers — and get paid for it. “I went through the process to get the Veterans Affairs (VA) to recognize our police academy as education,” he said. “It was frustrating because veterans were going through the academy, and it wasn’t recognized as college.…