A decorated Ft. Rucker army sergeant goes before a judge.

He faces 36 counts for possession of child pornography.

Army Sergeant Dustin Hogan, from Illinois was initially arrested for drug charges, but during a search of his home investigators found pornographic videos and photos of Hogan with an eight and nine year old.

Assistant District Attorney Tom Anderson says the images appeared to be from several different days.

"Every single law enforcement officer to include the District Attorney and investigators with our office; everybody that has viewed these things have uniformly described these things to be the worst images they've seen in law enforcement. The worst!"

He's facing 36 counts of possession of child pornography; all felonies punishable by up to 20 years for each case.

That amounts to 720 years behind bars in served consecutively.

Bond for the child pornography charges alone total $5.4 million.

News 4 spoke with Hogan’s family.

His mom was in shock as she stooped over a box filled with her son's awards.

She cried that this was not the same Dustin they know and love.

“This is not Dustin, the son that was all that he could be for the army, for his family, that's all. He's great, he was loved. He was loved everywhere. He was a good person. I don’t know what happened,” says his mother Deborah Hogan, “Here, his friends are shocked. They said, they said, ‘what is this!’ Nobody, nobody, everybody is shocked; it's just a state of shock. Everybody loved Dustin!”

She says he carried a number of burdens in his life in order to support his family and country.

“He needs help because something broke him. He will serve his punishment, but he needs help to find out what happened, what caused this, because he was the best that he could be for army and home and family,” says Hogan, “I wish I had told him to get help if he needed help. I told him, ‘be strong be strong,’ and I don't know how many thing he had to carry on his back before he broke.”

Hogan could face even more charges from the military and the State of Illinois for acts depicted in the images.

Anderson says they're also investigating whether or not any of these acts happened in Alabama.