"Why We Carry On"

I'd like to apologize for anyone following my Amendment articles. I promise to return to it in the next entry within the week. However, for now I digress because I read something that struck a personal chord and I want to share it with those who care about such things.

 

 

Warning: I am NOT known for short and concise entries. I should probably have an Achievable named for me since it can sometimes be a challenge just to complete one of my entries. I can be,..... verbose. This is also going to be a long entry as I intend to enter a magazine article verbatim. It was a two page article submitted in "American Cop" magazine. It was originally published in the publication’s first issue. It was reprinted due to repeated requests in the May/June 2009 issue recently.

 

 

The reason it struck a personal note with me is because of the question it answers. As the name of the article implies, "Why We Carry On" it discusses from an experienced point of view why a person would stay a police officer in spite of almost every conceivable reason that they should probably leave. I have asked myself that question so many times I can't count them. There are mornings when I get home so damn sick and disgusted with my fellow man that I can barely breathe due to the profanity that it invokes.

 

 

When I first decided to become a cop my mother was visibly disappointed. She denies that now that I've been one for nearly 15 years now (15 years will hit in November of this year) but she was. I started out in college as an arts major studying to go into architecture or advertising. I was good at it and it was always assumed I would go into some kind of technical or arts related field because of my family’s background. When I zigged instead of zagged, mom was not pleased.

 

 

Dad however, smiled. He didn't say anything, he just smiled. I think he saw it coming and when I asked him about it he said, "I always knew you were going to be a cop".

 

 

My father’s side of the family is decidedly different from my mother’s. It’s actually kind of surprising that they got married and have stayed happy for as long as they have. My mother is a bit different from the rest of her family though and she is stubborn enough to be able to put up with my dad’s shenanigans. I’m of course speaking of the good natured playful shenanigans, not evil ones. ;)

 

 

My dad’s family is very black and white / good and evil types. There is good and there is bad, you decide to be one or the other. They don’t buy into the humanist view of blaming circumstances for ill things that people do. And, if we are all honest with ourselves, very few things that happen didn’t have an almost predictable step-by-step way of leading to their consequences.

 

 

The word “Justice” was spoken of often and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the court system or judges.

 

 

When I was growing up I used to watch every cop show that was on television. Okay, not EVERY cop show. I watched “Dragnet” (re-runs of course), “One-Adam-12”, and “Car-54, Where are You” (I liked the humor of the circumstances) to name a few. I did NOT watch “CHiP’s”. I couldn’t stand that show. It was overly predictable and I felt it was patronizing.

 

Most current shows paint too unrealistic of a picture to the public. I know, they strive to be as “real” as possible. But, what they have done in their “positive” portrayal of law enforcement is that people now think that we are going o be bringing a crime scene unit to every bullshit complaint they have. You know how many times I’ve wanted to tell someone, “I know you had shit stolen from you, you left it in your unlocked car sitting on the fuckin’ seat you stupid bastard!!”

 

Some people try very hard to be victims. Maybe some things “shouldn’t” happen but they DO, grow up, get over it, and prepare to be disappointed again.

 

Cops will do what we can to assist anyone who calls within reason. DNA will not be done for the$50 you think someone took off of your dresser. DNA costs a SHITLOAD of money. Unless somebody is fuckin’ dead or raped don’t even ask the Crime-Lab technicians to do it.

 

I also had a strict since of moral responsibility. I was raised to believe that right and wrong are everyone’s responsibility to enforce. WE are in this damn mess together and unless everybody pitches in to keep things running in a straight line we are ALL fucked.

 

Obviously, we are all fucked, but it shouldn’t keep those of us with the will to try from doing what we can and steer the friggin’ ship back on course.

 

I would often complain about seeing some other kid bullied and thinking that maybe I should have helped out. I often thought maybe it would be better if everybody getting bullied wouldn’t just get together and smack the bully around as a group (I still think that’s a viable option btw).

 

Even though I look back and can see why I would get into law enforcement it never explained why I have stayed. Why would ANYBODY stay? I’m smart, I have two degrees, I could easily get another one or get a Masters to teach. I love teaching and often thought I would like to teach history at the college level. Yet, here I am. Until I read this article I didn’t really have a cohesive answer. I knew the bits and pieces and some of them bugged me. Some of my answers actually bugged me more than the question.

 

Until I read this article.

 

I always knew that there were a lot of people like me in law enforcement, had to be for so many to get to retirement age. But, this article put it in one mass and said it in a way that was like I wrote this myself in an inspired rationalization.

 

I’d like to point out that the kind of person this article addresses exist in more professions than just law enforcement. There are a lot of people like this in many professions. Many of them would make great cops they just got misdirected on their way to recruitment.

 

I’d also like to point out that not everyone in law enforcement are what I would call “cops”. Not a real cop anyway. My profession is one I hold a lot of high regard for obviously and it pisses me the fuck off when some jackass sullies it. But, we are not above the same kind of population driven odds as any other profession. We have our shitheads just like an accounting office or a bakery. Trouble is that the accountant or baker doesn’t have a direct effect on someone’s long-term life. Law Enforcement Officers do and that is the main reason why we should be doing a much better job policing ourselves.

 

So, don’t get a wrinkled nose because the article sounds like its putting cops on some kind of heroic pedestal. I would like to point out however that a lot of the circumstances described are very real issues in our line of work. Most of us don’t encounter all of them but ALL of us encounter MOST of them.

 

 

“You eat your dinner out of a greasy paper sack with a clown’s face on it at 0300, absent-mindedly wondering how much of that crap is sticking to your coronary arteries. You couldn’t count the cups of bad, burnt coffee you’ve started on hot, then returned to finish cold after a call that could have been better handled by a shaved ape than by a ten-year veteran with two units to go on a bachelor’s in criminal justice.

 

You hose wino-barf off of your boots in a closed gas station, shaking your head at the odor rising from the back seat. Oh, yeah, you know that smell all right – the smell of booze-laced human feces – know it with the same familiarity you know the smell of fresh fear, stale sweat, bodies in various stages of returning-to-dust; burning rubber, burning dope, burning flesh. Sometimes when people say, “I’m sure you’ve seen it all,” you’re thinking, “and even worse, I’ve smelled it all.”

 

You’ve stood on the porch side of a screen door so grimy-opaque with dirt and fly-specks you couldn’t see a thing, moved closer to hear whether that was a cry for help – then jumped back when an 11” butcher knife stabbed viciously through, slicing off the shirt button just above your belt buckle, reminding you why you wear body armor in 110-degree heat.

 

You’ve reached in pockets on searches and found chewed gum, snot-filled rags, broken glass vials, unexplained rolls of crisp new fifties, two mummified fingers though your suspect still had all ten of his own, an equally mummified turd the Babbling Man claimed was his “pet”, and uncovered hypodermic needles – the hard way.

 

You thought you were through cleaning up that multi-fatal accident scene when you saw the lump on the pavement and it took you a long ten-count to realize it was a man’s testicle. You thought you were through too at that child-murder scene when you found the kid’s doll where it fell behind the dumpster, and your guts went cold with the knowledge it would never be played with again, not by that little girl, oh, no. Never.

 

You’ve fought ex-cons, ex-priests, ex-linebackers, an ex-cop gone over to the dark side, and, you’d swear before God, ex-humans. You’ve been shot at and missed, shit at and hit, spit on by scumbags, and cursed by cowards, pissed on by politicians and pissed off by people who call themselves “your superior officers”. You’ve fought for your life, fought for your buddies, fought to keep your sanity intact and your family whole, and fought the almost overwhelming urge to reach out and squeeze a neck ten years overdue for a throttling or bust a nose that’s been stuck much too high in the air for far too long and too arrogantly.

 

You’ve come home from life-sucking long shifts, nights that put the “grave” in graveyard shift, scraped your nails until they bled and scrubbed your skin ‘til it shone, and found sometimes there’s something – something – that just won’t wash away.

 

So why the hell would you carry on?

 

 

You’ve learned justice doesn’t come from courts – not often enough to make it more than an occasional fairy tale come true, anyway – and the only two kinds of real justice left are street and poetic. You’ve learned virtually everyone above and below you in the social spiral violates the law regularly, then perjures themselves about it with impunity. You’ve learned truth can’t be bought, but lies can be paid for.

 

You’ve learned losing a fight doesn’t mean losing your fighting spirit, and in this life – our life – every time you see the sun rise it means you’re a winner. You know the difference between a hard guy and a tough guy; that “hard” is all on the surface, brittle and thin, but “tough” goes all the way through. Hard guys break and shatter, while tough guys suck up the punishment and soldier on. You’ve learned the kind of people who tell you “I’ll have your badge” couldn’t lift your badge, much less bear it with honor.

 

You’ve learned citizens spend decades screwing up their lives, then expect you to solve their self-created problems in 15-minutes; that they’ll let their children run wild and become monsters, then call you to control them. You’ve learned you can only expect humans to be human; that is, scared, scarred, confused and irrational, and you can never, ever expect those humans to be humane.

 

You’ve learned new definitions of “friends;” that some may stand behind you when times are hard, but the ones who really count will stand beside you when things go deadly-dark and terminally serious – and sometimes, those truest of true friends are those you hardly know, and share only one thing with: you both wear the badge, and you both carry on.

 

You’ve learned no matter how high you stack the deck or how heavy you load the dice; no matter how well-trained, weapons-skilled, fit and prepared you are, there are some bullets with your name on ‘em, and others addressed “To Whom It May Concern;” that you can lose and die, dropped like a box of rocks in a gravel parking lot; and it has nothing to do with good and evil, right or wrong, just winning and losing. If you roll the dice often enough, they’ll run against you. Dice are cruel that way.

 

And when they turned against your partners, you learned to say goodbye.

 

Oh, God, yes, we’re good at saying goodbye. This life offers the cheapest, ugliest deaths and the most opulent, gaudy funerals. Dress uniforms are pulled from the closet, brushed and pressed; black bands circle arms and lay diagonally across shields and stars, all done as though on autopilot, too many times, and all too often for brothers and sisters who were much too young, too fresh and full of life, and you think, This is a job for old men, men with burnt-cinder eyes and leather hearts, stiff with scars and steeped in pain. Men like me; not these kids.

 

The motorcade rolls, hissing on the same pavement that soaked up that young cop’s blood. White gloves are raised in a slow, final salute. Pipers blow a mournful, haunting dirge, and someone, weeping, is gently handed a folded flag. Backing away – in more ways than one – we stand in the wind and smoke in silence. Goodbye…

 

Why? Why carry on?

 

 

You can’t be a cop just because you need a job. You can’t be a peace officer because it’s a steady paycheck and benefits. Not a real cop; not a true peace officer. You can’t do it “to help people,” or “for the nobility of public service.” That’s a load of crap. Those are just excuses, and they wear thin, turn pale.

 

You don’t enforce the law because “it is necessary to the security of a democratic society,” or because you burn with fervent belief in The Rule of Law. Screw the law. You don’t cleave to the truth on the witness stand while all others lie their asses off because you fear punishment for perjury. Screw fear; piss on punishment. No cop ever sprinted across a bullet-swept parking lot to scoop-and-drag the crossfire victim of a gang turf battle “for love of his fellow citizen.” To hell with that.

 

You do it for love and law, all right, but it is love of courage, duty and honor; for a law, but that law is your code, and that code is one of courage, duty and honor. Your code demands you enforce and obey the law; to protect and serve without fear or favor; to run into danger when others flee; to stand and deliver where others falter and fail.

 

And you do it because you can’t help it. It’s stamped in your genes, burned into your DNA like a bar code. In another time, another place, you have been samurai, knight-errant, warrior-monk, Minuteman. You may not be “happy” as a modern American cop, but you’d be miserable doing anything else.

 

If any of this doesn’t ring true for you, then get the hell out now and go sell insurance or install cabinets or something. They can be honorable trades, and you can be a good citizen, but not a real cop, not a true peace officer.

 

If wailing sirens are playing your song; if you nodded and muttered, “damn right…” when you read these words, then you’re one of us, and American COP will stand and deliver with you. Because we’ve been there, and done that – because it’s who we are and how we’re wired too.”

 

American COP is a publication obviously geared towards police officers and sheriff’s deputies as well as federal agents and correctional officers. It’s a good publication that has a lot of articles that some who aren’t in the trades may find a little “rough around the edges”.

 

Some of you who are veterans will have no doubt recognized many of the traits listed above as also being part and parcel to dedicated military service. Many veterans find very comfortable homes in law enforcement careers and many who have gone into law enforcement and stayed would have been just as comfortable with military service. I’ve often regretted not having gone into the military instead of attending college. I feel like I missed part of my calling some how

 

If you don’t like cops, for whatever reason, I can sympathize. We aren’t the cuddliest bunch and our duties often place us at odds with those we have “sworn to protect and serve”. Most of that hatred for us I’m sure is simply redirected guilt or some kind of malingering regret that you can’t just wallow in your lack of morality thanks to the specter of punishment. If it’s the former I’d say, go get therapy. If it’s the latter then good, I hope I make YOU uncomfortable because you are a piece of shit.

 

When I got asked the standard question, “Why do you want to be a police officer?” I responded, “Because I get to arrest assholes.” And THAT is the real reason that I stay. I don’t like people who victimize others and I REALLY enjoy taking those people and putting them away, even if it is only temporary. At least I know that for the night anyway, their usual victim is safe, might even make the decision to leave the abuse, change their behaviors, anything.

 

If I were anything else, I would be miserable. I’d always be pissed at the petty wrongs that I might have helped correct if given the opportunity.

 

I have no misconception that I am having any long-term effect on anything. I am only providing a band-aid. People have to learn to solve their own problems or at least to avoid the steps they take to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. But, I know that most people are far too stupid or stubborn to actually believe they are to blame for their problems. Not when society does everything it can to make excuses for them.

 

I may not be “happy”, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean, but I am not miserable. And, as cock-eyed as this may sound, I never go un-entertained. ;)

 

Be safe out there, live in peace and dignity. And, for God’s sake, allow others to do the same.