The holiday season can be such a mix of blessings and curses, especially for us in law enforcement. We embrace the same joy as everyone else when we see our families happy, together and celebrating. We love to see the delight of children as they open gifts and the smiles as they eat sweets usually reserved for this time of year. Then we put on a uniform, hug and kiss our families good bye (for the moment) and head out to work. Sometimes at work we see more of the same: good people enjoying good times. Other times we see the absolute ugliest side of humanity; the kind of ugliness that shocks the conscience and bruises the soul.
Living that kind of life has an impact on every person who wears the uniform as well as our family and friends. Our spouses especially share the burden and have to find the emotional strength to live through it with us. They have to endure, be our rock, our support and our completely-non-judgmental confidant. But living that life can also qualify us, in a unique fashion, to offer guidance and advice that others are incapable of. What do I mean? Bear with me and let’s think about this.
Heraclitus of Ephesus (A pre-Socrates Greek philosopher) is quoted as having said:
Out of every one hundred men,
Ten shouldn’t even be there,
Eighty are just targets,
Nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, For they make the battle.
Ah, but the one: One is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.
Keep that in mind as you read the following:
Just this morning I had someone ask me, through one of my social media accounts, what qualified me to offer advice about anything to anyone. I had to think about that. Most of us offer advice to others and we just assume, since the person is friend or family, that they’re happy to receive our advice. Others give advice as part of a profession: psychologists, psychiatrists, life coaches, mentors… bartenders. I submit to you that some law enforcement professionals, if they have the right personality composition and have paid attention throughout their careers, can offer some of the most appropriate and highly valuable advice available.
Think about your own agency, or others nearby that you often interact with. Consider the command staff, the supervisors, the managers and the line officers. Think about the dispatch personnel, etc. Think about the local fire departments and the volunteers who have ridden the piece for years without compensation. Think about all those who wear a uniform who you interact with regularly. Now consider their performance as well as their personality. Somewhere in that mix of them you’ll find one or two who you consider… “wise” is probably the best word. They are the person you look at and think, “They got it right. They’ve been there, done that. It hasn’t made them bitter. It hasn’t caused them stress disorders or serious health issues. They aren’t negative and don’t have PTSD. They’ve grown, learned and remained sufficiently flexible to not let the job beat them down. In fact, when you think about them, they are the person who seems to have taken every ugly thing they’ve ever experienced and managed to find something to learn from it. It may not be the Chief of Police or the Sheriff. It might be some grizzled sergeant who seems gruff but is a big teddy bear (until you flip his bitch switch). It might be that retired guy who runs communications now. It might be the SWAT Lieutenant who has done more entries than anyone could track and now he delights in taking care of his teams while shuffling paperwork to keep the chain of command happy.
The point is that it’s definitely not EVERY law officer you know. It’s the rarity. It’s that one person who paid attention to what was going on; didn’t try to avoid it or deny it; and s/he’s intelligent enough to have integrated the lessons observed into their life’s experiences so the knowledge becomes wisdom. (Knowledge + experience = wisdom)
Go back to what Heraclitus said: one… ONE warrior out of one hundred men. We tend to consider any reference to “warrior” as one of physical conflict or combat. The reality is that we fight mental and emotional battles far more often than we do physical ones. I submit to you that the one-in-one-hundred comparison is still equally valid.
There are a million good officers/deputies/troopers/agents in our nation today. Not all of them are people I’d go to for career advice, family guidance or professional development coaching. Out of an average one hundred of them… there are probably some that shouldn’t even be in uniform. They’re not bad… they just don’t have the optimal personality characteristics to perform the job most efficiently and to flourish while doing so. There are also a large group of them who perform the job adequately; they take their calls; they do their paperwork; they make the necessary arrests. But “doing the job” isn’t what energizes them. They’re in it for the paycheck, the pension and whatever selection of personal reasons that drove them to it.
Then there are a fewer number who are truly motivated by the desire to serve; those who knowingly and willingly sacrifice for the general good of society. They are the officers who absorb the sins of mankind through observation and enforcement and they filter out that negativity through the strength of their own spirit. They are mentally and emotionally resilient enough not to be negatively impacted – at least not more than briefly – by all of the ugly they have to deal with on the job.
Then there’s the one. There’s that one officer who has been through the worst of what the job has to offer. They’ve “seen it all.” They’ve been in the hospital; put people in the hospital; been across the desk from the I.A. investigators; called into the Chief’s office one more time than they should have. They’ve been married, divorced, remarried, have well-adjusted kids (usually) and maybe even grandkids. They are the officer with a sleeve full of service stripes and unbelievable stories. They are the officer you’d still be delighted to have with you going through any door because you know they’ll do whatever is necessary to bring everyone out alive… and they won’t lose a moment’s sleep over it. Later, at the FOP lodge, they’ll buy a round, find something humorous about the event to share and, in an indirect way, make sure everyone is okay. They’ve held the mom who just lost her baby in a car crash; delivered the news of a loved one who has passed to the surviving family on Christmas Eve.
And yet that one officer… is still happy to come to work; thankful to have the job; honored to wear the badge and finds something good in every situation. He’s “the one.” He’s the warrior that will bring all the rest home. He’s also an angel walking among us.
I submit to you that any person who can experience a decade or more of “the job” and not be tainted by it is more than worthy of the title “angel.” Being in law enforcement forces us to see the ugliest underbelly of humanity. We have to do so without losing touch with our own humanity and if we can manage to do that unscathed, mentally and emotionally, it’s a successful career. If we can do that and, along the way, grow stronger… we become the person who seems on the cusp of being able to work miracles. We know who to ask when we need to make something happen. We know the rules inside and out and how to work within or around them. We know what all of the hurts feel like and we’ve found ways to manage them efficiently – and without long term prices being paid. We hate seeing sad people but we accept the trust and responsibility of comforting them. We share OUR strength with them. We are charitable even when no one else can see a single reason why we should be.
This holiday season, I tip my hat to all of you: the ten who don’t belong, the eighty who do the job satisfactorily, the nine who excel… and the one: the angel among us.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Celebrate thoroughly and safely. Go home to your family at the end of your shift. Support and care for each other – on and off the job.
