Blue Dreams vs Reality
I dreamed from age 11 to serve my country and my community. My mom remembers more from that day 9/11/2001 than I do. She remembers me being angry. She said I wanted to "go fight" . She had fear and a calm resolve inside knowing that in a few short years that war would still be going strong and her son would get his wish to fight. For those that couldn't
I did. I survived. I came back and still wanted to serve. Here, locally in my home town. I had these ideals and hopes of helping people when they needed someone to protect them or to help them when they are at their worst in life. I wanted to stop the evil and get bad people off the streets.
I wanted to be that person that kids would look up to and be able to show them how to treat other people. I wanted to 100% protect and serve everyone equally. I didn't have hate in my heart.
Then the reality. It's so much darker.
I do these things I wanted to accomplish but at what price?
What I see, what I do is not just job I signed up for. When you read the reality you'd wonder who'd ever ask for this? But it's a mission and I felt needed. I still do. Some days I see the evil and sadness in this world I simply sometimes wonder why? My reality day in day out isn't just mine alone. All my brothers and sisters who put this uniform on each day face these struggles. Yet we do it anyway.
Our Blue Reality.
Getting called
to a suicidal person and trying to help them and plead with them to let me until I heard “this is what its all about” and see the butt of the gun coming out of his pocket, when it went from trying to help him to a fight for my life and his.
Leaving a traffic stop because I was dispatched to an unresponsive male, getting there and administering CPR as hard as I can until the time of death was called, when I found it to be a heroin over dose which his “friends” left him there to die, when I found out the traffic stop I had left was the dealer who gave him the drugs, who left him there to die, and I had no idea who he was.
Stopping a man for a tail light out and when I asked him for his license instead he reached for a gun.
Chasing a suspect of an armed robbery through yards and allies, catching him and the fight was on, with him reaching for his ankle, to later find out he was reaching for the gun in his pants leg and that he had outstanding warrants for attempted murder.
Arriving on scene to possible suicides to family members screaming for me to help their loved ones, finding the completed acts and knowing it too late.
Having to notify two people that I went to school with that their father had killed himself.
Having mothers and children pleading for their “loved one” to stop hurting them when they have a bad day.
Checking on a person that their family hadn’t heard from in days to be met with a horrific odor and find that they died days before and when I go to move them to find that they are stuck to the floor.
Having a woman dying in your arms thanking God for me because I found her after she had been dumped in the woods after she had been car jacked and kidnapped.
Seeing children crying when I have to take their parent to jail for putting their children in dangerous situations.
Having people cuss me, talk down to me, threaten me, or threaten my family because of my profession.
Seeing the hatred this country has for law enforcement on news and social media.
Logging into Facebook to see a picture asking for prayers for an officer that you know.
Coming into contact with someone and their first reaction is fear of me then I spend the rest of my time with them trying to prove to them that they have no need to fear me and I’m just a normal human being like them.
Seeing another one of my brothers or sisters murdered because of their profession.
The countless funerals I have attended for my fellow officers dying or be killed in the line of duty.
Not knowing which call or traffic stop may be my last.
Having a person try to run me over with a vehicle just to get away from being responsible for their actions.
The lives I have seen ruined because of drugs and me pleading with them to get help yet I know that they won’t.
The child that laid in my arms dying with their mother and father over me screaming as I breathe my own breath into their lungs, my face covered in the child’s blood, me giving everything trying to take the pain from that child, while her eyes stared at me like she was begging me for help even though she couldn’t, my eyes filling with tears, so many emotions I almost threw up, but I couldn’t because I had a job to do.
That same family thanking me for trying as hard as I did. Thanking me and I felt I failed. They didn't blame me. I did.
Receiving the phone call that someone that you tried to save had passed away.
Being told that the things I have seen or the times I have had to fight for my life are just “part of the job”.
The sleepless night when you close your eyes and see the horrors that you have encountered in your career.
Waking up heart racing, drenched in sweat, all because of the nightmare you had where your life was taken on duty.
Coming home holding your wife and kids with tears in your eyes because of the things you witnessed that day.
Having my kids cry and beg me not to go to work, having my son ask me if a bad guy hurt someone or tried to hurt me.
This is our reality. This is my reality. Yet.. I still hope, pray and start each day, even with all of this and knowing there will be more dark days ahead I promise to strap this vest, gun, and badge on every day and do my best to serve my community. I don't do it because I signed up for a "job" I do it because I simply Bleed Blue for you.
#BehindTheBadge
Copyright 2019 BRM
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Soulthinking
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