A Farewell Letter to My Brotherhood

On Sunday, 17 November 2019, I sent this email message out to the individuals I had worked with for the past 16 years...

This past Friday was my last day as a police officer.  Last night, I watched a documentary movie titled No Greater Love.  I don't know if any of you have seen it, but I recommend it as its message is about brotherhood.  Many, including me, have likened law enforcement work to military service.  As a matter of concept, police departments are paramilitary organizations.  Whether they are operated as such, well, that's a different issue.

The movie shares the story of a group of soldiers of the "No Slack" Battalion from the 101st Airborne Division while they are on deployment in Afghanistan.  I have never deployed overseas or into a combat zone and I am always indebted to those who have served and been there.  But to the few who I know, have talked to and are reservists or national guardsmen who are also police officers, they agree that being a police officer is consistently more arduous due to the day in and day out of dealing with other people's crises, stress, anxiety, and trauma.  The members of No Slack are brothers.  That is obvious.  They commit to risking their lives over and over while in combat.  But they are also clearly committed to each other when they are at home and struggling with their own individual challenges.  Combat, I can imagine using my cognitive reasoning skills, creates unique bonds.  You are surrounded by life and death and you rely on the man next to you.  You have to.  So, when those men return home, they again rely on their brothers to help them.  They care for each other.  They have to.

Law enforcement, for all intents and purposes, is akin to those issues faced by those servicemembers.  There can and, almost assuredly, will be countless times that you, as a police officer, will rely on the man (or woman) next to you.  You have to.  It only takes one moment for someone's life to change, forever, and that includes dying in the line of duty.  A police officer, however mundane the call for service is or the area that they patrol, exposes himself to potential danger.  As I'm sure you have all heard at one time or another during your tenure, there's at least one gun on every call for service, every traffic stop, every contact.  And those moments add up.  Some stay with you.  A few haunt.  It's during those "some" and those "few" when your brother or sister-in-arms needs your help.  They might need a simple pick me up or a more committed commitment.  But at some point, someone will need you.  And for the ones that do need your extended hand, do not expect them to call out and let it be blatantly known.  You will have to "see" them.  And to see them, you'll have to know them.  Individuals in a depressed state, whether acute or chronic, are sometimes too consumed by their helplessness to pick up the phone and say "hey man, can we get together?"  That's your job.  He's your brother, right?  Certainly, there were times, however slight or subtle, when you needed him and he was there for you...to back you up on a violent domestic or a high-risk traffic stop.  Those sounds of distant sirens getting rapidly closer never sounded so sweeter.  So, what's stopping you from doing the same for him when it's a little less dramatic of a situation?  The answer is nothing.

I spent over 25 years in law enforcement working with other officers from all walks of life with varying degrees of skill level and professional commitment.  I am proud of the things that I have accomplished and the dedication I conveyed during my career.  But there was always one thing that I struggled with while I was there...the absence of a dependable brotherhood.  Yes, there were some moments and instances where people stepped up.  But all too often, it was fleeting.  To be certain, there is accountability on my part.  I am sure I failed along the way at times.  And for that and for those for whom I did, I am remorseful.

So, I will leave you all with one last piece of humble advice.  Take it for what it's worth.  You must care for each other.  You have to.  And that means, more than not, that the caring happens beyond the call for service, the traffic stop, the contact.  It happens when someone is out due to an injury, illness at home, struggles with a spouse, or even the unexpected legal and administrative challenges at work...when that individual, who was your "brother" up until that moment, is fighting to "breath" and keep their head above water emotionally, mentally, and probably financially.  When the fear of loss is enveloping them, they could use that extended hand of yours.  And they might have to use it (that hand of yours) over and over and over.  Because the sense of abandonment is a shitting thing to someone who thought those unique bonds of brotherhood extended beyond that call for service, that traffic stop, that contact...and that it also went to when they're home alone looking for a purpose.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends"  John 15:13

Always, be well and be safe.

John

Rules Are Meant To Be Broken. Right? No...Not This One

October has passed and along with it another Mental Health Awareness Month.  In 1990, Congress established the first full week as Mental Health Awareness Week in recognition of NAMI's (National Alliance on Mental Illness) work to raise awareness.  October 10 was dedicated by the World Health Organization as World Mental Health Day.  Who knew that?  Did anyone do anything special for those dates or time frames?  Volunteer?  Talk to a friend?  Reach out to a co-worker?  Stick a ribbon magnet on your car (sure, hope not).

Me?  What did I do, you ask?  Well, I had the distinct "pleasure" of attending a police suicide funeral on October 19.  Police Officer Thomas J. Bomba was a 13-year veteran of the Montgomery County Police.  More importantly, he was a husband and a father of two boys.  Six years on the county peer support team...one line of duty death and four police-related suicides.

I never met Officer Bomba, but I heard about him from mutual friends and as well as childhood mates.  He was one helluva a jokester, both on and off the job.  But as with most of us who cleverly use humor as a shield, there was suffering underneath.  TJ, as he was affectionately known by his co-workers, or, better yet, T-Bomb, by his childhood friends, was emotionally wrestling with personal issues at home.  Now, look...some will say that putting that out there is out of bounds.  I can respect that and my intent is not to highlight his intimate issues specifically, but to bring focus on the fact that police officers - those that respond to other individual's crises over and over - have their own.  I've said it before and I'll say it again...we are human, so we need to stay linked to one another.

So, what's the lesson?  There has to be one, right?  We simply cannot let TJ die without using his sacrifice as a call to arms.

OK.  Here's another instance where we need to be connected to our brethren.  If someone leaves the job, for whatever reason, particularly one that is not of their own determining, do you think that maybe there might be a need to remain united to that person, at the very least in a casual manner to ensure that they don't unexpectedly fall off the cliff?  I know an officer that had dedicated the better part of his entire human existence to the public safety profession who got forced out due to medical concerns.  Now, I'm not here to say whether those health concerns were legit or not.  I have no clue.  That's not the point of this diatribe as to how he was subsequently "taken care of".  The dude just devoted 30 plus years - yeah, that's right, thirty years - of his life to the profession, to the community, to that department, and...to the safety and welfare of those "brothers" and "sisters".  I was beside myself and simply disgusted at how the agency just discarded him like a bag of shit.  Unfuckingreal.  And a disgrace to the "think blue line", the law enforcement "family", or, quite frankly, whatever the fuck you wanna call it.  Just sickening the way that administration's "leadership" treated him.  At his core, regardless of what or how you thought of him as a police officer, he is a human being.  As any of us would demand and deserve, his departure warranted a respectful exit.

So, he is out.  Unceremoniously no longer a police officer and now, presumably, without an identity - which is a critical issue for many who leave the job and arguably a prominent factor in the rising tide of suicides within the law enforcement profession - and what do his brothers and sisters do?  Dick.  Nobody reaches out and, if they do, it's cursory; a simple interaction with the now stranded kin for a few weeks or a month or so.  And then "poof".  It's like he didn't exist.  Years and years of "bonds" broken in a virtual instant.

Now, many will argue that if he wanted to maintain those relationships, that severed officer had every opportunity to reach out and preserve those friendships.  But if you're saying that then you don't get what it feels like to be deserted.  It's like, when you're a kid, you go over to your buddy's house for years and then one day their parents no longer want you around and tell you to "get the hell out".  Are you going to walk back over and ask to be welcomed back into your friend's house?  Or, are you going to stand by, patiently...eagerly...and await his invite because you don't feel wanted in that revered place your friend calls "home"?

Discouraged individuals, whether chronically or acutely depressed, almost unconditionally, will NOT initiate contact, especially when they feel like they have been abandoned by someone - a friend - or by something - a profession, a "brotherhood".  It is absolutely up to those that remain within the "house" to preserve contact, to keep that unique bond alive and well so that the dispirited can still keep some semblance of that once family.

So, listen up "brothers" and "sisters"...Stand. The. Fuck. Up.  Get out of your own self-absorbed lives, if even for a half-hour breakfast gettogether, a quick phone call, or, hell, how about a goddamn text just to check-in and see how they're doing during their challenge to steady themselves.  And do it more than once, twice.

They deserve it.  For years and probably hundreds, if not thousands, of times during various routine and balls-to-the-wall calls for service you depended upon them to watch your six, protect your ass, or just flat-the-fuck-out save your life.  And now, the best you can "spare" them is a blow-off?  Abandonment...of trust.  Of friendship.  Of honor.

But I get it.  We all have our own shit to deal with, right?  Of course, we do.  But tell me, please, how it makes any sense whatsoever to expend blood, sweat, and tears for people you don't even know and then not even the time of day for ones you called your brother for years?  Do the right thing.  Helping one another doesn't always have to mean talking about inner feelings, holding hands, giving hugs, or shedding tears with one another.  Helping out a brother or a sister can be - and will almost assuredly be - as simple as hooking up for lunch every once in a while, heading out to a game, or even that 21st century preferred method of "connecting"...the dreaded text.  Speaking from some very personal experience, it does not matter what you do, JUST DO SOMETHING...for the love of God and for the simple fact of treating another human being with a sense of decency.  And do it several times, not just the token once or even twice.  Golden rule, right?  You could help someone from starting down the path of despair, which sometimes can lead to the road TJ was on.

And for those of you that need a refresher...Matthew 7:12 "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."