In the morning I go to work for the last time I am scheduled to work a shift. I am still employed till November 30th, but tomorrow is my last scheduled work day. The rest is vacation, comp time and holidays.

Right at 35 years of wearing a badge and carrying a gun for a living. I'm afraid I'm not going to be very useful for anything else, but I'm going to go out there and see what I can find. 35 years of being expected to be more than human, always aware that more is expected of me than of others. Knowing that every single mistake, no matter how small, will be seen as an indictment of all police. Knowing that every single contact with a member of the public could result in a complaint, or a civil suite, or in a fight from low level wrestling with someone to get them into handcuffs, all the way up to fighting for my very life. Knowing that there are people out there that would love to kill a police officer, or harm his family, just to get back at the "system" they feel has treated them unfairly.

People always scoff at us when we explain how dangerous our job is. "Oh, but there are other, more dangerous, jobs out there" they'll say. "Loggers and fishermen, and others get killed all the time" they'll say. I always ask them, "Do the logs, or the fish, or the sea, come to them and try to kill them?" Their deaths are from mother nature, equipment failure, freezing seas they fall into, or chain saws that break or buck and kill.

Our deaths are from other human beings pointing weapons as us and pulling the triggers. Our deaths are on purpose, not on accident, although accidents do happen. People plot and plan to kill the police. People put pieces into place in order to kill a police officer if they are caught doing whatever it is they don't want to be caught doing. No log ever stalked a logger. No log ever hid behind a building in ambush for a logger. No summer storm ever waited just to sink a fishing boat.

Apples and oranges.

So far, I've never had to shoot anyone, nor to kill anyone, in any manner. Neither in my police career or my military career. I've come so close before that it still shakes me up even today to think about the instances where I was leaning into my shotgun and squeezing the trigger, anticipating the recoil and preparing for the consequences, when a suspect finally heeded my orders to drop their weapon at the last, possible, moment. Happened far too many times, with either shotgun, patrol rifle, or handgun, to suit me, but I never had to actually fire. I thank God for that. While always prepared to do so, I have never been one to wish it would happen. I've known those who did wish it to happen, and I found them to be no one I wanted to hang around. Trouble on the hoof. Disaster waiting for a place to happen.

I am happy I've never had to kill, especially when the general public sometimes seems to think that's all we want to do, get the opportunity to shoot someone. Far from it, we don't want to at all, if it can be helped.

My philosophy of police work was to be as nice to people as they would allow me to be. To be as respectful to people as they would allow me to be. To be as helpful to people as they would allow me to be. In other words, if you came in contact with me, YOU set the tone of how the encounter was going to go. If you were civil, I was civil. If you were an ass, I was much, much better at it that you were. Trust me on that.

Mac