"To Serve and Protect"      

I would give my life for you in an instant, whether you are a Stranger or Friend. I do not ask what in your life you have done wrong up to this point, I act on instinct to protect and save whether you are a perfect saint or a convicted violent Offender, Because that is my job.

I am a Police Officer and When I chose to wear the Badge, I chose to help those in need. Each call I take could be my last. I accept that and each day put on the Uniform and the Badge, I say goodbye to my family as I walk out onto the streets, knowing that today could be the day I don't come home at the end of my shift.

You look at me and criticize the choices that I make I am wrong when a felon pulls a weapon and I have to pull my trigger, knowing that if I don't one of you might die in his stead because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The choice I make is a split second one and it is a choice of his life, my partners, yours or mine. That is what I am trained for.

I go to a call of Domestic Violence, I walk in and pull a man off of a woman who has been beaten bloody. Yet as I walk him to the door in handcuffs, the same beaten, bloodied woman stabs me in the back, to save the same man that would have killed her only moments before.

I go to a call for a car jacking, the suspect comes out with a gun. The same gun he had just used to kill the owner of the car. In a split second, knowing about the life he has already taken I have a choice, take his life, lose my own, lose my partners or lose some one else's because this man has killed before. My choice comes to slowly and my partner falls, a bullet to his head ends his life and widows his new wife. Who of you will mourn his loss as he bleeds to death at my feet? I make my choice, the gunman falls. TV camera's roll in and the Felons family screams that I am the murderer.

I am the one who has done wrong, as I look at the ambulance driving my dead partner to the hospital. I go out every day and wonder if today will be my last because I wear a Badge and a Uniform. I protect you and your family, some times at the cost of my own. I protect your life and your property with my fellow Officers who choose to wear the Badge and Uniform. We all made the same choice, the choice to 'Protect and Serve' those in need. We don't ask questions when we have to act to save a life, we act.

You mourn the punks and the gang bangers, the murderers, the thieves, child molesters and killers. You mourn the innocents killed in the gang wars, robberies, car jackings and murders. But on the day I don my Uniform and place the Badge upon my chest, say goodbye to my family and the first call I take that day is my last, Who of you will mourn me as they put me to my final rest?

Who of you, that I have chosen to 'Protect and Serve' will stand beside my brothers and sisters in uniform and look my family in the eye as they lower me into the cold dark grave?

By

Lorah R. Buchanan

Used with Special Permission of the Author
Copyright © 1998 - All Rights Reserved
and may not be duplicated without permission

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