A Short Memory About Long Ago

"Before the war, it was said 'the United States are' - grammatically it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. And after the war it was always 'the United States is', as we say today without being self-conscious at all. And that sums up what the war accomplished. It made us an 'is'." Shelby Foote, historian, The Civil War, (1990).

It is axiomatic - etched in stone, as it were - that on-line political arguments waste time, offend and confound. Often, the bold statements are baldly false, opinions masquerade as facts and friends...FINOs?...excoriate each other mindless of years, or decades, together. Nothing good comes of entering the fray. Or, does it?

Much has been said, written, screamed about guns and gun laws. It is good, to revisit the text of the Second Amendment:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Americans, and American courts, have struggled with this amendment for two centuries, inasmuch as it is one sentence composed of...

There my writing teacher would get out her famous blue pen and wonder (aloud, at least as aloud as ink on paper affords) which the writer intended as the subordinate clause. Does the right to keep and bear depend on one's status in a Militia, or does the Militia depend on the arms kept and born by the people?

Such was the pretense of the argument into which I waded. A friend had made a reasonable point about an essay posted on line. Another individual (an honest and reasonable man) had pointed out that my friend's beef, and ensuing exchange, were with the author. The author entered the fray and we were off. 

We exchanged pleasantries. There were a few pointed comments. It got me thinking. It got me reading - one recommended book and several I have read before. It brought me back to the initial argument. It brought me back to A More Perfect Union.

I've already written a lot about this subject. The e-book is 360 pages long. Guns, drones, constitutionalists...

And, the story of a young woman of immense character who finds herself torn between ideas as they existed over two hundred years ago, and the here and now of her law enforcement life. It's about freedom, and the price paid to understand and safeguard it in the Twenty-first Century. It is fiction - and I hope it always stays that way.

Boundless Grace

"At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent." Barbara Bush, Wellesley College, June 1990.

Mourning the passing of a singularly graceful person, former First Lady Barbara Bush.

Imagine Ms. Bush on September 11, 2001. In addition to the profound emotions of anger, horror and grief felt by nearly everyone world wide, her son - President George W. Bush - would be the person to decide what to do about it.

She was not a newcomer to politics. Her husband had been president during a war in the Middle East. George HW Bush was vice president during the largely successful but tumultuous Reagan years. He had once headed the CIA...

Through it all, she showed remarkable stamina. When asked for comments during the difficult years following 9/11 she was invariably supportive of her son, without beating war drums. Whatever advice she may have given stayed between mother and son.

So much has been written about her since she passed. Scores of retrospectives. meaningful quotes and anecdotes. It is tribute to her charm and wit that the bipartisan nature of her funeral is so unusual as to spark comment by the pundits. She was surrounded by her Secret Service detail, who refused to leave her side until she was finally laid to rest, who to a person remarked on her kindness, the lengths to which she went to make them feel valued.

She was once asked, during the Clinton years of serial sexual scandals, if she would find herself the target of similar rumors.

"Oh, I hope so," she responded, laughing.

Fare well, and thank you.

Bull's Eye

There are two fallacies in life that grownups understand - Life is fair, and you are safe. Sergeant John Hitchens, Captain, US Army (ret), police sergeant (ret).

Two dudes sitting in a restaurant in Florida, eating lunch. Murdered for the simple reason that they were deputy sheriffs. Noel Ramirez was 30, a sergeant. Taylor Lindsey, at 25, was just getting his career underway. Some asshole walked up to them and shot them without provocation.

As I write this, word is coming over the internet that an NYPD officer has shot himself in the parking lot of a department facility. The very first comment on the article I read - "Cops don't take care of cops any more. Millennials are only in it for a paycheck."

Bullshit.

The men and women currently serving, and those trying desperately to get hired, are far from stupid. Recruits taught how to survive the job learn from officers who have lost friends to homicide and suicide. Dash and body cam videos replayed in basic, in-service and advanced schools replay the last moments of officers who fell in the line of duty. No one wearing a uniform - "on the job" - has any illusions of what happens sometimes.

Cops don't take care of cops? A friend, a quality individual, got home from work late one night having been on the scene of an officer involved shooting. He got up early the next morning and came out to help a young recruit qualify at the range. Late last year a local officer was killed, and the text/phone/messenger lines hummed between officers in multiple jurisdictions - "Do you need anything? Are you okay?"

In a few weeks several cycling friends will ride bikes to raise money, and awareness, for fallen officers. The trip ends at the Fallen Officer Memorial in Washington. One posted a picture on Facebook a few years ago, of Baltimore's baseball stadium as she rode by in a driving rain. I texted my youngest, then living in the Baltimore suburb of Perry Hall. "How's the weather?" "Pouring," she responded. "Biblical."

Would it surprise you to learn my friend has not missed a year since? None of them have.

All Millennials. All cops. It is my honor and privilege to serve alongside them. They know the risks, that they are not immune to them. They understand that, once again, officers have been murdered for just being cops. They all went to work today.

It isn't payday.

Good Bye, Gunny

"Most of you will go to Vietnam. Some of you will not come back. But always remember this: Marines die, that's what we're here for. But the Marine Corps lives forever. And that means you live forever." Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey), Full Metal Jacket (1987).

Noting the passing of R. Lee Ermey, actor, Marine, gun guy.

Ronald Lee Ermey did not "play" a Marine Corps drill instructor in the movie Full Metal Jacket. Mr. Ermey brought his years of experience in the USMC as a Vietnam Vet, Staff Sergeant and "Hollywood Marine" DI to the silver screen. He was not originally cast in the movie, assigned the task of technical advisor. His off-screen personae convinced director Stanley Kubrick that Ermey was the man for the job.

No one who has seen the movie will ever suggest that it is politically correct. In a way, the movie views the 60's era Corps as...well, the main character calls boot camp a place for the "phony tough and the crazy brave." There are slurs against nearly everyone, of any genre. Sergeant Hartman tells the new boots on their initial meeting he is not prejudiced against...then runs off a string of racial epithets leaving no group unbloodied.

Are you easily offended? This movie is not for you. DI Hartman makes the point that the Marines train lethal marksmen by reminding the Boots that Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and University of Texas mass murderer Charles Whitman were both trained by the Corps. He demands that the barracks latrine be so clean that "Even the Virgin Mary" would avail herself of it. Then, he assaults "Joker" (Matthew Modine) for saying he did not believe in her.

Ermey went on to more roles, starred in more shows. He was especially well known in the gun culture, as a spokesman for Glock pistols and as the host of a show that, among other things, compared and contrasted different weapons. In 2002 the Marine Commandant promoted him to Gunnery Sergeant. As well he should have.

A friend of mine met him at a "Glock Days" event several years ago. His presence at the gun shop was designed - guaranteed, actually - to draw a crowd. What was he like, I asked.

Turns out he was kind, eloquent and was as thankful for my friend's law enforcement service as anything he himself had done. A gentleman.

Marines die. But, honor is forever. Thank you for your service, Gunny.

The Blues

LT Goldblume (Joe Spano): [to Det. LaRue (Kiel Martin)] "You haven't had a meaningful relationship with a woman since your mother quit breastfeeding you." Hill Street Blues (1981).

Noting the passing of Hill Street Blues creator Steven Bochco.

Did you think the above quote was funny? Offensive? Sexist? It's probably all three. It demonstrated the sea change TV series Hill Street Blues represented when it first aired in 1981.

I was a police officer then, having served at a small department before finding a place in Lakewood, CO. I had been "on the job" for two years, and was well on my way to developing the kind of cynical worldview that would warp an innocent sense of humor beyond recognition. I would find things funny that a small town upbringing would never have contemplated. I immediately embraced Hill Street Blues.

Police dramas, up to that point, had been formal, almost stiff. Dragnet, and its descendant Adam-12 portrayed the Los Angeles Police Department as well-trained, experienced and strictly book-followers. Police Story, with police writer (and former LAPD member) Joseph Wambaugh doing screenplays, nibbled at the edges of what law enforcement was really all about. Barney Miller used humor to hint at the mayhem.

Then came Hill Street Blues. There were prostitutes and pimps. Good cops, and criminals wearing badges. Main characters were suspended, they were killed. They had affairs, divorces - and they went out on the streets of a fictional Midwestern city every day and did the best they could. Sergeant Phil Esterhaus sent them out each day with the admonition "Let's be careful out there." Because out there was the real world.

Steven Bochco was the creative genius behind the show. The chances they took, the glimpses into the truth of big city policing, were all him. He went on to have a fabulous career - one scene in his creation LA Law involving an attorney, his stunning bed partner and a dress shirt should be required viewing in every law school in the country - with hit after ground-breaking hit.

But it was Hill Street Blues that struck a cord with me, and with the men and women who worked the streets in the 1980s, when 200 law enforcement deaths per year was common. This show told it like it was. This show was honest.

One night, well into the wee hours, one of my colleagues keyed his car mike...there were very few working portables then...and played this song: