Law Enforcement in MY life.

I had planned to keep with my "foot" theme because I thought it might be cute to stay with that for an entire week.  I could have as I have plenty of stories that would work quite well.  I had one story in mind and knew of a photograph I wanted to include so began to look for it.  Once I started looking in my photo boxes and so many memories came to me I knew I would change my direction. 

Today is "It's a Dad's life" for the blog and I bet you wondered where I would go with that since I am a girl.  Well, I didn't use the formal word Father for a reason.  My father was not a formal man, he expected me to act like a young woman but he also expected me to have fun.  My father was truly a "dad", he was there at all times and for all reasons, no matter how silly those reasons were and boy could they be silly, it makes me laugh just thinking about some of the things he had to put up with being the father of four girls.  He never had a son, poor guy.  He was such a manly man and had no guy to pass all that on too.  I will discuss that later though.  He was my hero, you will notice that trust me. 

In the news lately there has been so much hatred toward those men and women who have sworn to protect you and I from those who would use, abuse, rob, threaten, murder and mistreat your rights and being by those who would do those very things.  It breaks my heart to watch the news to see the things that are happening in the name of justice.  My father was a Norfolk City police officer and I know he believed in his job, in the oath he took to protect the innocent.  I know he did his best based on what he was able to discern.  I know he made mistakes, my goodness he was human after all, but he did his best with the training he received and under the circumstances he found himself in.  To my knowledge he never found himself in anything like what is happening now, thank goodness. 



 



 

When I became a teenager my father went to work for U.S. Customs as an undercover agent.  It was not an easy life for him or us.  There are many, many, many hair raising stories I can and will share that will help you know the type of hero that raised me.  He was a wonderful man with a heart the size of this old world.  Let me just tell you one little story that he agonized over for a good while.  I will say here that my father has been dead for 34 years so no one has any reason to fear anything I have to say.  He died a relatively young man not specifically at his job but indirectly related to his job. 

My father was chasing a car with a man and a woman driving through the Arizona desert at a very high rate of speed in the dead of night.  He had gotten a tip that there was to be a drug run coming over the border at a particular point at a particular time.  Dad and his partner were ready and waiting lights off behind a predetermined hiding location.  The car came flying down the road also with it's lights off and dad and his partner take off to make the stop.  They try to make the stop several times, then they start trying to slam into the cars side hard to knock them off the road to stop the high speed chase.  The driver manages to control the car with effort.  Dad and his partner continue to pound the car, knowing there is a hefty load expected to be in the car and with the determination of the driver to get away they know there is a large haul involved.  When what Dad and his partner determine will be the last shot, the one that will be hard enough to take them off the road for sure, they "wind up" to get ready to hit them hard when a little child's head comes up into the window in the back seat with tears of fear streaming down it's little face.  My father, seeing the child, yells, the child is not buckled, to slam the car off the road is certain death for the child.  The driver seeing the shock and fear on the faces of my father and his partner throws back his head and laughs at their hearts, at their compassion, presses the accelerator further to the floor and eventually escapes because my father cannot kill or allow a child to be killed even if the child's own father is willing to use it in an illegal act. 

I am sure there are a lot of different emotions in your head right now, there were in my fathers for years.  But it came down to one thing, he could not take an innocent life.  I choose to believe that most of our law enforcement would make the same choice, to NOT take an innocent life, whatever the situation, if it is discernible.