My Salute to Police Officers

Image by meltedplastic via Flickr

A horrible act occurred in Washington State.  Four uniformed police officers were executed simply because they were wearing the uniform.  They were doing nothing that would warrant such an act.  It was a hate crime through and through.  Sitting in a coffee house, working on your laptop should not earn you the death penalty, but that is what happened to them.

My husband has been in law enforcement all of his adult life.  When we first started dating, he would tell me about the exciting stories and about the escapades that he and his fellow officers were involved in during his career.  I was not sure I wanted to be part of his world at first, but as our relationship grew, I knew I loved the man, and to love him, I had to love that part of his world, too. 

At first, we had a police radio at home, and when something exciting would happen, I would run to listen with my heart in my throat, hoping that he would be safe.  As time went on, I decided I did not want to listen in anymore, and we got rid of the radio.  I put the fear away into a little closet in my mind that I don’t visit very often.  It only opens when things like what happened to those officers in Tacoma happens.  I try to quickly slam it shut, again, or I would not be able to stand living our day to day life.

I used to watch my husband get ready for work:  he looked so handsome in his blue uniform, with that huge gun strapped to his hip.  I would always tease him that he went into “cop mode” the minute he put on the uniform and stayed in it until it came off.  Once the radio was gone, I was able to put the dangers out of my mind most of the time.  Sometimes he would call and tell me about the high speed chase they were just in and I could hear the excitement the adrenaline rush had left in his voice as he would describe the chase in detail.