Editor’s Note: In PoliceOne “First Person” essays, our Members and Columnists candidly share their own unique view of the world. This is a platform from which individual officers can share their own personal insights on issues confronting cops today, as well as opinions, observations, and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. This week’s essay comes from P1 Member Carl Weston, a Sergeant with the Providence, R.I. Police Department. Do you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members? Send us an e-mail with your story.
By Sergeant Carl Weston
Providence, R.I. Police Department
I was watching a golf match on television a while back and the announcer said something that started my blood boiling. He described a golf shot as “courageous.”
I wondered why this otherwise innocuous statement got me so annoyed. Then it hit me. For years we’ve been bombarded by sickly-sweet descriptions given by sportscasters regarding the performance of athletes on the field of play.
Never before have we heard of so many “heroic” goal line stands, “epic” at-bats, and “courageous” golf shots. A courageous golf shot? Funny, but I’ve tried more than a few times to push a 4-iron over 200 yards of water, and never once thought of myself as brave when it stuck pin-high on the green. I have, however, considered myself an idiot when the ball plops in the pond for the twentieth straight time-but that’s another story.
The point is our society has gotten too far away from understanding the meaning of a real hero.
We worship men who can hit a little white ball 300 yards into a cup, or 300 feet over a fence, or who can run with a football or dunk a basketball. I admit I allow myself to escape into a fantasy world on occasion while watching sports. I’d love to be able to do what these people do and get paid millions for it. Unfortunately, my paydays in the athletic arena are limited to my daughters cheering me on when I get a hit in a softball game. It’s all the reward I need.
So where are the real heroes? You see them every day, in every city and town and in every state. They toil thanklessly day and night, one minute in mind-numbing drudgery, the next in stark terror. They do things and go into places the average person only sees in their nightmares. They are expected to be all things to all people in all situations.
One slip or mistake in the performance of this impossible task, and they are instantly vilified. They are seen as the problem, instead of what they really represent: society’s best hope for peace and safety.
They are police officers, sheriffs, troopers, and correctional officers who bust their butts to protect the lambs from the wolves of society. Heroes? You bet. Courageous? Absolutely. I’ve seen cops do things for complete strangers, with little regard for their own safety, that would make your hair curl up and fall out. Why do we do it? It’s not for the pay, I can tell you that.
While we make a decent blue collar wage, it doesn’t approach in a year what some professional athletes clear in one game. That’s where my point about the “courageous” jock comes in. Look at it this way: an athlete, while strong and fast and agile, can simply give up when he gets exhausted from the heat of competition. He can go to the sidelines for some oxygen and Gatorade and be ready and refreshed for the next round.
In the middle of some real competition is where you’ll find the real heroes. In a knock-down, drag out fight with a crack head who’s working on his third strike, and is going for the cop’s gun, the cop doesn’t have the luxury of calling a time out and walking off the field. The “epic” battle goes until it’s over, and, just like the athlete, the cop isn’t paid to lose. The difference is, when the cop loses, he’s dead. And then we all lose.
So, let’s remind the public that the next time they’re at a ballgame, they should grab a beer and a hotdog, and if they witness an athlete perform well, they should stand and cheer and stomp their feet.
And let’s remind them also that the next time they witness a cop chasing a robbery suspect through yards and over fences, and tackling the guy on concrete without the benefit of pads, that we are doing it for them. Not for fame or money. If they offer their hand and a word of thanks, in our arena, it’s all the applause we need.
