A mere twenty days ago I published a silly piece titled, Things Have Changed, where I talked about how my life is pleasantly different after leaving law enforcement. Today, I found out that for all the things that changed, some important things remain the same.

Soon after getting home from work this evening, I was mindlessly perusing the brain-numbing world of Facebook (oh, how close I’ve come to just deleting that whole mess) when I came across a local news post that made my heart sink: “Hall County Deputy Shot While Serving Murder Warrant.” Understand, I always feel some trepidation when I see such a headline for any agency, but the Hall County Sheriff’s Office was my agency. And since it was a murder warrant, that means it was likely the SWAT team or one of the special ops teams serving the warrant, which means it was likely someone that I worked side-by-side with, or at least knew pretty well. 

I stared numbly at the phone for a minute with a knot in my stomach, recalling an incident several years ago on a SWAT operation where a very good friend suffered a severe gunshot to his arm. All of my contacts on the team were likely still tied up with the minutia and moving parts that go along with any officer involved shooting, but especially one in which an officer is wounded. Do I start speed-dialing all of them? Texting? I still didn’t know who it was; what if I indadvertently reach out to the one who’s been shot? In the end, I quickly scanned all the news outlets and confirmed that they were all saying, “non-life threatening injuries” and elected to send a group text to a select few on the team with a simple message that I knew they would understand at a glance: “???????”

I was immediately rewarded with a reply from one of them: “Holy shit bro. Give me a few and I will call.” A slight wave of relief came over me at that point, not because I knew anything more, but just because I had the comfort of communication from a comrade- someone with whom I’d gone through hostile doors and lived to tell the tale, a guy who’s been with me when I’m at my best and my worst. After a short time I was able to talk to a couple of the guys and get the inside story, but most importantly I learned that our guy was going to be okay, despite being hit with a shotgun blast to the arm. The perpetrator was killed on the spot by another one of our guys before he could do any more damage. I ended those phone calls with a lump in my throat out of sheer relief, but also with a little sadness that I wasn’t there with them.

Please don’t misunderstand, I never got into law enforcement to hurt anyone. I was not sad that I wasn’t there to shoot the bad guy. I was sad that my friends went through that without me. Not that they aren’t all capable men, but there’s an indescribable bond among those who have taken up arms together for a just cause. Some things can’t be adequately related in words or writing, in pictures or film. There is simply no experience in the world like riding to the sound of the guns, looking over the sights of a weapon at another human being and seeing the fear, rage, or indifference in their eyes, and having milliseconds to make The Choice… shoot or don’t shoot? Justified or not justified? Live or die? It’s exhilarating, terrifying, gratifying, and utterly exhausting all at once. It’s the most sobering reality and emboldening life experience I’ve ever known. It’s larger than life.

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.

– Ernest Hemingway

And that will never change.