I have had a number of friends in Law Enforcement over my lifetime and I have enjoyed many a coffee listening to their stories of their experiences and telling my stories of combat.
I told all of them they were some of the Bravest Men I have ever known.
Just one example, I have a friend in the Police Department who should have retired years ago who told me once he could remember at least a dozen times where he had told someone to drop their weapon or he had physically disarmed someone.
I told him he was one of the Bravest Men I had ever met.
When he asked me “Why?” I told him in every one of those dozen situations with someone pointing a gun at him if it had been me or any one of the Men I served with in Viet Nam those twelve people would be dead.
In the Military if someone is pointing a weapon at you,,,you kill them…Yet Combat is the most error prone of environments,,,In a split second of extreme stress you have to react,,,shoot too soon and you might have killed a friendly,,,shoot too late and you might be dead.
Law Enforcement is even worse,,,in the split second of Life and Death,,,when you command someone to drop their weapon or physically try to disarm them,,,you can be killed.
Our Men and Women in Law Enforcement,,,Our Heroes on the Homefront,,,are some of the Bravest People to ever walk the planet.