Feeling guilty

(I know I promised more funny stories and I will work on some, but I needed to get this off my chest so to speak)

I know I am outing myself on this but, I’ve been a fan of Les Miserable’s for years.  I have seen the musical on Broadway at least 4 times.  The Story is great, the music is fantastic.  I even have the music to the play in my IPod.  So I had the fortune of seeing the new Movie recently and WOW!  Amazing.  I have never been an Ann Hathaway fan but, her performance was nothing short of amazing.  I felt her pain as she sang and acted out the part of Fantine AMAZING!  Hugh Jackman was amazing too, don’t get me wrong he owned it but all in all it was an amazing representation of the story and musical.  I aint gonna lie I always get emotional when Eponine dies and when Fantine sings Jean Valjean home. 

What has me feeling guilty is not the movie or musical.  It was event last week that I worked.  I have worked all manner of heinous crimes.  But like any cop will tell you, when kids are involved it’s exponentially more challenging.  The call I went to was an infant death.  These are always hard as the parents struggle grasp at the reality of what is happening.  Sometimes like in this case you have to use physical force to protect the crime scene.  I will not get into too much detail on this case because it needs to be adjudicated first.  In general, imagine the deplorable living conditions of a “shooting gallery” (shooting gallery is a place or flop house where heroin users go to inject their drugs and pass out while high) truly a scene right out of the movie Trainspotting.  The conditions alone, knowing an infant lived there pulls at the heart strings with titan force.  Knowing the circumstances that the infant died in make it nearly unbearable to comprehend. 

In cases like this there are many details that get investigated and you have to conduct a thorough and complete investigation.  As in any death investigation, you must detach and objectively look at the facts and evidence as presented and avoid jumping to conclusions.  However this detachment comes at a price.  You become accustomed to death and even immune to much of the emotion that would normally be present until the emotion is triggered later.  I suppose all of the death investigations and sad and tragic things we see are what comes out at funerals for fallen officers or close friends.  For me in this case, I was tremendously bothered by the circumstances.  However, what troubled me more is how little emotionally it affected me.  Honestly I felt more emotion watching Les Miserable’s.  This bothers me.  In a way the metaphorical scar tissue on my soul from the emotional wounds of doing the job have precluded me from feeling the full dose of pain from that incident.  But the sad reality is that the pain is like a virus or flu bug and it sits inside us until it makes us sick when the emotional scar tissue that acts like our immune system is weakened.  At some point, I will feel the full weight of sadness over this incident.  I am certain tears will accompany that sadness, but I will still feel guilty for not feeling more than I do right now.  Now understand that we look after each other and several other officer including sergeants and lieutenants checked in on me to make sure I was “okay” and I was fully okay to do the job, I just hate the fact that I am so numb to such a tragic situation.  But, like all of the other wounds that built that scar tissue, this too will heal and it will make me better prepared to handle heinous, disgusting, tragic things down the road.  So, I guess that is the upside of the job. 

Vets

Having worn the uniform of two branches of this great nations military I feel a keen bond with our nations veterans.  Over the years I have met a few veterans that stand out and touched my heart.  The one that comes to mind is Sal (not his real name).  I had known Sal for a few years an alcoholic transient (Bum, homeless guy, hobo, vagabond or choose your preferred label) for years.  He was friends with Steve (not his real name either).  Both of them were always respectful and cooperative with me over the years.  I made it a point to check in on them every so often.  Sometimes I was dispatched to calls requesting they be moved along and other times I just stopped to check on them.  I would check them for warrants and ask if they wanted to go to jail.  In the hot summers and cold winters sometimes they actually wanted to go to jail for a cool or warm and safe place to sleep.  When they said they didn’t want to go to jail I left them about their business of drinking themselves to death.  I make them pour their “Steel Reserve” out if they had an open container rather than giving them a ticket.  I have never been a “stats” driven officer.  I tried to focus on doing what was right.  I figured life was hard enough for them living on the street, I didn’t need to make it harder than it had to be.

I ran into Sal one day in a stinky alley in my area.  I was asking him about how his friend Steve died in the park a few days earlier.  He was telling me the story and the prosecutor who was riding along with me was truly devastated by the circumstances.  He said Steve had been having alcohol seizures and when he came back to the park he saw him non responsive.  Then he said “being a former repertory therapist I started CPR and sent someone to call 911”.  I said "are you freaking kidding me Sal you’re a repertory therapist?”  He said “yeah, for several years, but I couldn’t save him he was too far gone when I got to him”.  We talked some more as I had him pour out his beer.  He told me he had been in the Navy, he said he worked his way up to chief warrant officer.  Being a former Navy man I know how big of a deal this was.  He said he got busted down to E6 when he got his first DUI then worked his way back up to E7 (Chief) now for those of you that don’t know but advancing in the Navy isn’t as easy as some branches.  We talked about how he lost his home and family and now lives as a bum in a stinky dirty alley in the crapiest part of town. 

It was remarkable to see that Sal was in fact a contributing member of society and had served his country honorably but now was looked down upon by all that drove by and passed judgment.  I know for certain the prosecutor riding with me had a polar shift in his opinion on who the homeless population could be.  Before leaving I extended my hand to shake his hand and said “Shipmate, is today the day?”  In the Navy calling someone shipmate is like calling them brother.  He looked at me and said “the day for what?”  I responded “the day I take you to rehab to start the first day of the rest of your life getting back what you have lost.”  At first he chuckled then he saw in my eyes that my offer was genuine.  I could see that his eyes started to tear up as he contemplated what was happening.  He laughed it off like it was a joke and pulled his hand away and said with a chuckle in his voice “and give up all this? No, today is not the day”.  I responded “That’s fine, but when the day comes that you are ready, will you let me take you there?”  He smiled and said “Sure”.  We parted ways that day.  When we drove away the prosecutor said “I had no idea that people like that lived on the street”.  At one point Sal had been the salt of the earth.  He was still a great guy.  But something in his life had triggered pain that he felt an intense need to numb with alcohol. 

Every time I saw Sal after that I called him shipmate he would smile and before I even asked it for the millionth time he would say “Sorry shipmate, today is not the day”.  At times I could see just how much it pained him to refuse my help.  The problem was like Steve, by the time I got to Sal it was too late.  He was too far gone, and even though he had a pulse he was too far down his path to death to turn back.  I brought him dinner one thanksgiving and he thanked me but his body didn’t process food anymore as he only consumed alcohol.  He was too far into the depths of dying the death of an alcoholic.  A few months later the seizures started and not long after that he was found dead, in that same stinky, dirty alley in the crapiest part of town.  A g** damned Navy veteran that served his country dying a miserable death in a disgusting place with not even a glimmer of the honor he deserved.  It pains my soul to think about it.  It pains my soul that I did not get him the help he needed sooner.  I often wonder if I had pushed a little harder if I could have saved him.  I will never know for sure because it’s too late.  I will forever wish that I was able to find out what caused him the pain he felt so I could help him.  But that is a wish that will not come true.

Yes he made choices to get where he was but clearly he had a need for help.  I recently saw a statistic that 18 vets a day commit suicide.  That’s a vet every hour and twenty minutes killing themselves.  Vets are 4 times more likely than the population to commit suicide and 8 times more likely to abuse substances.  PTSD and TBI’s are real and we as a nation have not done enough to help our vets that need help.  I know that it is too late to help Sal, but I can take what I learned from him and when I am on a call, slow down and ask the questions that need to be asked to see if I can get this person the help they need especially if they are a vet.  As first responders we will deal with this issue more and more, we need to train and be prepared to help those in need.  In the end, we can either be the vets best friend or worst enemy depending on how we handle things.