Double-Edged Sword

As you may know, I write an article every Monday for our local newspaper, the Mansfield News Journal, profiling our area military veterans. It is an honor and privilege to sit down with one of our veterans for a couple of hours each week and listen to their stories, which I in turn recount in print. It is an effort I thoroughly enjoy and, based on feedback via emails and text messages, readers enjoy also.

It is, however, a double-edged sword.

I've read volumes and volumes of history books, from America's Civil War on through present day Afghanistan and the War on Terror; watched hundreds of hours' worth of documentaries concerning this country's armed conflicts. Though I didn't serve in the military, something I've come to regret over the last two decades, I feel a very strong sense of pride for this nation's military and its veterans. Books and films cannot adequately describe the horrors of war, the death and destruction that comes with it...nor the psychological and emotional trauma inflicted upon those who have seen combat and survived.

On more than one occasion, while interviewing a patriot-hero, they've had to pause, collect themselves after emotions momentarily got the best of them. The act of telling their story dredges up bad memories, ones that some have taken decades to bury, reliving in the mind once again terrible, tragic events that have scarred them, wounded the psyche. Wounds that will never heal.

When they hurt, suffer the angst that sometimes comes with reliving combat, it has an effect on me:

Guilt.

In that moment, when chests get tight and voices choke, I feel responsible. Responsible for unearthing the terror of combat, for their reliving of the moment when a buddy or close friend died in battle or they themselves suffered grievous wounds.

It's my fault.

And sometimes, when I'm writing their stories in the solitude of my home, those moments come to me and I see again their eyes welling with tears, hear them apologizing to me for the emotions they feel; me, a civilian who never served a day in the armed forces.

And I weep for them.

God bless all our veterans, especially those who have seen combat and have borne witness to man's brutality to man, for without them we wouldn't be the United States of America.

'Proud Uncle' Photos

Proud Uncle

I remember a little guy, skinny with folds of wavy blonde hair who, from his earliest years, wanted to be a policeman. He watched the old TV show 'CHiPS' religiously, though it was corny to the point I refused to watch, and wore the hand-sewn police uniform my first wife Lesa had made for him until he grew out of it. He patrolled the suburban/rural street he grew up on by riding his bike while in that uniform, noting unusual cars or people in the pocket notepad he carried. I still have a picture of that little boy and his younger brother standing beside the Ontario PD cruiser I drove back in 1981.

This evening, in a Cincinnati suburb, I will be pinning his sergeant's badge to his chest in front of his friends, family and co-workers.

That little boy with the blonde locks will become Sergeant Jeff Wolf, Goshen Township Police Department. Jeff, all six-foot-four of him, no longer looks up to this five-ten uncle, though he may disagree with that perception. He says I was the reason he wanted to become a police officer, that I set an example for him to follow. This man, in whom I still see that little boy, has set his own example, now trudging forward in the profession I left in 2013, leaving his own footprints for the next generation to follow.

I could not be prouder.

                                                         Sgt. Jeff Wolf

Another 'What Were They Thinking?'

John Braman thought he had a pretty good gig going: taking cash from drunks.

John Braman was a night-shift deputy for the Volusia County ( Fla ) Sheriff's Office and, as such, would often come in contact with inebriated individuals during the course of his shift. Now, persons under the influence of alcoholic beverages are often so to such a degree that they can't understand exactly what is happening, even when being arrested.

Enter Braman's extra-income scheme.

"He's a thieving idiot" said Sheriff Mike Chitwood, upon learning that State of Florida investigators uncovered enough evidence, including additional victims, to charge the 33-year-old road patrol deputy.

How was he caught? By his own body camera footage.

Apparently Deputy Braman, during one arrest, forgot to turn off the camera before going through the wallet of a man he'd just arrested for driving while intoxicated. In the video, Braman was filmed taking at least one $100 bill from the handucuffed offender's wallet, placing it in an evidence bag and then hiding the money in the trunk of his cruiser. During investigation of the incident, it was found that Braman had not turned the cash in as evidence. In at least four other instances in which arrested intoxicated persons complained of missing money, investigators allege that Braman is heard on his body cam video telling the suspects that he was turning the camera off for 'police tactics', a policy enacted by the previous Volusia County Sheriff. Chitwood has since changed that policy. "It appears that the police tactics were to steal money from the motorists", he said in a statement to media.

Braman, who was placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal investigation, eventually resigned his position with the department. Records show he had been paid in excess of $60,000 in wages the previous year.

                                                       "Thieviing idiot" John Braman