@Fred_Snerd Well, my educational experience was forty years ago now, where the Portland Police had been the first to even require a two year degree. I have always struck up conversations with anyone having worked, or currently working within, including a 45 minute talk on my front porch with our current Sheriff (a good guy).

It’s spanned the gamut … as to who, when, or how long some lasted. Very few retired, if needing only 20 years on the force. Watched a close friend of my eventual wife follow through a year behind me (gave her a shitload of books), did a couple ride-alongs with her that had me yearning for such action! But everyone who’d known her growing up could hardly recognize the ..crass person she’d become

Another guy I’d worked with had been a deputy, hours of stories.. But in the end, he’d gone into it to help others, as I had. Eventually, he’d been ostracized by the good-ol-boy network they appear to turn into… Left for his own safety..

I was once hired by a former cop, he’d brought up my educational history. We didn't get into it often, but he also appeared too ..caring a guy to have lasted. So he’d moved to an HR position in an unrelated business..

I’ve listened, as I’d done as a kid, to Portland’s (w/ Multnomah Co.) ‘now online’ police communications … I miss home, and find it interesting to hear descriptions and locations of stuff I’d grown up with in Felony Flats, my ol’ neighborhood’s nickname. What I’ve heard now impresses me!

They, sound educated, diversified, and cool. Very impressive, but Portland now demands it, Mult. Co., too. So, the city gets what it’s paid for; a police force with the intelligence and training to know when to act, and not. They were also one of the first major departments to enact a citizens review board. Cops hated it.. But it appears to have kept them honest & restrained.

But man, Portland is no ‘inner city.’ And I’ve now witnessed some major crazy amid my travels over east… Again, I appreciate the police. And if one said ‘jump,’ I would. Never challenge someone with a gun - take them to court.. It’s tough out there, though … and a job I suspect I’ll live longer for not having taken ~

@Fred_Snerd As you keep the peace you also look for trouble. And if you’re not smart, quick, and resourceful, you can end up dead. Heading into a deadend complex of 3 story apartments with all lights off (a kill switch for brake lights), some scatter, some challenge you.

Abandoned vehicle on the light rail lines! Trains are coming from both directions! Chase the illegal immigrants having stolen and abandoned it - or get it the hell off the both sets of tracks?

More cops were being killed in domestic disputes than any other confrontation. Not only get to use your skills as a psychologist, but a referee, enforcer, or peacekeeper. Cept no Nobel Prizes for those saving lives quietly, if daily.

Pulled em over for a traffic infraction … are they drug runners ..with a shotgun mounted inside the door frame like you’d learned of in school? Or on the city counsel, prepared to get you fired for looking at them wrong..?

You hear the chatter and know the codes, do you scream across town as backup, or stick with the task at hand? Do you call for backup, or handle it alone..?

So I get in, for my hot summer Saturday night ride-along. She first asks, ‘if someone takes me down, are you willing to take them out for me?’ Yes. ‘So here’s how you unlock this’ (shotgun twixt the seats), ‘and here’s my ankle piece’ (pulls up her pant leg). ‘I take it you know how to use this’ … her service revolver. Yup. ‘Buckle up!’

...twenty minutes later, ‘do you want to take lunch,’ ‘or head home?’ What? ‘It’s been 4 hours,’ ‘have you had enough?’ No, let’s go ~

Backup from two other cars, when you least expect it, and didn’t ask.. They become a team, and it’s obviously addictive.

Watched too much wrong growing up, so had she, same grade school. Cops were often the only stable adults we knew, including too many parents. How could you not want to help make things right, take on the bullies, even killers? I passed, but my eventual wife understood when I’d flick on my ‘mock siren’ (red brake test light on my 70 VW), then ‘give the code’ for their infraction, and ‘why I was pulling them over’

Should also mention, that same wife was eventually diagnosed with an anxiety syndrome. She’d begin crying at the thought of me on the streets, long before marriage. That was a major reason I let it go, don’t know how I could have parted every day adding to that. #1 occupation for Divorce at the time, we’d also been taught.. Ah, #1 in suicides at the time as well, I believe. ...lots of cop stuff..

..like my second year, when the PPD was sending battle-hardened street cops to class amid us kids, forcing them to also acquire the two year degree we were after.. It obviously became your life, if perhaps ending it ~

@Fred_Snerd ...all that stuff happened on one of a couple hot summer Saturday night ride alongs I’d done with my ol’ friend. She was one of that department's first female officers (not Portland). ..I think ‘the boys’ arrived to shove the vehicle off the tracks … as we perused the neighborhood looking for fleeing illegals..

Really, the encounter that struck me hardest, and first, was an abusive domestic situation.. Info that could lead you to tears just listening … that you have to both report and deescalate. But like I’d described, the stuff nobody gets credit for, though potentially deadly..

If nothing else, planning for some time to become a cop kept me out of more serious trouble, or anything I’d been caught for. They’ve a near thankless job. And, as I’d also noticed, the whole world appears to be watching. I’d reminded her of ‘whose cars’ I’d ridden with, she knew my friends - and that I’d never experienced being stared at like inside that cop car with her.. ‘You get used to it.’

...now had I stayed on track, my eventual divorce could have happened twenty years sooner, I’d have a killer pension right now, be on my third wife, fun meds, and never had the responsibility of children…

@Fred_Snerd Wasn’t my job, either. Also missed Vietnam, but am always willing to listen to anyone having experienced, or dodged it.. If it’s real, it's relevant ~

@Fred_Snerd I don’t know what makes some willing to talk, and others not? Suppose ‘war is hell.’ My dad was a sergeant during the Korean ‘conflict.’ Got to stay stateside, though. His stories are of some General he drove for.. But was eager to get out. Glad I dodged that stuff, if only by months.. Glad I skipped the cop stuff, too ...thus am here to reminisce about the experience I had