If you wear a badge...

...you should read this.  (All you goons at the TSA and other fedgov agencies, go find someone with a brain to read it to you.)

I heard it many times. Maybe you have also. "I'm not here to get killed. I'm going home at the end of my shift." I heard it so much and went off so many times on the utterer that those so inclined learned not to say such nonsense in my hearing. Because it is just that. Nonsense. Here's the bottom line if you're a cop and may Robert A. Heinlein forgive me for ripping him off so shamelessly.

If the situation calls for him to do so, it is absolutely a police officer's job to die in the line of duty. Blanket statement.

That's not an easy thing to write or say for a man who devoted so much of his life, sweat and blood to his chosen profession but that doesn't make it any less true. If the situation calls for you to spend your life in the performance of your duties then spend it you must or go find something else to do. A cop who is so afraid of death as to shoot wildly in a crowd is morally bankrupt and has no place in the pantheon of heroes who have gone before him. Simple as that. A police officer owes it to the citizens we're sworn to protect and defend and to the very profession that nurtures us and pays us and gives our life noble purpose. Every one else walking and driving and just standing around also wants to go home at the end of your shift and it's your job to ensure that they do so to the limit of your ability. It is not our job to kill people and break things. Sometimes we must do so but it's always the exception and not the rule. If we have to kill we have failed in our primary duty to preserve life.
 

This is from "Six," who "...spent 9 years as a soldier and 24 as a street cop. In both I was a firearms instructor and Field Training Officer (FTO) so I do know a little about this subject."  A scathing dissertation on cops and cowardice, and how the mix can only end badly.

Welcome The Warrior Class to my "Roll The Dice" blogroll.