I appreciate the story Mark. The funny stories are part of any job, it just seems cooler when cops have them, because "citizens" don't get to do all the fun stuff with guns and company cars, and also for the most part aren't interacting with weird people in the wee hours of the morning. We have to remember that there are bad sides of the job too, it's not all fun and games. Yeah, they get cool stories, but they also get some really f-ed up experiences, like the one Mark posted. I'm sure that's part of every cop's job, but of course nobody really wants to hear about organic matter from a guy's head all over the pavement. If you only heard the funny stuff, would you respect the guy who pulls you over for speeding, thinking he's going to bust out with a wise ass comment or something, not thinking about the fact that he's withing arm's reach of a car going [the posted speed limit of] 65 mph?
I personally know a few (very few) cops. A really good friend of my family was in tower 2 on 9/11, she trains NY state police. Her partner died when it collapsed, and they were walking out of the building together. She doesn't talk about it, and I don't think anyone expects her to. Today I had to go to court again for my speeding incident, and the judge was late, I talked to a few of the police that were there waiting. They were really cool guys, busting my balls about speeding of course ("come on man, how fast were you going, really?"), but when they were talking to each other about the stuff they were there for, I couldn't imagine being in their shoes. I kind of felt bad for wasting their time for speeding, and this is Vermont! How much bad stuff actually happens!?
