Sometimes...It Is Just Who You Are

I have had the great fortune in life to have had careers that were not so much what I did as much as they were who I was. There are many such careers; Priests, Doctors, Nurses, Teachers and the like. All seem to be characterized by a calling to the profession or vocation.

In my case, I developed a seeming endless need to help people in some way or another. I learned this as a Boy Scout, eventually becoming an Eagle Scout. At the tender age of 53 my Eagle Scout Certificate hangs on the wall of my study, with pride, I might add, for it taught me values that have served me well in life. A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. Words that remain with me as they have been burned into my very soul. These words have served me well as a Police Officer, a Military Officer and a business owner.

I decided I wanted to be a policeman when I was about six years old when the local Chief of Police let me ride in the police car (the front seat, by the way) in our small suburb outside Chicago. I got to turn on the red lights and push the button that made the siren whine. I was hooked from that day forth. My Father, the retired military Judge and lawyer, never forgave the man I called Uncle Earl until I was a teenager.

Police Officer is not something you do. It is a calling. It is something you become. I wanted to help people, my first, last and only goal, during my entire career. I did well and was able to retire having never used deadly force in a way that anyone got killed. I once shot at a guy, but I missed every time on purpose because I just wanted him to be so busy running from the crazy guy shooting at him that he would not turn around and fire another shot at me. It worked, but when I got back into the patrol car some hours later, with him in the back seat under arrest, I found the bullet hole in the windshield just above the steering wheel and the .32 calibre bullet lodged in the head rest of the driver seat. Get in your car and draw a straight line and see where it goes if you are sitting in the car behind the wheel. I was getting out of the car when he fired his only shot, so I was lucky, I guess.

Years later they gave me an award, "Police Officer of the Year." It was not for anything in particular, just being good at what I did, I guess. I got a check for $1,000 in addition to a nice little trophy. The night after the award ceremony, I went to the local cop bar where all the cops hung out, handed the bartender $500 and said, food and drinks are on me for all the cops tonight. When that runs out, I got more. They only managed to eat and drink about $400 of it, and I think there may have been some pretty ticked off wives that night, but I did not earn that award alone, I was part of a team of people that deserved recognition too.

I served my country in the military, managed to stay alive and get a piece of a lot of warfare for which I was ill-prepared. Not for lack of training, but because I just saw no point in the violence sometimes. I issued orders that got young men killed, some I knew well, some I just knew and some I never knew personally. I have lost endless hours of sleep knowing that, but take comfort in the fact that they did not die for no reason. The fact that they died, allowed others to live or live better lives, and that is enough for me. I suppose when I die, I will find out how they feel about it, and I hope I do.

I am a pilot now. I learned how to fly late in life and, all I can say is that their was a woman involved in my decision to learn how to fly. Men do things for very strange reasons, but never underestimate what a man will do to try to be with a woman. I have found that flying has become a passion and it is not just what I do, it is, once again, what I am. It permeates my life, my schedule, my reading and my budget. I own a plane. I fly planes for a charter service and I teach people how to fly, as I am a flight instructor now as well. If I go to a party, I invariably find the other pilot in the room and we slink off to a corner and speak in that language of pilots...V-speeds, MTOW's and fuel flows...you get the idea. You would have a lot easier time understanding the conversation between two doctors at a Cardiologist Convention.

I will admit that there are certain ego-food kinds of things associated with flying. It is not just about the flying, although that is HUGE! It is also about knowing, deep down inside, that once you become a pilot, you can do something that only .002% of the population of the United States can do, fly an airplane. As a flight instructor, I represent .0003% of the U.S. population. Now, if that does not give one cause for a little pride, you really need to seek professional help. No wonder pilots can be just a bit cocky, and those guys that do it in the military (which I did not), while someone is shooting at them, they are an entirely separate breed of human being, and have my absolute and unqualified respect.

Well, there are my random thoughts for the day. Tomorrow, I will teach a young man how to fly by reference to flight instruments alone. There are only about 325,200 of those in the U.S., so they represent about .001% of the population or half the people with pilot licenses of any kind. Just FYI, since I am talking statistics.

I guess, when you have to go through the education, training and experience to learn how to do something, you kinda feel special, and it isn't really just what you do. It becomes who you are.