WHAT SHALL I SAY TO ALL THIS?

Shall I scream it?  Would it help to broadcast it from the housetops?  Should it not be said to every Peace Keeper going out to duty?  It is part of my closing every week...
"BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!"  ALWAYS be alert, watchful, suspicious and wary.  Take the very best care of you as you care for and about others...

In this week...

An officer alone approaches a suspicious person pushing a grocery cart.  The officer winds up in a struggle, shot and left to die...  He later is pronounced dead at the hospital.  The perp is caught later by K9 and has three handguns and an assault rifle.

An officer is dispatched to a very early morning domestic.  He is first to arrive.  He is alone talking to the woman who lives at the residence on the front porch.  The male involved in the domestic comes to the door and shoots the officer in the head.  The officer is pronounced dead at the hospital.  An arriving officer sees the shooter on the porch with the downed officer and shoots the shooter.

I mean no disrespect to the slain officers...  I am not laying fault to them, but my brain wants to scream aloud, repetitively, with all of the things I have been taught about making approaches to calls, suspicious people and possible places of ambush...  I hurt when you are hurt.  I pray over and for each slain Peace Keeper.  I pray over and for their families and loved ones who must take the journey I have had to travel so many times. 

If I were there with them I would be saying, "Take your time.  Be careful.  Don't rush.  Wait for backup.  Don't get killed handling this situation!!!"  But I was not there and I could not protect them in their hour of great need. 

I feel the same about all Peace Keepers, no matter where each one is... On any battlefield at home or in foreign lands...  I know that Peace Keepers must go into these situations.  I know that Peace Keepers must handle these situations.  I know what it is to meet death staring you in the face.  It is that today I just know too much of it.  One instructor in a training film said that every death is avoidable, preventable.  I am not sure that is true in every case but I am sure a lot more could be prevented by what I learned from special training, better application of that training and personal experience.

I have personally been in similar situations.  I personally have experienced perps trying to kill or disable me.  I have found the guns and many other kinds of weapons.  I came near to killing an off duty police officer from another jurisdiction as I was checking him after an early morning traffic stop for speeding and he opened the glove box to get the registration...  His hand was reaching for the butt of a revolver in the glove box and I unlimbered, drew down and spoke to him very powerfully and distinctly...  "If you don't want to die, don't touch that gun!"  I removed him from the vehicle and to the shoulder of the highway.  There I determined that he was a police officer from an out of state, large, metro police department.  I told him how close he came to dying that morning on the side of that highway...  I was ready to take his life right then and there as he reached toward that gun!

Another time a drunk, ill, crazed driver tried to murder me with a vehicle...  In another case I found a revolver, a knife and a devise to be used over a fist to strike someone and cause injury.  They were under the driver's butt in the driver's seat readily available to the driver...  I have had men try to crush my skull...  I have faced dangerous mobs...  In all these cases from my early career there was no backup and no partner.  I worked alone sometimes covering vast areas.  I know the dangers of the job first hand.  That is why my brain wants to scream a message to every Peace Keeper...  "BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!"  ALWAYS be alert, watchful, suspicious and wary.  Take the very best care of you as you care for and about others...

This applies whether you are in a city or in a rural area...  This applies whether you are in Afghanistan or in Iraq...  This applies whether you are in a situation alone or if you have Peace Keeper company...  If you are a Peace Keeper it applies to you and for you.

I have witnessed some death that appears to be unavoidable.  I have witnessed too much death that did not have to happen.  I have been too close to it too many times myself.  I have rescued others from bad situations before the perp could act to cause injury or death.  I have been alone hunting fugitives.  I have had to search dangerous places and situations alone as well as with other Peace Keepers.  Many times I could have died but I didn't...  Usually I didn't die because of something I heard or saw before it could be used against me.  Sometimes I survived by Grace because the perp did not see an opportunity to get to me before I found something I had missed the first time...  Sometimes I learned by very hard experiences...  But I did learn. 

Now I am here to encourage you to take your time, be thorough and try not to miss anything that could hurt you or be used against you....  And that includes the operation of your patrol vehicle...  Will a few seconds or even a few minutes make a difference to anyone besides you?  What if you never get there?...  Then someone else has to come and take care of you and someone else has to take care of what you were supposed to take care of but cannot because you never got there.  How much time will that take???

I have held too many widows, children, mothers, fathers and siblings...  Survivors of deceased Peace Keepers.  This process has been my journey far too many times.  My insides are tossing about now as I remember and write...

I know you have to go and do this duty.  I thank God daily that you are there to do the duty!!!  I know because I had to do it too.  I still would if I could but my time has passed...  So my duty now is to try and reach you before something difficult happens to you that you could have heard...  Or seen...  Or felt...  Or smelled...  Or done something to prevent destruction or protect yourself before it could take place.

I do this for you, the Peace Keeper!  I do this for all of your families and loved ones...  To keep them from the pain that I have known.  I do this because we cannot afford to lose even one of you.  Statistically you can be replaced if and when we find another recruit...  But we cannot replace you personally, individually and in relation to your experience...  Not in peace keeping and not in the lives of those whom you love and who love you.  Telling a spouse that their spouse will not be coming home again...  Telling a parent that their child will not be coming home again...  Telling a child that mom or dad will not ever be coming home again...  This is about the most rotten duty another Peace Keeper can be called upon to perform...  Then add to that Honor Guard duty...  Color Guard duty...  Add making sure the flag is properly applied to the casket while you are almost inundated by the odors from within the casket...  It can get to be too much and I am trying to spare you the experience!!!

None of this that I write can cover how rotten and angry you feel because of the death...  It does not cover your missing your buddy and partner...  It does not cover the ache that permeates your being as you miss someone you loved so very much...  Partner, buddy, best friend ever, spouse, child, lover...  There is no pain in this world like that pain... I really do want to spare you the experience because I have known it too often!!!

Please hear me...  And if you hear me, please talk to your buddies and cohorts about it...  PLEASE!!!  If you never have that pain you won't miss it.  If you ever experience that pain you will do all that you can to protect others from it!!!

I hear the question come, Why does he care so much?  I care so much because of my Journey from recruit/trainee to old and retired Peace Keeper - 47 years of experience of all of these things and more....  Because I know how difficult it is to traverse all of these experiences...  Because I want to keep you from all of the pain that I can if you listen, learn and apply what you learn.  Think how much pain and misery can be avoided if only one, two or three listen and learn...  Think how much  pain and misery can be avoided if hundreds...  or even thousands of you listen, learn and apply what I am trying to say to you today...

I love you all and all of your loved ones so very much that I must say these things to you...  I must say these things to you because sometimes just knowing about the death of a Peace Keeper I do not personally know and have never met causes me to bear great pain for those who will experience the greatest of pain because of that one death... Then multiply that pain by about three a week here in the homeland and by dozens from the foreign battlefields...  By the time you do that the enormity of the pain will have become so great as to be beyond your imagination...  Then you will know why I need my Eternal Captain and my Commander-In-Chief to carry me through all of my days in the same way a Shepherd does in the caring for each of his injured sheep...  That injured sheep is carried close to the bosom of the Shepherd as it is given peace and the healing process is experienced.  I know that provision for I have been there often, usually daily in these current times...  And I pray the Lord's Prayer daily so that everything I need is covered.  (The Our Father if you are Roman Catholic, The Disciple's Prayer is my favorite name for it.)

I cannot thank you enough for who you are and for what you are doing and have done.  Nothing we know and have today would exist without you.  You are the Earthly key to our continued existence.  BE EVEN GREATER BLESSED AND PLEASE DO NOT FORGET...

"BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!"  ALWAYS be alert, watchful, suspicious and wary.  Take the very best care of you as you care for and about others. See to the strength and well being of your spirit as well as all the rest of you.  Your spirit must be strong for you to be successful.

Call or write if I may be of any service... Or if you just want to encourage me... Feedback encourages all who write... It helps to know we are reaching someone who reads the message.

My daughter had another abscess explosion on Friday.  The abscess is under the flesh above the open wound between her waist and her breast.  It was there when the Infectious Disease doctor removed the IV antibiotic.  We knew that, barring a miracle, it would take about three weeks for the explosion.  Monday the 24th would be three weeks.  She is very ill and in much more pain than usual.  I am caring for the wound as usual.  We already had an appointment with the surgeon for the 24th.  He will be doing surgery again and we will repeat the wound care process again with a partial old wound and a new deeper open wound..  Thank you for the many messages of care, concern and prayer that I have received from you.  Those messages are most uplifting.

As it has always been... So it still is!!!

"VICTORIOUS WARRIORS WIN FIRST...
AND THEN GO TO WAR,
WHILE DEFEATED WARRIORS GO TO WAR FIRST...
AND THEN SEEK TO WIN."  Sun tzu

Training and practice are everything!
Without them, the best results are not obtained!

ONLY LIVE PEACE KEEPERS SEE THE VICTORY!!!
THEY SEE IT ONLY BECAUSE OTHERS HAVE MADE THEIR ETERNAL
PAYMENTS OF SWEAT, BLOOD, TEARS AND LIFE FOR THAT VICTORY!

WITH THE DEEPEST OF APPRECIATION AND RESPECT...
BE BLESSED (A CONDITION TO BE ENVIED)...
BE SUCCESSFUL... BE SAFE...
[My injunction to be safe means doing all you know to do as you do your job... it means
doing the best you can with what you have where you are using all your faculties to get
the job done well and with good results conquering evil and keeping or restoring peace...
it does not mean to avoid duty and honor... it does not mean to cower or allow anything
to hinder you in the process of duty according to rules, law and ethics...  it means that if
the demand takes your earthly life you destroy as much evil as possible in the process. 
That is my definition of being safe... doing the best you can and leaving the rest to God
or whomever else is responsible... being best employed for the sake and protection of all
the things and people that we hold dear.]

I represent, write for... and give the credit to:
God the Father (my Commander-in-Chief),
Jesus Christ the Son (the Eternal Captain of my life) and
the Holy Spirit of God (my Eternal Teacher, Keeper and Guide).
In Christ I live... with Him and for you I serve...
And I rejoice that you are there whether you are Christian or not...
For God, Country and the Peace Keeper...
D. R. (Don) Staton, Chaplain to Peace Keepers,
Surviving Peace Keeper,
Virginia State Police Alumni,
RETIRED Police Officer Virginia Beach Police Dept.,
Senior Chaplain and Administrative Chaplain VBPD,
DCJS Certified Police Instructor,
Community Service Officer (Traffic Safety) VBPD
Blackwater Alumni
757-431-2190, chpln1@verizon.net
3709 Beacon Lane, Virginia Beach, VA 23452
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