compadre - noun - definitions
a term used in antiquity to denote two men who had taken an oath of friendship or blood-brotherood before the Church.
Ask.com
a term meaning people of the same heart, intentions and goals...
My definition

By these definitions I have had numerous compadres.

By the combined definitions of friend and compadre,  I have had only a few close compadres...  But those of us who have been there know that most Warriors/Peace Keepers have few close compadres.  In the military, Soldiers/Peace Keepers are usually engaged in the battle in groups while in law enforcement, the Soldiers/Peace Keepers usually engage in the battle alone.  We seldom have time for many close relationships.  Sometimes small teams are close to one another...  Sometimes they are not close.

Because my home was literally the highways and streets engaging in keeping the peace for the sake and welfare of others, I was never comfortable away from the highways and streets once I began that duty so very long ago in 1962.  If I were off duty, I longed to be on duty unless I was engaged in some attention keeping useful endeavor.  It was even worse if I was on vacation...  I just wanted to get back to my refuge and get back to duty.  This was the rule for me until crisis struck my wife and the demands of her care were so great that I had to become her care giver and medical problem manager.  Then after she died I became even more immersed into duty and being on the streets until I was forced to give up my badge, gun and authority to retirement because of rules and age and just be a chaplain.  It is good for her that she was not there for that experience.

Forced retirement left a great hollow place inside me that gnawed at me until the time came that I was able to become a traffic safety officer for my police department.  That job met my needs in monetary and emotional support  until the health demands of my ill, disabled, adult daughter demanded I become her care giver and her medical manager...
Then I had to lay aside the traffic safety duties altogether and confine the chaplain duties to office and administration work only because she needed so much support and attention that I had to stay home with her and I could work in my home office around her needs...  Then I did my chaplain work by computer, telephone and with others who came to my office.  This has worn me down to the point that I must do extra resting while she is in the hospital for an extended stay...  And so that I must pay particular close attention to my need to eat properly even more than ever before. 

Bachelor life is lonely...  Life away from the streets is lonely...  Medical care giving is lonely...  The life of not being a sworn officer anymore is more lonely and one of the most demanding battles I have ever endured...  The only battle more difficult to endure is the loneliness of missing my sweetheart, my wife Sue, who finally was done in by kidney failure, heart failure and a stroke...  And my son James killed in a truck wreck... Eight years since she left...  Six years for James... 

Everyone needs someone with whom they can be close, intimate and relaxed...  When You have had a 44 year love affair with your wife and a 47 year love affair with peace keeping and you come to the place where you no longer have either one, it makes you think deeply and long for whatever was in your life before that gave you any deep internal support and satisfaction...  And for this man, it is the longing for home and comfort that was left behind so very long ago when I left my beloved mountains and valley to make the world a safer place.  Now that the world no longer needs me to keep the peace and my dear sweetheart is gone, I long for the hearth and home of my youth where I truly enjoyed living...  But I cannot go there now and have not been there for too many years...

Were it not for the reality of life for the true believer being renewed every morning I would of all men be most miserable...  But thanks be unto my Commander-In-Chief that it is new every morning and He picks me up in my spirit and gives me what I need for each new day and each new assignment.  He restores my soul...  When my soul is as thirsty for life as a deer in the wild pants for the cool wetness of a stream...  He restores my soul from His Water of Life...  When my soul is so hungry that nothing physical satisfies...  He feeds me on the Bread of Life brought to us by my Eternal Captain.

I have said all of this to try and reach the hearts and minds of the Peace Keepers who might read this that have conducted their lives as I did mine...  Who were and are so involved in keeping the peace that life with loved ones suffers and sometimes becomes nonexistent.  Far too many times I left spouse and family when I did not have to.  I did it just to be out there in the thick of things and to be ready to meet the needs and provide peace and safety to others... 

Now...  In these current times of having to rest and be shut in, not able to go out to the streets and the field, I am now realizing that I did these things for the people far more than I had to do it...  And did the necessary things for my spouse and family far less than I should have done.  Home on the streets and family refuge were sometimes in great competition and I was so zealous for duty and meeting the safety needs of others that I did not recognize it enough.  Now that I can recognize it well, I cannot do anything about it...  Wife and children are gone...  Youth is gone...  Career is gone and going... 

These 18 months of being shut up at home with caring for my daughter have shown me to think it all through and redirect my priorities to providing for my daughter...  Providing for myself in rest and better care...  Providing for the Kingdom of God with more prayer, study, meditation and being ready to give service to those who can and might communicate with me now that I can no longer go out to them except through the electronic media or if they come to my office.

You are still prayed for daily.  At this time of my life, I have, by necessity, become reclusive...  By His Grace I can still meet the needs of those who might be directed by His spirit to contact me to help to guide them through some immediate need.  That still happens often.

If you have a spouse and family, please be very attentive to how much they need you and give them as much of you as you can.  When the demanding times come, they are easier to handle if you did what you could all along the way.  My wife would tell others that I treated her like a queen...  And I believe I could have done more for her and the children if I had been more attentive to them and had striven for better balance between their needs and the demands of my duties as I saw the duties.  I thank God that today I have about 25 other chaplains that I can send out, now that I can no longer go out to the streets to meet the crisis demands myself...  But for many years I did it practically alone or with little help.  Our efforts to build and expand the program have been fruitful...  I can administer, I can direct, I can advise...  And now I can let others go and do it instead of me doing it.  That is a success that was long in coming and one for which I am most thankful.

I wanted to go to Haiti after the earthquake but there was no one else to meet my daughter's needs.  I wanted to go to the Gulf Coast after Katrina but the demand in my home was great at that time...  My Assistant went.  I wanted to go to New York after 9/11 but I had to be here to run Hemodialysis on my wife and meet her physical needs...  I sent my Assist six times.   I wanted to go to Iraq and Afghanistan to instruct police officers but others could do all of that while I stayed here to meet needs others could not meet.

Now to all of you who have done and are doing the going and doing, I send to you my deepest respect and admiration...  And I add a caution...  Make sure, when the choice is yours, that you weigh and evaluate whether you are to go to the special duty or serve your duty at home and let others go to do the special duty while you take care of home duties...  Some day you will be very glad that you took the time to think on it and sometimes act on it.

Once there was a very zealous police officer, all spit and polish.  Previously he served in the military and wanted to continue his law enforcement career in civilian life as he had done in the Military Police.  He had a young, beautiful wife who often begged for his attention when he was busy with studying, polishing leather, creasing uniforms or talking with buddies on the phone when he was off duty.  She adored him and was starved for his affection and often told him so.  One day he was leaving early to go to work.  He had enough time that he could have given her attention before he left but he was anxious to go.  He gave her a peck of a kiss and slammed the door on his way out as she stood with tears flowing...  She had just turned from the door, still wiping tears, when the door burst open and he came in stripping off his leather and his uniform...  They had a few moments of most satisfying intimacy and he dressed again and left...  Many times after that day she was much more tolerant of his duty because she realized in the moment he burst through the doorway undressing that she really was more important to him than the job...  And that she did not have to compete...  And she would never forget it!

When I could never afford anything else I would make a card and buy one carnation to take to my sweetheart for no reason other than I loved her and wanted to make sure she remembered.

Warriors/Peace Keepers have always had to go to the field and strive for peace, safety, life and liberty.  The spouses were always left behind to weep and miss them as they went...  And sometimes to mourn because they did not return.  It has always been so and will be so for yet some time to come.  We who must go out to the field must develop the sensitivity to do special things for them that will build them up and make them aware of just how much they mean to us...  We must never take this for granted...  We must learn not to neglect this most important part of our lives...  Remember, please, that they are the part of us that we do not have in ourselves and they complement us by being that vitally needed part of us...  We two became one in love, life and intimacy.  Let us remember to take very special care of that vital part even if we must depart and go to the field leaving them alone.

My Commander-In-Chief and I are deeply appreciative of your service...  THANK YOU for being there!  We are also deeply appreciative of those who longingly await your return to their presence...  THANK YOU to you who wait!  In addition, we are also appreciative of those in all of your support systems that make it possible for you to be successful on the field...  THANK YOU to those who support and supply the Peace Keepers on the field!.  Goers, waiters, supporters...  Together you are a most amazing team...  Life in this world as we know it today would not be possible without all of you.

To all of you who have retired from the field and go out no more...  THANK YOU  for all of the service and sacrifice you have given...  May the rest of your days be most enjoyable... You have earned it!

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