Looking Back: Take Nothing For Granted

Recently, a number of former SWAT colleagues of mine have passed away. We all remember those who we have worked with for the better and funnier stories relative to each of them. The handles they had such as ‘Topper’, ‘Weenie Fingers’, ‘Aldo Ray’, ‘Electric Man’ and many others were handles or nicknames which somehow attached themselves to each of these unique characters.

When you’re younger you never think of the day to come when old partners start passing away. You’re young and life is well ahead of you so this is the natural progression of things. The purpose of this writing is to enlighten you to enjoy and experience those around you when you can. For instance, the following stories involve hilarious incidents of men I have known and worked with.

Another SWAT Officer attended a sniper training day. Between himself and the downrange target was a very large weed which blocked his view. As the rest of us waited, he proceeded downrange to remove the offending shrubbery. Now there are weeds and there are weeds and then there was this weed. When he reached the weed he gave several twitches of his body and then violently pulled on it. Down he went. He regained his footing steeled himself and again pulled violently. The weed remained rather unimpressed and down he went for a second time. Again he regained his footing, spewed some choice words and pulled yet again. New score: Weed 3, SWAT officer 0. Now by this time the rest of us were in stiches. This went on for about five minutes… up then down… then more swearing… then more pulling… then more falling and still the weed prevailed. Exhausted, sweaty, dirty and covered in weed juice, our hero returned to the line and repositioned himself out of the way of the rather frazzled and bewildered botanical specimen. We laughed so hard that it hurt.

Another SWAT Officer was famous for eating the lunches of others when they were training. During one firearms training day during the Olympics, this Officer had purchased a genuine U.S. Olympic sweat suit outfit with all kinds of embroidery. It was costly. It was pretty. Now this eating machine went to another range for an evolution and left his Metro ride unlocked. Bad call… very bad call. We unwrapped the brand new Official U.S. Olympic Team sweat suit, hung it up on the range and approximately 20 some SWAT Officers proceeded to unload about 8 rounds of 12 pellet, 12 gauge, ’00’ buckshot apiece into it. (The math works out to 1,920 .32 caliber ’00’ pellets.) We then took the now somewhat weathered sweat suit down, folded it back into the original packaging and kept on training. When we hit the Academy showers, the rest of us waited and waited until he had finished showering and was ready for the coming night’s festivities wearing his genuine and brand spanking new – Official U.S. Olympic Team apparel. We heard the locker open… we heard the packaging being undone accompanied by some off-key singing, and then, all hell broke loose.

Now this is really funny stuff that I will never forget. The point of this is to enjoy what you have when you have it. Appreciate those around you as well. Appreciate all of it for what it is.