Our Society's Undoing

I've experienced quite a bit in my short life; much more than most men my age. I've lifted the veil of the most amazing lady that I've ever known. I've held her hand as we heard the first breaths taken by our daughters. I've taken a life in battle and I've seen the eyes of those who would try and take mine. I've been shot at, cursed at, spat upon and called the most vile filth that you could imagine...most of this from those whom I serve and who I have placed my life in jeopardy to protect. Why in the world do I subject myself to this sort of lifestyle? I'm college-educated, highly-experienced and I could be successful in so many other professional careers. So why in the world, every day that I go to work, do I follow my badge into the some of the most dangerous and vile environments that I've seen since Iraq?

DISCLAIMER: It is at this moment that I will lose some of you. If you're not a parent, a husband or a wife 100% devoted to your spouse or your family, this concept will be incomprehensible to you. And if you're not a parent, a husband or a wife, do me a favor...print this page out and put it in the box to be opened on your tenth wedding anniversary, or on your child's fifth birthday. For I assure you, it will be then that you will understand what I am going to attempt to explain.

I take pride in the scourges that my profession offers. I do, because by exposing myself to the morally devoid among us, I place myself in a position to make a difference in the world to be inherited by my daughters and their daughters. I see it this way...I and my kind are at the rear of the canoe feverishly rowing toward civility, an ethical lifestyle and moral responsibility. In the front of the canoe, paddling in the opposite direction just as feverishly as we are, are the morally bankrupt, the selfish and the vermin. I look behind me and I see my family standing on an island between us, and the end. This filth that I am battling with are winning. They are taking us and their self-destructive lifestyles closer and closer to the island where my babies stand. And although I may not be winning, as we come closer and closer to the shore, my family sees me fighting for them.

This I know:
I know the more I fight, the less they will have to.
I know the longer that I can prolong our society's immanent moral implosion, the longer my family will be able to enjoy the peace and comfort that a honest lifestyle and a loving household has to offer.
I know the more they hurl their filth at me, the less will be spoken to my family. I know the more they spit on me, the less will land on my family.
I know the longer that I can keep this canoe in the middle, the longer my family will have to grow and live a peaceful life.

I lay my head on my pillow knowing that while there may not be a solution, I do know that I am not a part of the problem. This is why I do what I do. I am the cork in the hull of the Titanic.

We're going down folks. I'm afraid that all we can do at this point, barring a moral awakening the likes of which has never before been seen, is slow our descent. Our society has set itself on a path of self-destruction. I don't know when, but I know it's going to happen. We would be kidding ourselves to say that we are a better society than that of generations past. We are killing ourselves and I fear that all I and my kind are doing is pushing the morphine to numb the pain and make our last moments less painful.

I wish it were not true. For my families sake...I wish it were not. But alas, I fear it is.