I Wish You Knew

This post is something out of the ordinary but I came across this and wanted to share it with everyone as it relates to Law Enforcement and interacting with the public. Not everyone knows what it's like to put on a uniform, badge and gun and go to places and deal with people and things that are avoided on an average day by everybody else. We (Law enforcement) deal with a lot and are exposed to a lot of different things that the average public never see or only see on tv. And NO! everything you see on TV is not real, and some of us don't have the capability of CSI! In case you were wondering! Any way here it is:

I wish you could know the frustration I feel in the patrol vehicle, with my foot pressing down hard on the pedal, hitting the air horn again and again, as you fail to yield the right of way at an intersection or in traffic. When you need us however, your first comment upon our arrival will be, "it took you forever to get here!"
I wish you could know my thoughts as I help extricate a girl of teenage years from the remains of her automobile. "What if this was my daughter, sister, my girlfriend, or a friend? What was her parent's reaction going to be when thye opened the door to find a police officer with hat in hand?"
I wish you could know how it feels to walk in the back door and greet my parents and family, not having the heart to tell them that I nearly did not come back from the last call.
I wish you could feel the hurt as people verbally and sometimes physically abuse us or belittle what I do, or as they express their attitudes of "it will never happen to me."
I wish you could understand why we tend to be so cautious and "unfriendly" when we pull you over. And I wish you would not take it so personally.
I wish you could understand the pain of watching someone who wears the same uniform being laid to res after being killed in the line of duty.
I wish you could realize the physical, emotional and mental drain or the missed meals, lost sleep and forgone social activities, in addition to all the tragedy my eyes have seen.
I wish you could understand why we hate it when you look at us and tell your little child, "if you dont behave, I'm going to give you to that policeman." Great, now they're scared of us. So who do you want them to call when things go bad?
I wish you could understand the terror that courses through you veins in the seconds before you make a life and death decision because someone you probably have never met is determined to kill you.
I wish you could understand the frustration of arriving at a call and finding someone with a gun, knowing that you have milliseconds to decide if you need to shoot or not, while after the fact, your actions will be debated for months by many who have never even held a gun.
Unless you have lived this kind of life, you will never truly understand or appreciate who I am, we are, or what our job really means to us...
I wish you could though.