Hi Greg,

Walk a mile in my shoes.....don't take this wrong. Greg and I are good friends. I am not angry. But I do need to clear the air sometimes when a conversation takes this course.
The life expectancy for my job is 59 years. It was 57 when I started in 1982. The cop I replaced killed himself at age of 52. In 30 years I've able to share 12 Christmas days with my family. It took me 11 years to work up to the first X-mas off in the 90's. I've been on rotating shifts for 25 or so of the 30 years. It is the second highest stressful job, second highest suicide rate and highest divorce rate. One guy in my department is on his 3rd wife. More than half are divorced. Last year was really bad.... 5 cops in my area killed themselves (3 I knew personally). One was my borther in law's (a retired Sgt) brother who was a sheriff in my county. One cop just 31 years old shot himself 5 hours before our Spring NEAD battle started. I used the the comforter off his couch to cover the pool of blood as I lay on the floor and tried to find the bullet hole in his head. I then met you guys at Sherry Field but was late getting there. About 20% never make the 25 year mark for retirement. Every dirtbag civil liability lawyer (there are good ones too) is waiting for me to make a mistake to sue me and my department over ANYTHING. I have to make a split second life and death decision that a court will take weeks to hear and argue. The a jury of my "Peers" civilians ( I'm not considered a civilian) take days to decide a verdict on what i did in seconds. Everything I say and do on a car stop and road call is video and voice recorded by my boss. Read ANY newspaper and see how many stories involve the police and how many are about a pipe-fitter. Everyone strains their neck to see what I am doing and even tell me they are filiming me with the smartphone for their lawyer. There are more cop shows on TV than any other type (CSI, Llaw and order, 50, etc...) so everyone thinks they know my job. Bergen County is very expensive and my property taxes are abut $10,500 a year. Mainly for schools my kids don't even go to. I sent them to a Christian school. House here are 2 tow 3 time more costly that southern NJ and my mortage is apparently 3 times the size of yours. If I brown bag lunches, and give up some of the 23 weekends I get off to work overtime and hustle some tanks for sale, I can afford the trip. If I can get that weekend off. I love my job because I love to help people. I have also been on the volunteer amb. corps for 25 years which I do for free. I work outside 75% of the time (down from 95% before I was promoted). The worse the weather the more likely I am to be standing out in it. Just like I did in the October snow storm. Cars crashing around me while trees and power lines were falling from above me. I get paid well...but I do it because I love my job.