by Bob Curran

Commentary from the Buffalo Evening News, March 10, 1998

You're a police officer's wife and you're proud of it.

Long ago you learned to look the other way when your loved one straps on the weapon that may save his life before dawn. There has been no request on his part that you do this, just a silent and mutual agreement that you will never break.

And long ago you learned why he insists on kissing the children on the mouth before he goes on duty. He knows, as you know, that said long kiss might be the last thing he has to cling to when a bullet is burning his life away in a dark alley.

Long ago you learned to look the other way when one of your children comes home from school with a new buise on his face and no explanation as to why it is there.

You have heard that the front page of the newspaper and the television news reports are filled with reports about that rare police officer - the bad cop - that day. And you know the youngster doesn't want to talk about how he defended the most important man in your lives.

You know a lot about troubled sleep on a couch. Indeed, you know a lot about tossing and turning on the couch, waiting for the dreaded knock by the police chaplain. You know women who have received that knock and opened the door to a loneliness beyond belief.

Early in married life you learned that you couldn't socialize with ordinary people. You still cringe at the memory of a brother-in-law complaining about a ticket on his car. He didn't seem to realize that the person who tagged the automobile wears the same uniform as the person who will go into a dark alley after a crazed hophead while the complainer is warm in his bed.

On that day you decided you'd be better off socializing with people who understood your way of life. That yours is a blue world, where only cops are allowed to put that word "cops" into a conversation. Like the expression, "He's a good cop."

After a while you learned that these unsentimental people have no higher-ranked accolade to put on another person than that one. And you have heard and understood why one of your civilian boosters refers to you as: "The infantry of civilian life. No glory and the dirtiest job of all."

You know about your husband's "second job" and how important it is to your keeping the wolf from the door. And you know what the loss of that second paycheck means to your family. But every time he goes on a tour of duty, he risks sustaining an injury that will keep him from getting that second paycheck.

But you know full well about the strong bond that links people like your husband, that impels law enforcement people to travel to faraway places to honor one of their own who has died in the line of duty.

You're a police officer's wife and you're proud of it.