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It’s amazing what an incident like this can do to a person. I was in the AShau with 101st for 11 months and only got into 3 fire fights. Lost a good friend and took a round and some shrapnel in the last one. For some reason that never really bothered me. I never forget it by but it doesn’t weigh on me, why I don’t know. My first year with the Sheriff’s Department I took about a 4 inch kitchen knife to my left lung in a domestic dispute. That never bothered me.

3 months into my fifth year with the Sheriff’s department we were serving a warrant for a known dealer and thief, about a week earlier he’d burglarized the Luther Church out in the county. My partner and I did the entry with several PD officers in front of the motel and behind it. I took out the door and he made entry immediately going to the back of the room where the suspect was attempting to flush drugs and syringes. I locked on the other individual who was a female laying in the bed. She was wearing a long sleeve sweat shirt with blood stains running up both arms. It wasn’t until I ran her ID that I recognized who she was. 2 years prior to that she was the Home Coming Queen for a small community on the east side of the county. Not only did I know her but her family as well. I’ve know her since she was born and her and my daughter were the same age and had some of the same classes. She had been to our house many times over the years. Now she was sitting there with her arms covered in blood and physically unrecognizable as the beautiful young girl I’d witnessed growing up. Where she is now I do not know, her father transferred to New Mexico with the company he worked for and we have no contact now. There was no fight, there was no fear but that day bothered me more than any other I’ve experienced. A few months later I went to the Sheriff explained what was going on and turned in my resignation. It’ funny and frightening how things can get in the brain and never let go.