Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

I don’t get much opportunity to talk about #2 Son. He is a cop, and works shifts that don’t often allow for phone conversations, and he doesn’t do email very often. Today, though, I got some sitdown time with him between my golf and his extracurriculars. He’s a top judo competitor, and has won several national tournaments.

As a cop, he’s apparently very good. I rode with him one night, and his sergeant was very complimentary. I would expect that, but the man went out of his way to say something which made me feel it was something more than “make Dad feel good.”

I worry more about him than I do his brothers. They are prepped to expect the worst in combat. He can never tell when a simple traffic stop might turn into something else. And he can’t enter a situation in the aggressive, primed mode. That can cause situations to grow.

Today he had court for a DWI he pulled over, and the man pleaded guilty. So time in court was minimal and he stopped by on his way to work out. We talked a lot about how his job is going, and the issue of Tazers came up. The entire police force is now armed with them, and every officer must experience the device before he can carry one. Matt says they’re plenty painful, but nobody has ever died because they were subjected to the shock (contrary to reports from those who want to see them outlawed). His Judo insructor is a very large man, and challenged Matt that he could use mind power to overcome the shock. He didn’t.

Matt had to use his the other night and got in a bit of trouble for not using his pistol instead. They hit a drug house, and the occupants had (as many do) a pit bull trained to hate uniforms. The dog attacked and tried to hit Matt’s leg. Matt fired the electrodes and the dog went down for the full five second pulse. When it was out, the dog got up and ran into the house. We both laughed, and assume the dog won’t be attacking any policemen in the near future.

The Chief is wary of his officers using this tool too frequently, and thought a gun would have been the better choice. Once he heard the full circumstances, though, he dropped his objection.

The Tazer shock is not the same as a typical electrical shock. This is programmed at a frequency that interferes nerve signals from the brain that control muscle function. Cops still call it “riding the lightning,” but it isn’t quite the same as simply applying voltage to the body. It has been tested on pacemakers the be sure it doesn’t affect their operation, and the current flow isn’t strong enough to do more than put small marks on the skin. Maybe a few of these would be of value in Iraq.

One of Matt’s students is a Marine reservist who is going to deploy to Iraq in the fall. We had a bit of fun with him at his expense tonight. But he’s an eager young man, and is ready to go. It was nice to spend the day with some of my generation and older miltary guys, then meet with this young Marine tonight and know that the values I remember still hold, in spite of what the media would like Americans to believe. The prisoner abusers not withstanding.