By: Pelvo White, Jr.

Pelvo White, Jr. — Thu, 06 Jun 2019 23:43:55 +0000

I am a Vietnam Veteran, and I have come up against real hardened killers on foreign soil. I was trained at several U.S. Army bases in the ways of war before I was flown to Southeast Asia, and dropped off at a replacement station outside of Danang, Vietnam. I spent a few days at the replacement station and was then trucked to my duty station. I was assigned to the reactionary force, issued my TA 50, or field gear, and was told that I would be on Tower Guard duty in about a week. The reactionary force guarded an evacuation hospital. The hospital was almost on the beach of the South China Sea. Evacuation hospitals were not protected under the Geneva Convention, and were therefore legal targets for the enemy. We got hit with rockets, mortars, grenades, and other arms fire just about every night. The noises of war were horrible,and Sometimes we would even experience human wave attacks. Combat in Vietnam taught me how to gauge the actions of violent men and women.We not only fought the enemy, we also fought each other. I can still see the scars on my knuckles from knocking some of my fellow soldiers upside their heads, and I have scars on my head that will never go away. The only law and order in a combat zone is that which is imposed upon you by you. My compound was a racist,segregated, violent piece of ground where if a fight broke out between soldiers it didn’t end until the battling soldiers agreed for it to end. There weren’t any mamma and daddy to cry to. You wore your scars, and did your duty. A combat zone filled with violent men is no different from a prison filled with violent men.
You must learn to live, and function in this environment. A real soldier is well suited to be an excellent police officer because he is like an educated alpha male wolf sporting a uniform, a badge, a gun, and other instruments on his utility belt. He is willing to subdue, and arrest any man or woman acting illegally within our society. He is a good judge of character, and isn’t afraid. A good police officer sizes himself up against all that he meets deciding almost in an instant whether he can defeat them with his bare hands or he may need help. He will not let a child with an automatic weapon defeat him. He will not hesitate to kill or be killed in the performance of his duty. A combat soldier, and a police officer are very rare breeds of men accustomed to dealing with danger, and high levels of violence. Cops, like hardened soldiers, aren’t liked by all until they are really needed, but when they are called upon to undertake the most difficult of tasks which could result in their own death, they must be willing to serve.Every cop must ask himself how he would respond when faced with the possibility of violent, immediate death. Will he freeze, or will he advance under the suspect’s fire.I am certain that the resource officer at the school in Parkland, Florida will ponder these questions for the rest of his life.

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By: Pelvo White, Jr.