The Art of War (and why you don't hear about most of what we do)

Preface: I work for a small, rural, Sheriff's office where "all is well in Zion".  This post is comes directly from being asked, for the 1,272nd time, "Nothing bad ever happens up here... what do you guys do all day?"

People seem to think that what they hear about on the news is the entirety of what happens in a given place.  Here is the reality.... you only hear about it when things go wrong.  The rest of the incidents, which worked out the way we wanted them to, are way too boring for the news and you never hear about them.  We are 52 days into the new year and my little department, with 8 patrol deputies, has handled 1,203 calls for service and self initiated incidents.  Most of what we do are self-initiated incidents; meaning we are out actively finding and initiating these events ourselves rather than being called to them.  It's being pro-active.

One of my favorite parables comes out of the preface to one of the editions of The Art of War that I own.  I will paraphrase it here:

It seems that the Emperor of China had a personal physician.  The Emperor asked him if he was the only doctor in his family or if his brothers also practiced medicine.  The doctor replied that he had two brothers who were also physicians.

He said, "My oldest brother can detect and cure disease before it even enters into a village.  No one ever gets sick and so no one has ever heard of him.  Additionally, he makes very little money because the people do not believe they have any need of him.

My next brother can detect and cure a disease immediately after it enters into a house.  A few people have heard of him.  As for me, I mix potions and perform surgeries and save the lives of many sick people.  Because of this, I am one of the most famous physicians in all of China."

So here's my question, which doctor would like prefer living in your village?

You never hear about the times we take a violent, wanted felon off the streets (at gunpoint - but don't shoot him) because that's not interesting.  You never hear about us stopping the car, with two thugs that just got out of prison in it, while it was slowly driving around your neighborhood.  You don't hear about it, but it sends a message to the bad guys.  They know we're hunting for them - and even if we don't have reason to take them to jail, just encountering us sends a message to them... and they go somewhere else.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes on the matter...

• "Therefore one who is good at martial arts overcomes others’ forces without battle, conquers others’ cities without siege, destroys others’ nations without taking a long time." The Art of War

• "Deep knowledge is to be aware of disturbance before disturbance, to be aware of danger before danger, to be aware of destruction before destruction, to be aware of calamity before calamity.  Strong action is training the body without being burdened by the body, exercising the mind without being used by the mind, working in the world without being affected by the world, carrying out tasks without being obstructed by tasks.  By deep knowledge of principle, one can change disturbance into order, change danger into safety, change destruction into survival, change calamity into fortune." - The Book of Balance and Harmony

• "Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered, those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid.  Thus the wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win." - The Art of War

• "To sense and comprehend after action is not worthy of being called comprehension.  To accomplish after striving is not worthy of being called accomplishment.  To know after seeing is not worthy of being called knowing.  These three are far from the way of sensing and response.  Indeed, to be able to do something before it exists, sense something before it becomes active, see something before it sprouts, are three abilities that develop interdependently.  Then nothing is sensed but is comprehended, nothing is undertaken without response, nowhere does one go without benefit." - The Book of Balance and Harmony 

In conclusion, all is not well in Zion... but we are trying to keep the bad stuff from spilling over into your lives.  The better we are at that task, the less you will hear about it.

Who I am...

I often listen to audio books while on patrol.  I'm pretty much limited to what we have at the public library so I typically just grab something off the shelf to try out.  Just finished The Dakota Cypher by William Dietrich.  

It was a decent adventure, but I don't recommend it as it has way too much sex.  But, a description of of the main character was like looking into my own soul...

"I'm a frustrated treasure hunter [entrepreneur], gambler, sharpshooter, and adventurer..... I'm a man cursed with the compulsion to toss the dice, to bet it all on the main chance, to listen to dreamers.... I believe in luck and opportunity.  It's not that I'm lazy, just easily bored.  I like novelty.  I'm curious to see what's over the next hill."

That's the most dead-on, accurate description of who I am that I've ever heard.... kinda scary actually. Guess that's why I like this job.

Freedom

In the course of my work I come into contact with people who become indignant because they believe I am restricting their freedom.  I recently had one guy (who was on his way to jail) tell me that we [law enforcement] "make it impossible to live."  It seems to be a recurring theme I keep running into and has caused me to reflect on the concept of freedom.  Here are a few of my rambling thoughts...

Freedom isn't an idea or concept.  Freedom is the result of abiding by truth.  In John 8:32, Jesus taught, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."  Therefore, freedom isn't something given by a government, or even the Creator as stated in the American Declaration of Independence.  God cannot make us free, He simply created the environment for us to become free.  We must choose to become free.

In the Church we talk a lot about "free agency" or "agency".  We talk about it as a a "gift" or something God gave us in the pre-mortal world.  It wasn't freedom, but the ability to choose liberty or captivity.

The prophet Lehi was a great teacher on the subject of freedom.  He said, "Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself." (2 Nephi 2:27)

When Lehi says "free to choose", I believe he's using the term "free" in the sense that we are "allowed" to choose.  Good and evil must exist in order for use to be allowed to choose between them.  If only one exists, there is no choice.

Freedom comes through exact obedience to eternal truth.  God, who is the freest of all beings in the universe, chooses to be perfectly obedient to all truth - which He perfectly comprehends.  His perfect knowledge does not make Him free, but comes as a combination of His perfect knowledge of truth and His perfect performance of it.

And this sums up the point of everything.  The entire plan of salvation is God, our Father, simply trying to teach us eternal truth and how to live it as He does.  God didn't create the plan, or even truth itself.  The commandments are not simply His ideas for good living.  The commandments are eternal truths that He teaches to us in hopes that we will choose to live according to them and become free like He is.

I was walking my 85 pound German Shepherd the other day and she was pulling on the leash like a team of mules.  I said to her, "If you'd only listen to me, then you wouldn't have to be on this leash and could have so much more freedom."  In that very instant, the Spirit spoke to me and said, "that applies to you as well"!  Freedom comes from abiding by just laws.

Not all laws of men are just, but the laws of God (which are simply eternal truths He willing lives by) are perfectly just - and when we learn to live by them, we will be perfectly free.  I think that's really the point of everything we are trying to do.

Our Father, an exalted, glorified being, has mastered these eternal truths and therefore lives in a state of freedom and power beyond our imagination.  He wants to teach these truths to us and created the world as our laboratory so we can begin to apply the truths we learn.

Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we gain the power to rise above our mortal failings and actually live the eternal truths which will bring us to the state where we too can live in perfect harmony with eternal law.  And when we do, the truth will set us free - free to expand and create just as our Father does.

And Now for the Rest of the Story....

Like Paul Harvey used to say, "And now for the rest of the story..."



First of all, I wasn't involved in any of this.  Unfortunately it was my day off and I didn't even know it was happening - but two of my friends and brothers-in-arms were directly involved.  I want to share what they told me.  They are both active LDS men.  I'll just share some of the details they shared with me and let you ponder on the "little" things that can make a big difference.

These types of days start out like any other.  You're just out there doing the same thing you do day in and day out.  My friend was running radar and everyone was obeying the speed limit.  He was pulled off the freeway on an exit ramp so his radar could pick up cars coming around the bend behind him, but he was not in position to see license plates as cars passed by.

He had been there "for awhile and had a feeling that it was time to move somewhere else" so he pulled onto the freeway not knowing exactly where to go - but just decided it was time to go find something else to do.

Moments later a car, traveling the same direction, passed beside him - not speeding or doing anything unusual.  Nothing about the car stood out to him - but he had a feeling that he should run the license plate through his computer.  He ran the plate and it came back as uninsured.  He flipped on his red and blue lights and pulled the car over.

Earlier in the day, another good friend of mine left his home to go visit his wife for lunch.  He was off duty and as he went out the door he had the feeling "you need to take a bigger gun".  We are always armed - even when off duty.  He normally carries a very small, highly concealable handgun when off duty.  He told me that he just turned around, went back in the house and swapped the small handgun for a larger, much more powerful handgun, and then went on to see his wife for lunch.  We are allowed to drive our patrol vehicles on personal errands as long as we're in our county and have the police radio turned on so we can respond to any emergency situations.

Back out on the highway, my first friend has went up to the car.  A man was driving and a woman was sitting in the front passenger seat.  The man seemed friendly enough, but the woman just stared straight ahead.  My friend got the drivers license from the man and went back to his car.  Upon running the drivers license, he saw the man was wanted for crimes of assaulting a person and causing substantial injury.  He called for backup.

My other friend was now on his way home from lunch with his wife and heard the call for backup.  He was close by and responded.  The two of them approached the car and told the driver to get out of the car.  He refused.  They ordered him out of the car and he refused.  One of them approached the passenger door.  The woman unlocked the door and tried to open it and then the driver put the car in gear and sped off - with the woman still inside.

They chased him at high speed - over 120mph - and after he ran a number of cars off the road they decided to stop the pursuit for public safety reasons.  The neighboring county had been alerted and they were waiting for them.

The driver of the car had kidnapped the female passenger at gun point.  If my friend had not listened to the "feeling" of running that license plate, he never would have pulled the car over - and the man would have most likely gotten away with the kidnapped woman.  The kidnapping had not yet been reported.

My other friend, fortunately, did not need the bigger gun, but I believe this was a warning to be prepared for what was coming.  They also had a feeling to stop the pursuit.  We will never know what would have happened, but had they continued pursuing it would have likely turned into a hostage situation and/or people being killed.  As it did turn out, the driver saw he was no longer being pursued and got off the freeway in a small country town.  When they never made it to the roadblock, the neighboring county units knew they had stopped somewhere and began searching for them and the rest is history.  Nobody was killed so it was a good day!

Experiences like this are what this blog is about.  It was a series of "feelings" - that they both followed - that led to a positive outcome.  Now don't misconstrue this as meaning that when people get shot and/or killed that it was because officers were not listening to the promptings and feelings.  That's not what I'm saying at all.  Sometimes that is the only option... but on this day it didn't end that way - and we are all happy for that.  But on this day, it all ended well because of men who listened to their feelings - AND the amazing brotherhood (I include male and female officers in that term) that came together on, very short notice, to solve this situation.  It's an honor to know and work with people like this.

Commandments Keep Us on the Road Home

A couple years ago a cable barrier was erected in the median between the eastbound and westbound freeway lanes in our county.  As cops, we were not too happy with it because it prevents us from crossing the median to turn around and go the other direction when we receive a call for service or need to chase down a speeder.  There are emergency turn-around spots about every 3-5 miles that we can use, but having no cable barrier was much more convenient for us.

Within a week of its installation I saw it save the lives a father and his two sons.  They were traveling eastbound when the driver of a westbound semi-truck fell asleep and crossed the median.  The semi hit the cable barrier, continued through the median into the eastbound lane and then - like a giant rubber band, the cable barrier yanked the semi back into the westbound side of the freeway.  The dad told me that if the barrier hadn't been there, the semi would have hit him and his sons head-on.

A few weeks ago a very elderly woman decided to go for a drive.  As you can see from the picture above, it was a beautiful day in the mountains.  She was traveling along, looked down to adjust her heater and swerved into the cable barrier.  She took out about 10 posts, ripped off the front, left side of her car, and blew out one of her tires.  She continued to drive for 6 miles and finally stopped when two of us chased her down.

When we got her stopped, I asked her what happened and she told me that she had hit something in the road but didn't know what it was!  Once again, the cable barrier had accomplished its purpose.  It had prevented her from crossing into oncoming traffic and causing a terrible accident.  Her car was banged up and needed to be towed, but she - and everyone else out there that day - had survived.

After talking to her I thought of how the commandments of our Heavenly Father are much like the cable barrier.  The commandments are designed to keep us on the roadway.  At times we hit them at high speed and get banged up a bit.  We experience pain and suffering from bouncing against the commandments, but they keep us from being completely destroyed.  Through the atonement of Jesus Christ, we can be repaired and continue on our journey.  God knows all of the dangers we face - and He is primarily concerned with dangers which will cause our eternal destruction.  His commandments, while not always convenient, will keep us on the road and lead us safely home.  We can fall asleep or lose focus on what we are doing and drift off the roadway, but the commandments will bounce us back where we need to be.