Sgt's Story

There was a palpable sense that we had just heard something special.

No one spoke, really. No one asked any questions – certainly not about the real topic we had just heard discussed. Our questions would have seemed piteous, petty, pathetic even in comparison to what was just said with such quiet power.

We felt lucky to have heard it.

Sgt. Beaulieu had just finished a two and a half hour, somewhat impromptu talk and the subject was his experience as an assistant SWAT team leader on a fateful April day in 1999.

He was one of the first to enter the Library of the high school, the first to see its horrors.

I was struck, we were all struck by the reality, the shear and unapologetic reality of the story. This is it. This is life. This is part of the job, this might one day be part of your life, he was saying.

There’s a lot of life experience centered, concentrated in this department (in any law enforcement department, I’d venture) – like some kind of dense, gravitational mass – a mass that other objects gravitate toward (even revolve around). Gigantic, blindingly bright stars that attract other bodies toward them, and at the same time radiate with their light and with their intensity.

Experience. Knowledge. Sophistication. As a recruit, as a student, I am repeatedly struck by the people, by my superiors, so willing to open up and impart this wisdom and this knowledge and this understanding to me.

It’s incredible.

Thanks Sarge.