Becoming the Impossible

Kindness kills. Blind trust kills. Being all that society asks its citizens to be kills. My greatest mistakes were rooted in kindness and blind trust.  It was when I ignored everything else. I ignored my “gut.” The “gut” based on biology and instincts that were finely tuned through training and experience. 

Who I am, what I do, what I think, and how I act is based upon what I wear. It is based upon what I represent. It is based upon who others are, what they think, and how they act. It is based upon what they think I represent. 

Every time we dawn that uniform, we must change. We must remember that kindness kills. That blind trust kills. That our “gut” is nothing but our mind and body reacting to our training and experiences.  That who we are, what we think, and how we act must change because who they are, what they think, and how they act changes. 

We must not be heartless. We must not be pessimistic, but we must strike some impossible balance.  We must both trust and distrust with and without verification. We must be kind and empathetic while at times being rude and heartless. We must be all the things society asks its citizens not to be to restore the order it so desperately seeks though what it asks its citizens to be. We must ignore personal space. We must inquire and ask the things society asks others not to. We must use violence. We must distrust. We must be everything and nothing. 

When I don that badge, I must be ready to shift from one extreme to another. I must be ready to take a life to save a life. I must be prepared to sacrifice all that I love for someone I know not enough to care about.  I must be prepared to love being hated. I must be prepared to show kindness in order to save. I must be prepared to be heartless so I might not sacrifice. I must understand that my greatest successes and failures were rooted in kindness. 

When I dawn that badge, I must become everything and nothing from one moment to the next. I must become an impossible balance. I must become the impossible. 

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This first appeared din The Havok Journal on December 16, 2024.

Jake Smith is a law enforcement officer and former Army Ranger with four deployments to Afghanistan.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.