Should I?

Should I? Why did I? I broke the rule, why? Actually, I broke multiple rules. Rules I break more often when she is gone. Why? Should I stop? It really is not that much. Others never even have rules. Why should I? Shit, I guess I already decided. Was I really surprised? It is I who made the decisions, who took the actions. I was in a fugue state. Yeah, I mindlessly gathered the ingredients from three different locations in the house, mixed them, and put them all back while in some fugue state. I know what I did.  Stupid fuck. Well, I guess I might as well, it is already made. No need to be wasteful.

What was the point? I already knew it was going to happen. Why the internal dialogue? To make myself feel worse? I already do. Tomorrow even worse still. Why the spiraling dialogue of delusion? Why ask when I already know the answer? 

Why? Why do it? Why did a simple drink in a movie trigger such a response? Why not the other times?  Why THIS time? Why ask questions I already know the answer to? I know why. 

I am haunted by the task that lies ahead. I am haunted by its implications. Its ramifications. I am haunted because so few are. I am haunted by the task that might one day put my life in their hands. I am haunted by the fact that their lives are currently in mine. This is the last stop. After this, there is so little that will be done. There is plenty that could be, but will not. I am the last bastion of hope. I am what lies between success and failure.

If it all goes wrong one day, they will immediately ask, who trained them? Who failed to see it coming?  Who do we blame? 

For the majority, these questions are quickly explained away. “I did not see that when I trained them.”  “They did not learn that from me.” The explanations are endless. But for me, I obsess about what such a question begs. Could I have seen it? Should I have?  Did I? Did I just want to believe I was so good I trained it away? Did hubris blind me of reality?

My word, my name, it means something to me. To bless upon someone my referral and stamp of approval, it means something, if only to me. I cherish it. I dwell upon it. I obsess upon it. I fear the consequences when I am wrong. I fear both the false negative, but especially the false positive. To place upon them my stamp of approval to one day be proven wrong, by some catastrophic failure.  A failure that might have the most profound consequences. I decide if he will become a cop. If I trust him enough to put my life in his hands. If I cannot trust him with mine, I should not trust him with others’. 

Why? Why even ask? I already knew the answer. 

I knew it long before, “Should I?”

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This first appeared in The Havok Journal on November 12, 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.