When I first served as a chaplain for a wounded officer and spouse retreat at a Montana ranch, I heard a term for the first time. Officers were talking about their “alive day”. It was the day they could have died but somehow survived, borrowed from military combat survivors.
For some, it was getting shot, for others a crash. It could be an assault in the cell block or a bar fight. It could be getting slashed with a knife, or intentionally hit by a car. The day may be a sad memory if a colleague did not survive the same event, or if the day of survival was also the end of a career and life as it once was.
Some families celebrate the day, others make note of it, and some avoid thinking about it. KH, the spouse of a wounded officer still fighting for benefits after years of paperwork, says “The first year we had a party. But after that, he didn’t want to recognize it anymore. So from that point going forward we planned something fun like a trip or something to overlap that day.”
BD, the survivor of an intense and close gun battle relates that “Usually, my friends and family recognize as if it were a birthday. No party just recognition texts or calls. Most of the time my wife would plan a trip to get away for both of us. I survived so if it reminds me of surviving one of the worst and tragic days of my life cool!! I survived! Better than posthumously.”
TS, an injured officer says “I know I’m fortunate to be doing much better than the Drs ever thought I would but this day is always so difficult. I don’t sleep well for a few nights surrounding this date (ok, I never really sleep well but it’s worse than usual). On this day I tend to think more about what I’ve lost and how much things have changed.” She asked a support group if the anniversaries get any easier. GB, who retired with PTSD after a shooting answered “Yes they do. I just had my twenty-first and I hardly even thought about it. Be patient with yourself, you’ll get there.” RM answered “Coming up on 3 yr anniversary of my husband’s shooting in Feb. Any day can affect us both, out of the blue. Just when you think you have a handle on it- BAM.”
AG, stabbed and slashed on a domestic violence call makes his Alive Day a time of giving thanks “3 years ago our lives were changed forever. I became a Wounded Warrior on the street. God saw fit to save me and I am here today to serve and worship Him.” SF, whose husband was shot in the back, leaving him confined to a wheelchair, expressed a similar sentiment “Rather than be sad about the day that he got shot, we think it’s important to celebrate his life. God saved him. And that’s a reason to celebrate.” Many severely wounded officers fight back to recover and rejoin their agency as active officers while many simply cannot. They not only have an anniversary date on the calendar, or etched in their memory, they have the nightmares, the crippling disability, the chronic pain, and the medical bills to remind them.
A significant percentage of police officers have been in positions where their lives were at high risk, but don’t count those escapes as an Alive Day. In a weird way merely getting knocked unconscious, shot at but missed, threatened by a person with a knife or gun who didn’t follow through, or struck by a vehicle with just a broken bone can be passed off as just another day at the office. No purple heart, no news coverage, just a pull up your bootstraps and dust yourself off and carry on kind of thing. Contemplating all the times you really could have been left dead or permanently injured is a good officer safety review, but not a sustainable line of thinking, or else no one would get out of bed to put that badge back on. With special respect to those who struggle with life-long pain, PTSD, and disability, for the rest of the officers, every day they get to go home and take off their own shoes is another Alive Day.
