Our Change is here-A Career Well Spent

December 1973 holding our 1 year old son

Back in 1972 Hubby joined the United States Air Force and became a Police Officer. He joined during the Vietnam War, when "joining" was not popular. He joined because he felt it important for our country to have people who wanted to help our nation and the freedoms that all it's citizens enjoy. He joined because deep down inside, he had a heart to serve.

He served for 8 years in the Air Force. During that time we had 2 children and moved every 18 months (either to off base housing, then to on base housing, then to a new base to start it all over again). We got to travel to New Mexico (where our son was born), to England, where our daughter was born. Hubby went to Spain and Germany (called TDY - Temporary Duty Yonder). Finally ending our 8 years in Louisiana (where no one born).

Christmas of 1977

When we left the Air Force we returned to our home state and Hubby became a Police Officer for the town of Litchfield NH. There he spent 30 years serving the town and its residents. He has worked all the  shifts, sometimes staying on the same shift for months or years, other times rotating shifts every few weeks. Believe me, it's a whole lot hard rotating shifts every few weeks.  He served during power outages, blizzards, floods and heat waves. He served during all the holidays, weekends, and when others were either on vacation or sick. He served a lot of double shifts, and working all night only to go the court during the day.

Graduation Day from the Police Academy

He has been the firearms instructor, teaching others to shoot well and safely. He has been the town prosecutor spending his days in court working as a "lawyer" because the town was too small to have one. He has been the OIC (Officer In Charge) when the either the town didn't have a police chief or the chief was away on vacation.

He has had the opportunity to follow an arrest case from arrest to final court decision. He has been "First on the scene" and has seen some pretty terrible things. He has arrested people who hated him, blamed him for the break up of their marriage, vowed revenge and called him all sorts of foul names. Then he has returned to the homes of these people only this time to defend them from someone else without question or any form of malice on his part. He has done this because he has a heart to serve.

July 30th was his last shift. He is now retired from Police work. It was a bitter sweet week to say the least. Saying good by to the court friends he has made over the years, the fellow police officers, and the town folk themselves was hard. Handing in his gun, belt, badges, radio and other police equipment is hard. Locking up his locker at work for the last time and turning in all the keys, is hard. We knew this day was coming, we have been talking about this time for years and yet this week was hard.

His last week on the Job.

He still has the heart to serve and we wait for the Lord to tell us how he can fill his desire to help.

I am so proud of him and I am so glad to have you back. As a police officer's wife I can not tell you how many nights I slept alone, how many meals I ate alone, how many holidays, birthdays party's I given alone and gone to alone.  I needed to change when I did house work, shopped or did laundry because it always was done around his ever changing work schedule. Days off changed and we often didn't have the same days off. We could go almost a full week and only see each other for 5 minutes a day. I am very glad to have him back.

Welcome home love, our next chapter begins now!