Trooper Down! by Marie Bartlett Read Free Book Online Page A

to handle it alone. I kept telling myself I was doing fine. But I really wasn’t.”
    The turning point came when a new supervising officer, First Sergeant Cliff Walker, arrived at Morganton. Walker, who had suffered through a serious auto accident while on patrol, recognized the trauma that Louis was going through. He strongly suggested—even demanded—that the trooper seek professional counseling.
    Louis’s wife, Scottie, was urging him to do the same.
    â€œAt first I refused,” he said. “When I finally gave in and went, I was able to admit to myself that I needed some help. I also realized the importance of getting it out into the open so I could learn how to deal with it.”
    Before the shooting, he said, the highway patrol was his first and most important love.
    â€œI
still 
love the patrol. But I’ve rearranged my priorities so that my family and my faith are now the most important part of my life.”
    He also has a zealous desire to promote safety, and often appears by request at the highway patrol’s school to share his experience with troopers who attend the patrol’s Officer Survival Training courses.
    â€œSometimes, especially at night,” he tells them, “I have to literally force myself to get out of the patrol car and walk up to the driver. When I do, I can see that hand coming around, the gun pointed toward me. But you know, I still feel like I’m rendering a valuable service out there. When I investigate a wreck, or assist a stranded motorist, for instance, I’m doing something to help people. And I find that very satisfying. I just wish the public realized we’re not out there to ‘get’ anyone. Sure, there are a few bad apples in our organization—what company doesn’t have them? But the majority of us are people who have an inward desire to serve the public, and that’s all we’re trying to do. Yeah, I still like being a trooper. In fact, I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be.”

2. Cadets
    â€œWe’re gonna eat with you, sleep with you, and sweat with you, twenty-four hours a day. But you’re gonna have to do the work when I tell you to do it. This is
not
the YMCA. And if you don’t like it here, I don’t give a shit.” —
Instructor to new cadets, North Carolina Highway Patrol Training School
    Most troopers share Louis Rector’s feeling that, no matter how dangerous or frustrating the job can be, there is no career they would rather pursue. Such collective dedication to the highway patrol bonds them to each other and contributes to the sense of brotherhood that runs like a thread throughout the organization.
    â€œIf I need help in a dangerous situation, I can call any fellow officer in that black-and-silver patrol car, whether I know him by name or not,” said one trooper. “And he knows he can count on me for the same.”
    The bonding process begins in cadet school when fifty or more carefully selected individuals come together and gradually merge into one strong, cohesive unit.
    Enlistment procedures operate basically the same for state police agencies around the country, but North Carolina’s standards are considered somewhat more stringent than most. The highway patrol in North Carolina accepts between one and two thousand applications each year from men and women who want to become state troopers. Out of those applicants, about two hundred are chosen for a ten-hour screening, led by a high-ranking officer on the patrol’s administrative staff.
    â€œFirst, I answer questions about the highway patrol, from what it’s like chasing cars to basic requirements and benefits,” said Lieutenant Billy Day, director of administrative services. “Then I tell them if they’re just looking for a job, they won’t make it in thehighway patrol because there’s something special they’ve got to have.
    â€œI explain