America's Bravest of the Brave

Here's one of my recent posts from AuthorNation.com

(Infinity Publishing created AuthorNation.com for people who like to write)

Although my own book is about law enforcement in south Florida during the violent 1970s, I respect and admire all of the brave and dedicated men and women of our military. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been brutal and bloody. But, regardless of a person’s personal opinion concerning these two conflicts, we should still consider the men and women fighting in these wars to be nothing less than true heroes.

We all know the gruesome figures. Thousands of our best have been killed and many more thousands have been wounded. All of these brave individuals of our military volunteered to serve and this includes the many thousands of reservists who have also been called up to active duty. Some of these reservists called up are police officers and I’m sure most police departments around the country have at least one or two officers who are now on active duty. I recently read a tribute to the first New York City (N.Y.P.D.) police officer killed in Iraq. He died back in August of 2005, and even back then N.Y.P.D. had over 270 police officers on active duty with our military. Many police officers from around the country continue to serve.

Captain Martin Steiger, a sergeant with the N.Y.P.D. narcotics division, was activated in January of 2002. Over the past two years Capt. Steiger, who is a member of the Army Reserve’s 800^th Military Police Brigade, has traveled to Afghanistan (Bagram & Kandahar), Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Oman and Kuwait. In each place he has been he has flown the N.Y.P.D. flag which is embroidered with these words, “NYPD Gone but not forgotten, 9-11-01” (23 N.Y.P.D. officers died in the terrorist attacks of September 11^th).

On the web site I created to help promote and market my book I’ve added a new section where I intend to pay tribute to police officers who have been called to active duty and who were then either killed in combat, or seriously wounded. In my opinion these men and woman are definitely “America’s Bravest of the Brave" and I want to honor them.

From the research I have already done I have located the names of approximately a dozen police officers who were called up and then killed while on active duty. I know there are many more and I request that anyone who may know of a deserving officer please forward his/her information to me. Initially, I intend to focus on those officers who have died, but I would also like to hear about those who have been wounded too.

Gary P. Jones, Captain (retired)
Fort Lauderdale Police Department
Author of: Badge 149 – “Shots Fired!”
My book’s web site: www.badge149.com
My e-mail: Jones313@aol.com