Last night was the annual candlelight vigil at the National Law Enforcement Officer's Memorial in Washington D.C. I try to go every couple of years, but due to some work conflicts and my own bad planning, I couldn't make it this year.
http://www.nleomf.org/media/press/CV_May307.htm
As part of my daily news fix, I scoured the major online news sites looking for mentions of the vigil. I checked the main pages and their respective U.S./National news sub-pages, and was, unsurprisingly, disappointed.
Washington Times (my favorite national daily) - nothing
CNN - nothing, although they joyfully clinged to a two-day-old screed on LAPD's "warrior culture"
New York Times - nothing
Richmond Times (largest non-DC paper in Virginia) - nothing either
FoxNews - nada
According to the NLEOMF, 145 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty during 2006. Their names, along with the names of officers killed in past years but for whatever reason forgotten to the ages until recently, were added to the memorial over the past week. As the roll of honor approaches 18,000, I reflect on some of the men who are more than just names to me. In addition to http://www.nleomf.org/ , the Officer Down Memorial Page, http://www.odmp.org/ is a highly useful and instructional resource for learning about these heroes.
http://www.nleomf.org/media/press/CV_May307.htm
As part of my daily news fix, I scoured the major online news sites looking for mentions of the vigil. I checked the main pages and their respective U.S./National news sub-pages, and was, unsurprisingly, disappointed.
Washington Times (my favorite national daily) - nothing
CNN - nothing, although they joyfully clinged to a two-day-old screed on LAPD's "warrior culture"
New York Times - nothing
Richmond Times (largest non-DC paper in Virginia) - nothing either
FoxNews - nada
According to the NLEOMF, 145 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty during 2006. Their names, along with the names of officers killed in past years but for whatever reason forgotten to the ages until recently, were added to the memorial over the past week. As the roll of honor approaches 18,000, I reflect on some of the men who are more than just names to me. In addition to http://www.nleomf.org/ , the Officer Down Memorial Page, http://www.odmp.org/ is a highly useful and instructional resource for learning about these heroes.
I thought about Officer Scott Hylton of the Christiansburg Police Department. I met Scott in passing a few months before he was murdered by a shoplifting suspect in a cold parking lot May 9th, 2003. Tall, friendly, polite....time has blurred my memory of him, the little interaction we had, lost to the ages. I wrote the following the day after I attended his funeral.
I went to Scott Hylton's funeral yesterday.
I counted the patches and car markings of at least thirty departments from four states. Tiny departments like Narrows and large organizations like Virginia Beach and Fairfax County all sent officers. With traffic neatly directed by local firefighters and Virginia State Troopers, slowly they converged on the small church, diffidently socializing, recognizing old friends but unable to let go of the reason for their presence. I was no different. I looked for familiar faces, glanced curiously at shoulder patches, then recoiled, feeling slightly ashamed of turning a somber occasion into a sight seeing tour. Soldiers from Officer Hylton's Army National Guard Unit of the 29th Infantry walked by, no doubt feeling the same mix of grief and confusion as the rest of us. No matter the color of the uniform, we were drawn here to say goodbye to a man many of us had never met but with whom we shared a deep but unspoken bond.
With the church filled to capacity with friends and family, many of us sat outside and watched a video feed on a large television propped outside. We listened to the minister and friends remark on the life of a man driven to do what was right, then cut short in a moment of murderous madness. I shifted slightly in my chair, noting from the markings that it belonged to the same Radford University where Officer Hylton had worked during the previous decade, and remembered the words from the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington D.C. "It's not how these officers died that made them heroes, it's how they lived." The more I heard about him, I realized that while the author of that quote couldn't have known Scott Hylton, those words fit him to the letter.
As a bagpiper played in the distance, officers and soldiers lined the short walk from the chapel to the gravesite. The lonely notes bounced across the windy Floyd County hillside, like plaintive bells, calling a final roll call for someone unable to answer. We formed a corridor, several ranks deep, of blue, green, gray, and countless other fabrics and stood rigidly, swaying slightly in the wind as family, close friends and CPD officers made the lonely walk towards Officer Hylton's final rest. I watched silently as his sons walked by and couldn't even begin to imagine what thoughts passed through their heads. I made eye contact briefly with an old friend, with whom I shared many frantic nights on the old midnight shift my department, and thought he looked somehow much older than when I last saw him. Another officer, with whom I served for several years in the Marines, walked firmly up the path, eyes fixated on something far off in the distance, but keeping the same even pace I had seen on muddy Quantico trails.
I listened through the wind as flags popped and people spoke, glancing at other officers and swallowing hard. Birds chirped in the background, blissfully celebrating a sunny spring day as we mourned. A detail of soldiers fired three rifle volleys skyward, the rifles barking a final goodbye to a man who had devoted so much time to serving his country. The wind whistled past my face as I reached up to brush away a tear, and saw many of the guests, some of the hardest and most accomplished lawmen in the area, doing the same. A lone bugler sounded "Taps" in the distance, and I followed the notes into the distance as they faded. "All is well, safely rest, God is nigh…" the tune says at the end of verse 1. "Safely rest" indeed, I thought to myself. Rest in Peace, Scott Hylton.
I counted the patches and car markings of at least thirty departments from four states. Tiny departments like Narrows and large organizations like Virginia Beach and Fairfax County all sent officers. With traffic neatly directed by local firefighters and Virginia State Troopers, slowly they converged on the small church, diffidently socializing, recognizing old friends but unable to let go of the reason for their presence. I was no different. I looked for familiar faces, glanced curiously at shoulder patches, then recoiled, feeling slightly ashamed of turning a somber occasion into a sight seeing tour. Soldiers from Officer Hylton's Army National Guard Unit of the 29th Infantry walked by, no doubt feeling the same mix of grief and confusion as the rest of us. No matter the color of the uniform, we were drawn here to say goodbye to a man many of us had never met but with whom we shared a deep but unspoken bond.
With the church filled to capacity with friends and family, many of us sat outside and watched a video feed on a large television propped outside. We listened to the minister and friends remark on the life of a man driven to do what was right, then cut short in a moment of murderous madness. I shifted slightly in my chair, noting from the markings that it belonged to the same Radford University where Officer Hylton had worked during the previous decade, and remembered the words from the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington D.C. "It's not how these officers died that made them heroes, it's how they lived." The more I heard about him, I realized that while the author of that quote couldn't have known Scott Hylton, those words fit him to the letter.
As a bagpiper played in the distance, officers and soldiers lined the short walk from the chapel to the gravesite. The lonely notes bounced across the windy Floyd County hillside, like plaintive bells, calling a final roll call for someone unable to answer. We formed a corridor, several ranks deep, of blue, green, gray, and countless other fabrics and stood rigidly, swaying slightly in the wind as family, close friends and CPD officers made the lonely walk towards Officer Hylton's final rest. I watched silently as his sons walked by and couldn't even begin to imagine what thoughts passed through their heads. I made eye contact briefly with an old friend, with whom I shared many frantic nights on the old midnight shift my department, and thought he looked somehow much older than when I last saw him. Another officer, with whom I served for several years in the Marines, walked firmly up the path, eyes fixated on something far off in the distance, but keeping the same even pace I had seen on muddy Quantico trails.
I listened through the wind as flags popped and people spoke, glancing at other officers and swallowing hard. Birds chirped in the background, blissfully celebrating a sunny spring day as we mourned. A detail of soldiers fired three rifle volleys skyward, the rifles barking a final goodbye to a man who had devoted so much time to serving his country. The wind whistled past my face as I reached up to brush away a tear, and saw many of the guests, some of the hardest and most accomplished lawmen in the area, doing the same. A lone bugler sounded "Taps" in the distance, and I followed the notes into the distance as they faded. "All is well, safely rest, God is nigh…" the tune says at the end of verse 1. "Safely rest" indeed, I thought to myself. Rest in Peace, Scott Hylton.
They say that time helps ease the pain brought on by loss. From reading some of the reflections left on the website, I have to wonder about the accuracy of that statement.
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