My first night on guard duty in a combat zone was met with a typical Vietnam welcome: a bullet whizzing by my head. In an instant I dropped to my knees and surveyed the area before my guard tower. My heart was beating loud and fast; and every sense was heightened in intensity. If I had seen a single bush move, I would have instantly turned my M60 in that direction and sprayed it with gunfire. But all was calm before me. A month later, I found myself actually facing moving bushes, but they were not swaying in a soft breeze. They were slowly moving in my direction, likely sappers leading the way for an all-out attack. Since I was alone, my position was in danger of being over-powered. Fortunately, I was able to call for support. A gunship rescued me that night. But even with the gunship’s hell fire raining down on the enemy, I felt compelled to empty my magazine into the fray. In neither situation did I act on my best moral assessment of the situation. I did what any soldier was trained to do AND what nature’s instinct compelled.

When I wrote “A Culpable Innocence,” I tried to capture what my fellow Vietnam veterans experienced in that war. Their experience is not different in kind from what police experience in like situations, though on a different scale. When an officer is faced with a hostile environment—real or potential—he or she will instantly feel a heightened intensity and propensity to act. What will determine the course of his or her action? My experience—and the experience of any soldier who has faced combat—would predict a response dependent upon an instantaneous state of mind and prior training. Adrenaline is usually the most significant influence on that state of mind and it tends to track with the extent of the perceived threat. But it does not have to be incited by a gun pointed in your direction. It might be just a walk in a neighborhood where past crimes have been committed. In this case, the “moving bush” is in the head. An officer who feels threatened can be just as ready to use deadly force as an officer approaching an armed suspect. In the latter case, the risk of an escalation is heightened. If deadly force is triggered and other officers are present, they may be drawn into the fray without aforethought. This type of escalation can act like an adrenaline avalanche where the combined response of multiple officers far exceeds the threat, mirroring the effect of a combat operation more than a civil police action. Although officers are not soldiers in combat, they are subject to the same visceral reactions.

So what can we do about the situation of officers using deadly force inappropriately? Many suggestions are being considered. For example, we could provide body cams to our officers. But this solution may not be a very good preventive remedy, since we are most likely dealing with the spontaneous, unpremeditated use of deadly force. (And, frankly, if an officer had premeditated murder on the mind, he or she would simply turn off the camera.) Body cams have their greatest value after-the-fact, enabling investigation and possible punishment. They may not be very effective deterrents. Another course of action might be the use of sanction. We could severely punish officers who use deadly force inappropriately. But would that be a deterrent to any officer caught in the moment of immediate peril, perceived or real? I think not; for that moment demands reaction, not reflection. Also, that reaction may more readily turn violent, if the officer has suffered stress recently in either personal or professional life. When I served in Vietnam, I witnessed more than a few soldiers so traumatized by firefights or shell shocked by night bombardments that they had become walking hair-triggers. The accumulation of high stress experiences or even a single violent incident can take any person to that hair-trigger edge. Perhaps we can learn from the soldier’s experience in combat zones.

One of the remedies currently being discussed and implemented in many parts of the country is what is called “community policing.” I remember the account of an Iraqi veteran who reported no casualties in his unit or in the civilian population where they were imbedded during his tour. He said his unit had daily contact with civilians, not only engaging with them in conversation but working with them in their communities. The Iraqis accepted these soldiers not as an occupied army, but as protectors from the more violent elements of an ongoing civil war. The replacement unit that followed took a different tack, alienating themselves from the civilian community. Their experience was markedly different, engaging in regular combat with insurgents and suffering several casualties. So connecting with communities can be effective. This form of policing needs to be part of police training. In addition, police academies should qualify candidates for acceptance based upon those relational characteristics required for community policing. Since the draft was terminated, the military has strengthened to some degree its admittance criteria. Just as not anybody in the general population can become a good soldier, not any individual who wants to wear a police uniform should. Our police force demands a special type of individual, level-headed and dedicated to public safety. We also need to take better care of our on-duty officers. We do not want traumatized or stressed-out police walking our streets, especially where crime is prevalent. The military, for instance, used to recognize the need to relieve soldiers in combat zones with periodic R & R (rest and recuperation). Any officer who has been engaged in a shoot-out or any stressful situation either on or off the job should be allowed recuperation time, perhaps paid leave or reassignment to some community-involved tasks. We definitely do not want a hair-trigger officer patrolling our streets. And, finally, we need to deal more effectively with the incidence of biased policing. Eliminating preconceptions and bias in the police force is no different than eliminating it in the general population. Naturally, police training should address the issue of racial profiling. Just like everybody else, police need to examine their prejudices and assess the effect on their professional conduct. I have written about this subject matter in a number of blogs (reference “Racial Bias: A Conceit or Merely a Context,” “The More Subtle Relevance of George Zimmerman,” “Telltale Biases,” and “Soulfulness”). Each generation seems to extend the moral boundaries towards greater inclusiveness, regardless of race, gender, sexual preferences, and body types. This spirit of inclusiveness would be helped if police recruitment better represented the community served. But, regardless, police officers will still reflect the cultural biases of the general population.

Throughout this nation there are millions of daily interactions between police and civilians. I suspect nearly all of those interactions service public safety. As much as we decry the misuse of excessive police force, we need to recognize what service these men and women provide to the general public. And we need to assure their care and training is up to the dangerous task we set for them. Since we seem unable to muster the majority needed to disarm criminals, we arm and train police to use deadly force when they or others are threatened with the same. In a sense, we have put them in the same sort of danger as our military. But they are the servants of public order and peace, not soldiers on a beat.