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6,387 Posts
Doing a Combat Tour in the Marines as a Tunnel Rat I saw plenty of this stuff and worse, then did 31 years on the Chicago Police Department, last 23 years a Homicide/Robbery Detective and seen some shitt there even worse, if you can believe that!
You have to acquire a knack to compartmentalize the horror and obtain a dark sense of humor so you don't let this stuff eat your soul away.
If you civilians could see how the Police crack jokes while standing over a Homicide victim you would be appalled, they do that to mentally shield themselves from taking the horror personally, or else they would end up swallowing their own pistol somewhere down the line! I dealt with mayhem and death for 35 years of my life, nothing shocks or frightens me very much, almost nothing.
The only stuff that bothered me was the stench of a rotting body, (a fingertip of Vicks, in each nostril, cured that) and dead kids, neither one of those could I stop being affected by.
You have to acquire a knack to compartmentalize the horror and obtain a dark sense of humor so you don't let this stuff eat your soul away.
If you civilians could see how the Police crack jokes while standing over a Homicide victim you would be appalled, they do that to mentally shield themselves from taking the horror personally, or else they would end up swallowing their own pistol somewhere down the line! I dealt with mayhem and death for 35 years of my life, nothing shocks or frightens me very much, almost nothing.
The only stuff that bothered me was the stench of a rotting body, (a fingertip of Vicks, in each nostril, cured that) and dead kids, neither one of those could I stop being affected by.
