1st Edition
What They Didn't Teach at the Academy Topics, Stories, and Reality beyond the Classroom
While professional courses and how-to manuals can prepare us for expected events that will occur in the course of our careers, there remains an untapped reservoir of life experience that cannot be prepared for in training or study. These events and experiences give texture and meaning to our work and shape our character. Filled with stories of courage and inspiration, What They Didn't Teach at the Academy: Topics, Stories, and Reality Beyond the Classroom looks at experiences encountered by public safety and military professionals that were not necessarily encompassed in their training or realistically portrayed in simulations.
Topics raised in the stories include:
- A doctor confronting her own debilitating and potentially fatal disease
- Cultural awareness and safe travel
- Suicide among law enforcement officers
- Departmental harassment of a new police recruit
- Coping with an addicted spouse
- Posttraumatic stress disorder
- Life as a K-9 handler
- The effect of work obligations on marriage and family
- Conflicts between moral beliefs and professional principles
- Debunking myths about Islam
The book also examines coping mechanisms for stress and discusses the importance of observation, perception, and communication in facing challenging encounters. Through this collection of vignettes and philosophies, the contributors demonstrate that the lessons of life are not taught in colleges, universities, and academies but through hard experience.
Hard Knock Lessons
The Final Educational Degree: Life; Bernadette A. Kutcher
Watch Out for Bees: They Can Ruin Your Career; J. Branch Walton
Torch of Intuition, Flames of Preparation: Safely Lighting Your Way through Traveling’s Uncertainties; Katherine June
Don’t Outrun Your Headlights … or Your Guardian Angel; Dale L. June
Suicide; Azadeh Afsahi
Suicide by Cop: Victims from Both Sides of the Badge; Rebecca Stincelli with Dale L. June
Time and Attitude; Dale L. June
(Not) One of the Guys; Tiffany Harrison
It’s Not about the Belt: Martial Arts Spirituality—Body, Mind, and Spirit; Dale L. June
Life Lesson Experience; Keila Alvarenga
Tough Love: The Overpowering Addiction of Cocaine; Cheyanne Hill
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); Dale L. June
General Lessons of Life
Combat Psychology and Sports Performance; Craig Weller
Observation, Listening, and Perception; Dale L. June
The Importance of Effective Communication; Jared Axen
My Life or His: Shoot or Don’t Shoot; Dale L. June
Cultural Pluralism; Jennifer J. Schneider
Life Is Situational; Dale L. June
K-9 Partners: True Stories; Jason Johnson and Others
Conflict of Time, Priorities, and Family; Ruth Stortroen
Marriage and Conflict; Yesenia Vega
The Need for Ethics; Dale L. June
Women Who Bully; Veda Hall
Humorous Lessons
The Fifty-Miles-an-Hour Parking Ticket; Dale L. June
Lessons in Life: The Mom Keaner Story; Richard Repasky
I Knew You Were Federal Agents; Dale L. June
April Fools, Motherf___ers; Dale L. June
Mentis Incompitus (Tripped up by Bad Planning); Dale L. June
Patriotic and Immigration Lessons
Interpreting the Meaning of the Gettysburg Address; Nicole Tye
The Golden Door; Carly Jennings
The New Colossus: What It Means to Me; Stefanie Winkler
Ideology and Philosophy
Don’t Be Afraid; Listen to and Use Your Intuition; Janine Francovich
What I Should Know about Islam: A Basic Primer; Mohamad Khatabloo
Ideology and Philosophy; Dale L. June
A Look to the Future through Today’s Prism; Dale L. June
Biography
Dale L. June
