The cost to purchase and maintain deputy sheriff’s uniform items has risen with all other costs over the years. Sheriff’s departments understand this fact and provide their staff with a uniform maintenance allowance. My experience with this benefit is that it is provi…ded to every eligible employee at a predetermined date and that it will increase as the cost of living increases, usually when a new contract is signed. However that is not the case in the Bureau County Sheriff’s Department. The current uniform maintenance allowance is $400.00 per year, unless the employee is an investigator, then the amount is $100.00 per month ($1,200 per year). The amount for employees other that investigators has not increased in at least 10 years and the amount is not contained in the contract, but left to the whim of the Office of the Sheriff. A uniformed employee who needs to access this fund must “beg” permission to get any funding and then can only acquire items at a certain location. However, before any funding is provided to the employee, the employee must check the returned clothing rack in the basement of the jail. If there is a similiar item on that rack, they must take it whether it is their size or not. Many employees purchase common work boots rather than a specialized law enforcement type boot as the Department will not provide funds for the entire cost of the boots. Certain items of protective equipment, such as a vest, have to be fitted to the individual. However, there is currently a deputy who is wearing a previously owned vest that was not fitted to them. This is unacceptable! Looking at the employees of the Bureau County Sheriff’s Department, I see all adults and no one who could not be trusted with the entire uniform maintenance allowance. Unless, again, the employee is an investigator and then the allowance is provided on a monthly basis. This benefit is provided not only for the purchase of replacement items, but for the maintenance (dry cleaning and laundry) of uniforms of the deputies. The correction of this benefit as it applies to the uniformed employees will be a prioity when I am elected as the Bureau County Sheriff.

Growing up, I had the fortunate opportunity of being exceptionally close with my paternal grandfather. I also had the joy of discovering, as the years went by and I grew older, that the closeness we shared grew exponentially. My grandfather was a man who lived his life. That is to say, he was not confined to an office, or forced to experience the world through books or cinema. Rather, he was out in the world, experiencing life for himself. As I grew older, and my life experiences – and the capacity to understand those experiences – grew as well, it often became as though I were constantly meeting my grandfather for the first time, over and over again. I grew to understand him more, and I grew to understand the world more as a consequence.
My grandfather was born in Liverpool, Illinois. He left school after the eighth grade. He spent the entirety of his working life as a coal miner for Peabody, running a drag line. The only years he was absent from the strip mine were those years he spent chasing the Third Reich from the Normandy coast to its deathbed in Berlin. Having said all this, I can honestly tell you that my grandfather was one of the smartest men I had the extreme pleasure of knowing.
One of the innumerable joys of spending appreciable amounts of time with ones grandparents is that it affords you the unique opportunity to learn about your own parents. Some of this comes from direct stories, to be certain. From stories of my father I learned of how he was a dedicated student, how he worked at a filling station In Havana during his teen years. I heard of how he was devoted to his family. I heard of his years as a Boy Scout, and how even during those youthful years he was dedicated to duty and service. I heard stories from his mother, often told through wet eyes, of how he would not wait to be drafted for Vietnam service, but rather enlisted in the Marines. I can still see the set in his father’s jaw, some 35 years later, when he recalled that decision.
The real lessons came, however, when I paid more attention to what my grandfather said and did in his own life. It was his value set, his wisdom, his example that would tell me the most about my father. My grandfather’s values are what created the character of my own father, and it was through observing these that I learned the most about who my father is.
Two of my grandfather’s sayings have stuck with me more than others. The first is “If you do it right the first time, you won’t have to do it right the second time.” When I was young, I used to think that this was some type of non sequiter designed only to keep me busy doing yard work or some such labor. But as I grew older, I was able to see the simple truth behind it. It was years later, as an undergrad student at Western Illinois, that this saying would strike me again. In a rather reflective bit of classroom philosophical debate, the idea was advanced that, just because man cannot be a perfect being, this does not alleviate the moral responsibility to strive for perfection. The entirety of the classroom ceased to exist for one moment and I heard my grandfather say “If you do it right the first time, you won’t have to do it right the second time.” I could simultaneously see all the times my father had labored so much in his own life to make things right. I could see my father working tirelessly to ensure that things weren’t just ‘good enough’, but that they were ‘as good as they could possibly be.’
The second saying is “You can’t push a string.” As a ten year old, I thought that this was the most ridiculous thing anyone had ever said to me. Of course you can’t push a string. This statement, of course, refers to individual leadership. Now, this is something I have grown to learn a bit about. Leadership has been an area of continued interest for me, so much so that the material that I have written about it is taught at the Chicago Police Department to recruits, Field Training Officers, and new sergeants. This personal and professional interest I directly attribute to my father, and in fact these very documents were written with his consultation. This simple statement from my grandfather, however, has enabled me to understand from where my father learned his leadership principles. That simple statement, my father internalized and made part of himself, before polishing and incorporating it into his own career.
Here is the one thing I have learned about my father by spending time with his father: My father’s commitment to duty and service, and his dedication to leadership, are not things that he learned in his professional life. They are not the byproduct of a training seminar. They are not something he has cultivated for the sake of a political campaign. They are who he is, who he was born and raised to be. They are a part of his character.

This was written by my son, John, and I can not begin to describe the emotions I felt when I opened it.

When the Lord was creating cops, he was into his sixth day of overtime when an angel appeared and said, “You’re doing a lot of fiddling around on this one.”

And the Lord said, “Have you read the spec on this order? A peace officer has to be able to run five miles through alleys in the dark, scale walls, enter homes the health inspector wouldn’t touch, and not wrinkle his uniform.”

“He has to be able to sit in an undercover car all day on a stakeout, cover a homicide scene that night, canvass the neighborhood for witnesses, and testify in court the next day.”

“He has to be in top physical condition at all times, running on black coffee and half-eaten meals.
And he has to have six pairs of hands.”

The angel shook her head slowly and said, “Six pairs of hands… no way.”

“It’s not the hands that are causing me problems,” said the Lord, “it’s the three pairs of eyes an officer has to have.”

“That’s on the standard model?” asked the angel.

The Lord nodded. One pair that sees through a bulge in a pocket before he asks, “May I see what’s in there, sir?” (When he already knows and wishes he’d taken that accounting job.) “Another pair here in the side of his head for his partners’ safety. And another pair of eyes here in front that can look reassuringly at a bleeding victim and say, ‘You’ll be all right ma’am,’ when he knows it isn’t so.”

“Lord,” said the angel, touching his sleeve, “rest and work on this tomorrow.”

“I can’t,” said the Lord, “I already have a model that can talk a 250 pound drunk into a patrol car without incident and feed a family of five on a civil service paycheck.”

The angel circled the model of the peace officer very slowly, “Can it think?” she asked.

“You bet,” said the Lord. “It can tell you the elements of a hundred crimes; recite Miranda warnings in its sleep; detain, investigate, search, and arrest a gang member on the street in less time than it takes five learned judges to debate the legality of the stop … and still it keeps its sense of humor. This officer also has phenomenal personal control. He can deal with crime scenes painted in hell, coax a confession from a child abuser, comfort a murder victim’s family, and then read in the daily paper how law enforcement isn’t sensitive to the rights of criminal suspects.”

Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek of the peace officer. “There’s a leak,” she pronounced. “I told you that you were trying to put too much into this model.”

“That’s not a leak,” said the Lord, “it’s a tear.”

“What’s the tear for?” asked the angel.

“It’s for bottled-up emotions, for fallen comrades, for commitment to that funny piece of cloth called the American flag, for justice.”

“You’re a genius,” said the angel.

The Lord looked somber. “I didn’t put it there,” he said.

Author Unknown