The greatest way to honor the fallen is to never forget their sacrifice and to carry on their legacy with courage and integrity.” Those words are from an unknown author who I want to believe was speaking of the sacrifice of police officers. 

There is a saying, actually a promise, in law enforcement: “Always honored, never forgotten,” but how solid is that promise? Have you ever wondered what would be on your post tomorrow if you bought it today? The hard, cold answer is another blue suit. Yes, the job would give you a nice funeral with all the Shakespearean pride, pomp and circumstance of such an occasion, and even a bronze plaque would eventually make its way to a station house wall. And then, well, life goes on.

Mental health professionals may say that is the way it should be and maybe, rightfully so. Yet, there is still the, “Always honored, never forgotten,” promise. How should departments instill that in its police officers who come to the job years later?

Let’s consider the extraordinary loss suffered by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department on September 11, 2001. Thirty-seven Port Authority
cops were killed in the line of duty that infamous day. The sense of grief, loss, sadness and horror was palpable on all Port Authority cops lasting long in their psyches. No police department in our nation was prepared for such loss. 

Nearly 23 years have elapsed since that horrific day. Today, many of the cops of the 2,200-member department were babies on 9/11, some were not even born. Yes, academy recruits become involved in discussions about the tragedy of September 11, but are they led to embrace the sacrifices and losses their department suffered on September 11, 2001, and the others in its long history? Do they view the memorials in their commands as wall art or do they understand tragedy is a part of their department’s history? Should police departments consider these questions?

Those are tricky questions. We want to honor the fallen while uplifting — not emotionally draining the officers who continue to face violent crime and disorder every day, risking the possibility of a lethal outcome visiting them and their families. This raises another question of whether police departments should consider establishing best practice protocols for line-of-duty deaths regarding officer understanding of a department’s history and their connection to it.

The United States Marine Corps seems to be successful at instilling Corps history in its recruits and Marines. Marines know every significant battle, every hero and the sacrifices of their beloved Corps. They know and embrace their lineage. It is instilled so every Marine passes down their knowledge of that history to their fellow warriors. When they fight, they fight for the Marines on each side of them and for the Marines who preceded them with courage
and sacrifice.

The phrase esprit de corps is defined in the Collins Dictionary as, “a feeling of loyalty and pride that is shared by the members of a group who consider themselves to be different from other people in some special way.” This definition suits the fraternity of police well. 

“… a group who considers themselves to be different …” Let’s face it, normal people do not want to do the job police are asked to do. So, does that make police officers abnormal people? Well, let’s not go that far, but we are different. And that is something the civilians we answer to fail to understand.

So, how do we instill an esprit de corps mentality in our police? It seems the answer lies within the police officers themselves.

Police departments operate within their own culture, a culture brought about by policies and procedures. It is not a culture of history but one of department dictates. Such a culture is fluid, constantly changing to meet the department needs. It does not honor and instill department history and the legacy of its fallen in the character of its officers. Only the embracing and knowledge of the department’s lineage secures our connection to the losses, sacrifices and heroics of the past to be instilled in the ethos of those who follow.

It is incumbent upon our officers to keep the lineage flowing, letting new officers know the horrors and heroics of policing, the heroes lost, the sacrifices they will experience and the frustration of not being understood. It is those who have survived who must talk about the heroes they worked in the shadows of, those who gave their all, leaving grieving and shattered families, the incidents that have changed their lives forever and the officers who have spent dark moments in the loneliness of a locker room crying. No memorial, no plaque, no ceremony or organization can accomplish that. A department’s lineage only exists and survives when the cops who possess the visceral emotions of the past honor their lineage, because that is where our stories are.

Bobby Egbert is a retired Port Authority police officer, a 9/11 first responder veteran and the public information officer for the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association.