30 American Police Beat: January 2018 ★ ★ O ur law enforce- ment profes- sion is facing challenges from many fronts but none are as critical as the challeng- es to the health and well- ness of our people. Officer suicides, ques- tionable decisions, health related issues and drug and alcohol problems are just a few of what au- thor John Marx calls the symptoms of “Blue Trau- ma Syndrome.” Marx has written a powerful new book en- titled Armor Your Self: How To Survive A Career In Law Enforcement. The book provides the law enforcement profession a comprehensive plan, or what he calls a “system of systems” to get to the root causes of these problems and then move on to build wellness and resilience. Marx suggests that we have lumped all that ails our profession under the heading of “stress” when in fact it is a much more complicated issue – it’s as complicated as the human beings that it affects. By creating the concept of “Blue Trauma Syn- drome” he hopes we can start with a clean slate experts that he draws upon in what he calls an “old cops” quest to help his brothers and sisters in law enforcement. Marx lost a friend to of- ficer suicide over ten years ago and that is what lead him to start the CopsAlive. com website and begin training in the areas of law enforcement resil- ience. His ideas resonated with many, and he be- gan to assemble a group Armoring yourself for career survival of like-minded experts and trainers to promote his ideas. After eight years of work he produced the “Armor Your Self” book and continues to train officers and advocate f o r ch a n g e s i n o u r law enforcement culture as well as strengthening ties with our communities. Marx was once a com- munity policing program administrator and he believes that even the most resilient individ- uals can’t thrive in an unhealthy organization and even if the organi- zation is resilient they can’t function in an un- healthy community. It all starts with peo- ple coming together with the “intention” to work together to establish h a p p y a n d h e a l t h y lives, organizations and neighborhoods. Cops need extra layers of protection L et’s face it – you can warn people until the cows come home, un- til you’re blue in the face, until the fat lady sings... But the fact of the mat- ter is that there will always be officers that get caught up in the moment and manage to screw up an otherwise promising ca- reer in law enforcement. Recently a sheriff’s dep- uty in Knox County, Ken- tucky resigned following an investigation into a picture he posted on so- cial media, according to WMYT News. Someone let Knox County Sheriff Mike Smith know about the image after it went live, and now there’s an inter- nal investigation. That probe concluded that John Luttrell, the deputy involved, took the photograph and posted it to social media. A copy of the picture was forwarded to WYMT. It shows an officer next to a car with an unconscious woman in the driver’s seat and a caption reading, “Another day at work.” Sheriff Smith said he accepted Luttrell’s resigna- tion shortly thereafter. What can seem like a harmless prank or gag can wind up costing cops their job. But it looks like some people refuse to accept the fact that Facebook can kill your career in a heartbeat. Facebook is fun, until.... and begin to explore the intricacies of what well- ness and resilience really means for the law enforce- ment personnel. Not one to shy away from creating new lan- guage to open minds, he has also coined the term “tactical resilience” to give us a goal for success, and road map for devel- oping the comprehensive initiatives needed to really inoculate our people from the hidden dangers of a career in policing. The “Armor Your Self” concept is only a small part of what he says is the symbiotic balance be- tween individual, agency and community health and resilience. Marx defines “tactical resilience” as a human quality of intentional strength and fitness ex- hibited through the mind, body, brain and spirit of a police officer or other law enforcement or mil- itary professional that allows them to withstand the rigors and hidden emotional, physical, spiritual and physiolog- ical dangers of contin- uous high-threat, high- stress situations. The emphasis here is on the intentional aspects of building healthy habits to build a strong person- al character as well as a strong organizational culture. He suggests that resilience can be built consciously and inten- tionally by developing resilience habits through the regular conditioning of strength physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Marx has partnered with a large group of wellness and resilience