Listen. Can you hear it? A heartbeat…it sounds like a single one, doesn't it? It isn’t. If that heartbeat was the heartbeat of one man or one woman, someday it would stop beating. But, it's not a single heartbeat. It is many hearts beating as one. That steady rhythm continues, always constant and never-ending. It knows no borders. It spans oceans and crosses mountains and deserts. It circles the globe in every direction...all those hearts beating as one. If one stops, the others keep beating, steady and strong. All those hearts that beat as one may be burdened and often are. The eyes that go with them often see many things that most of us never have to see. The ears hear an overabundance of things that most of us never have to hear. The brains have to process and register things under often dangerous and horrific conditions that would make most of us run in fear or cower in terror. The ones who carry those hearts inside of them all too often find themselves amidst chaos, violence, and death. They face circumstances that wound those hearts to the point that they’re bleeding inside and nobody knows because we can’t see the blood. And then they have to put those things away because they must go on; the heartbeat must go on. Those hearts often break, but that heartbeat that is made of many keeps beating.That heartbeat is the heartbeat of the thin blue line, the men and women who stand ready to protect us every day and never hesitate to lay down their lives for ours. That single heartbeat that is made up of many is a heartbeat as strong as the steely resolve of the men and women who form that line. It is a line that is constantly tested, even more so today in a time when violence against them is on the rise. There are those who try to break that line by acts of outright murder of its members. Others try to undermine its strength by standing in front of TV cameras and pounding on podiums with their fists as they shout in supposed dismay and outrage terms like 'brutality' and 'racism'. And, if that line were made up of lesser men and women, there are circumstances that would weaken it by things like massive cut-backs, lay-offs, and lack of proper equipment. But that line is not made up of lesser men and women. That line does not break, it is not undermined, and it does not weaken. It can't. If it ever broke, we would be hostages in our own homes, afraid to venture out into a world ruled by chaos, crime, thieves, child molesters, and murderers. It cannot break. It will not break. And those who stand in that line know that. The men and women who rise each day and don a shield won't let it break. Even at a time when the ranks that make up the line are thinned and stretched to the breaking point by either a lack of funds or government mismanagement, those who remain along that line will not allow it to break. It stands strong and it stands true, fortified by the strength of men and women who fight for what is right and what is good around the world. Sometimes they have to fight the very ones they're trying to protect, but they keep fighting and that heartbeat stays strong.
They are the thin blue line. They are brothers and sisters. Their hearts beat as one. They are the heartbeat of the world.
Written By: Peggy (Parker) Milligan - Administrator of the Facebook Cause
~ A Tribute To Those Who Wear The Shield ~
