This individual wrote me a personal Email with his opinion of me. While I can not overemphasize how little his opinion means to me, I thought it a good idea to share it with everyone.

Larry's Email to me:


I read some of your remarks on Accuratereloading and my first conclusion was
that your candlepower was pretty low. In other words, you are a fool!

Nobody works in "law enforcement" but there are many childish people walking
around with coffee cups and sunglasses. Most people who are in your line of
"work" were never given a proper education nor do they have a normal outlook
on life.

Rafter L
Dillon, Mt
From: "Larry Woodcock" <woody@bmt.net>
To: <info@hossfly.com>
Subject: remarks
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 15:38:59 -0600
Rafter L
Dillon, Mt

My Response:

Nobody "works" in law enforcement? My friend I would not criticize those who do a job you are unable or unwilling to do. It's easy for someone to sit on the sidelines and throw rocks but until you've worked a shift, dealt with criminals and dealt with the type of headache and heartache that those in all fields of criminal justice have to put up with, I'd keep my generalizations to myself.

As to my education my undergrad work was at Univ of Maryland and Texas A&M. I read more books on history, logic and politics in a month than most people do in a lifetime. I've worked on numerous political campaigns, helped develop ciriculum for staff training in the Texas Youth Commission and done research work for the Natl institute of Justice and the Dept of Justice. (this was pre dept of homeland security). So I'd say my candlepower is a little higher than someone throwing rocks in an email who knows not of which they speak.

All of my post at accuratereloader and other forums are based entirely on personal experience and not from something I watched in a video or read in a magazine. I'd be careful who you call a fool, the ass i save someday just might be yours.

Ryan, Your response was very controlled and most polite in my opinion. I would like to see this individual go through the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) and see if he maintains the same atitude toward law enforcement. Along with a very rigorous physical training program, there are volumes of criminal law statutes one is tested on in addition to having to endure getting of shot of pepper spray in the eyes so as an officer, you will know what you are doing to someone when you use it. Ryan, you have my utmost respect. Merg

Ryan, I applaud your measured response. I probably would have told this joker just to piss off. He obviously has a bad taste in his mouth related to law enforcement. As in any field of work, there are a few bad apples that make the rest look bad. I've found the vast majority of LEOs to be professional and respectable individuals. And like you say, I gotta give you credit for doing a job that definitely needs to be done that most of us (and I mean us, me included) don't really want to do. Good job!

Larry or whatever his name is is the damn fool!!

If this individual had ever worked a fatality accident involving a child, he would know very well that "work" does not end at shift change. Some of the things LEO's deal with on a daily basis follow you home, and never quite go away. In addition to long hours, shitty pay, verbal abuse, they also go to work every day wearing a target.
Members of this profession have my respect. There are exceptions of course, the prick who hides at the end of my road in particular. He likes to pop people coming out of a 55mph zone into a poorly marked 40 zone.

One of the more difficult aspects of being a Law Enforcement Officer is resisting the urge to choke the living dayliths out of a person who talks down to them because they think they are better.

Ryan, my hat is off to all of you lawmen. Larry is just a pinhead; maybe he had a bone to pick with you over the Osama or Quran quips........if that made him mad, then he's living in the wrong country. There is not enough money to make me do the job you guys do.

Hey, Larry.........maybe you should get the advice of Moe & Curly before you log on...........just a thought!

Ryan: I missed out on what ever might have initiated this ignorant and mean spirited E-mail you received from someone in the town near where I live!
His E-mail is childish, ignorant and disrespectful! I hope someday to tell this cretin this in person and am as of this moment going to start to discover who he is and where I can find him!
For 29 years I WORKED in law enforcement on the front lines in a major coastal city of the United States!
In my academy class were MANY well educated and continuing to be educated folks. Among these 42 young men were two ministers who had felt the calling for law enforcement careers! Also in the class was a Doctors son. The son had two brothers that became Doctors! He was intelligent enough and had the backing to become a Doctor himself! He wanted to be a Policeman. He became a Captain on our force and was a hard working, honest, aggressive and dilligent policeman! His father and brothers earned much more money than he did, and he worked worse hours and longer hours than his kin! There were many Viet Nam veterans and a U-2 spy plane pilot (I learned decades later) that I served with then! The U-2 pilot could have easily earned a wonderful salary with United! But he wanted to be a policeman! He was nearly killed in a motorcycle accident (his leg was so badly mangled that he never walked the same and nearly bled to death at the scene of the accident!) there were tears in his eyes on the day he retired for disability service! The tears were because he could no longer serve as a Public Safety Officer (our civil service title back then). He had no bitterness what so ever for the citizen that had nearly (due to human error only) killed him. He simply wanted to continue serving the citizenery! I wonder if rafter l is that committed to anything?
Back to the easy job! The Doctors son for instance - worked from 2000 hours to 0430 hours six days in a row! He thusly got (as did I!) one weekend off out of every six! He worked most all holidays - as crime goes up on holidays! His family wanted him home on Holidays and weekends as much as anyones family would!
After working all night he would head home and about 3 or 4 days a week after sleeping for two or three hours he would have to get out of bed, put on a suit and go testify in criminal court or at license revocation hearings or at mental competence hearings or in civil court - just to name a few.
I once went three weeks on this type schedule having to be in courts of one type or another all 15 of those weekdays! Existing on 3 or 4 fitful hours of sleep a day!
During one spate of riots I never went home for 11 days straight. We slept in closets, on floors, in the back of the police car and ate the worst of food during those type situations!
Tough job to say the least - not even considering the dirt bags that law enforcement types deal with on a day to day hour to hour basis! Witness this single story!
I was a field training officer late in my career and one of my students was "bitten" by the adult son of a man and woman who had been severely beaten severely by this cretin! The bad news was the cretin son had Hepatitis "C" and my friend contracted this dreaded disease and now will suffer a lifetime that is 30% shortened due to contracting this disease from the kind of folks police deal with - daily!
I wonder if rafter l deals on a day to day basis with these types in his occupation?
In the early 1980's a nationwide study was published regarding police officers. The study was of white male policemen that had (or were going to) work 25 years as the police! The study was specifically regarding their longevity! At that time the average age at death of white males was 71.0 years. The average age at death of the 25 year white male police veteran was 59.8 years! And yes some in the study did not even attain retirement age before they died! We called this phenomenon "dying in the write up room"!
Stress kills and the stress in law enforcement type jobs is amazingly more prevalent than any other full time occupation!
I wonder if rafter l has that type longevity worries in his job? Or stress?
I do know I am gonna find out though! He-he!
By the way those two ministers in my academy class - they both retired in less than seven years with stress related mental disorders!
I knew them both well and neither of them could deal with the horrific instances of mans inhumanity toward man and the stress and the dead, murdered and accidentally killed children!
Along with the NEVER ENDING - never done never completed nature of police work.
Like your average tire store worker or carpenter or ranch hand - they accomplish things that are tangibly observable! The carpenter gets a wall up on a house every day. The policeman gets his work done on a shift and the courts "knock down his wall" or lets the cretin out on a technicality or initiates new more restrictive procedures for officers to do the work under! In my 29 years of frontline police work I never recall one, NOT ONE court decision that made police work easier (or the public safer!).
I do recall citizens passing referendums and initiatives that set mandatory sentencing guidelines for our liberal judges and for "three strikes you are out" type laws. But I never recall ever seeing a court decision that made my job easier. Indeed EVERY month every officer got a "digest" from the state attorney general that outlined how court decisions affected our policies and procedures! These monthly journals from the attorney general were often ten typed pages long! We had to keep these monthly journals and abide by them - or law suits ensued! I wonder if rafter l has to change his work procedures on a monthly and very technical basis. I am guessing not.
I enjoyed many aspects of law enforcement and my 29 years toiling at it. But I have counseled all of my children to look elsewhere for employment! A longer, less stressful life is one of the most important gifts a parent can try to give their children!
One of the ONLY rewarding aspects of my police work was that I kept track of the number of people that would certainly have died had I not come along in my police cruiser (and later in my carreer in my police patrol boat). I am convinced that I saved the lives of 27 people, who would have bled to death, burned to death, died of overdose, hypothermia, drowning, been murdered by criminal act and in other nefarious ways.
I once got a Thank You card from a fellow that I rescued from a burning boat in a burning marina! He and his dog were burned badly and he could not swim (large older man) and was clutching his smoking dog as I got there and "saved" him (and his dog).
That Thank You card that I got from him stated "Thank you for saving OUR lives when no one else would help"! Yeah, there were lots of folks around but no one tried in any way to assist him. And thankfully he was not burned to badly - he recovered. I talked to him years later he again tearfully thanked me for saving him and his dog. He told me he still had nightmares about the night of the fire and how he was trying to decide if he was going to let himself be burned to death or die by drowning!
Let alone, the pitance of sacrifices I have made, and thereby righteously have taken insult of by rafter l's stupid comments - I take special offense for my fallen brethren who were killed in the line of duty and for certain the law enfrocement officers who died on 9/11!
Yeah I am on a mission to try and "straighten out" rafter l's immature and greatly erroneous thinking processes.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I don't hink I've have wasted my time even answeering the turd

Ryan, with this guy we all know what oppinions are like! Your response was very good.

Ryan,
I feel sorry that this fool is from Montana (Dillon, MT). Let me assure you that the vast majority of Montana's citizens appreciate the good, hard and sometimes impossibe work undertaken by law officers in the name of their fellow citizens.
You also illustrated the charactor and restraint typical of law officers with your civilized reply to an ignorant, vulgar and uncalled for attack.

Can't add to much to what has already been said, but would like to echo Hunter, in saying that the vast majority of us Montanan's don't act this way and thanks to all Leo's around the world for their efforts.

"I've...helped develop ciriculum for staff training..."

I love the irony!

Next time he is robbed or is in an accident tell him to call his local mechanic or grocery store, see if they help him.

I have a brother who is a career navy cop (made E-7 about a year ago). A short day for him is 8 hours. By the way his wife is also a navy cop that just got selected for E-7.

Ryan
You are applauded by good men and detested by bad men and it takes a special breed to do what
you do.I for one do appreciate what any and all police officers do in the line of service.
You guys never know what will happen in the line of duty.I have become a bit involved in the in my neck of the woods
by a chance happening.And you guys are not paid enough for what you do.Highly paid or under paid you and all HONEST police officers
are appreciated. YOU ARE THE ONE I WILL CALL AND DEPEND ON WHEN I NEED YOU.



KUDOS FOR THE CAREER YOU HAVE CHOSEN

Ryan-You handled youself like a true working professional and showed him much more courtesy than he ever deserves for such a venomous and ludicrous e-mail. And the responses in the thread have been wonderful -- just as I'd have expected.

I don't work in law enforcement but have ties to several who do. It's a tough, grueling and thankless job, and when you wake up for the beginning of your day, there's always a chance that this shift could be your last. I have no clues regarding the person who e-mailed you, but I'd almost be willing to wager he's some pencil-pushing desk-dweller whose greatest danger in his day is a paper cut and whose greatest contribution may be keeping the company coffee pot going.