As Michael Sipple was sentenced, he wore the ribbon of a Purple Heart on his lapel.
He got that for a wounding in our service. Overseas. In a war zone. In the uniform of the United States Army.
He bled, and the nation thanked him, and promised always to honor him.
But it wasn’t his only wounding, the judge said. He had also been damaged in psyche and soul, that he had PTSD – the shellshock of the modern day – and that he carried it with him, an invisible burden, that day on the street.
The day Christopher Pate wanted to walk away and Michael Sipple should have let him.
The day Michael Sipple lost his career and livelihood.
It was a mistaken identity. Pate looked like somebody Sipple was searching for. And they both were a little porky. And when Pate decided to vacate, Sipple decided to stop him,and there was resistance.
Which is how Pate came to have a broken bone beneath his eye.
Which made Pate a rich man, and Sipple a broken man.
And yesterday the judge talked about PTSD.
And may have doomed a generation of military veterans thinking of law enforcement careers.
Because PTSD – which the psychology folks have made a growth industry – is pretty common. And now, officially, publicly, it is disqualifying.
Though the Rochester Police Department – Michael Sipple’s former employer – has disqualified all applicants ever treated for PTSD for a while, the judge’s long sentencing remarks highlighted the malady and its disqualifying nature. It wasn’t the judge’s intent, presumably, but it was the result.
Michael Sipple got called a hero by the judge, but a broken hero. And if this hero can go wrong because of his military service, then any hero can go wrong because of militaryservice. Which means those five veterans preference points can help you on the civil service test, but they will gut you on the psych evaluation.
And that seems wrong.
It seems wrong on the one hand to tell people to get help, and then to destroy them for doing so on the other hand. What servicemember or veteran is going to speak to a commanderor counselor about the emotions of combat and military service if those conversations can lead to a categorization that forever takes away a childhood dream or a job that can support a family?
And what of the Michael Sipples of the world? What of that particular man?
The judge was the finder of fact in this proceeding. He was the voice of justice and reason. He was the representative of the state and the law.
And he said that Michael Sipple was both perpetrator and victim. He assaulted Christopher Pate, but his country and city abandoned him. Sipple was walking wounded. And the institutionswhose uniforms he wore left him to struggle alone with something that haunted him and endangered Christopher Pate.
That’s what the judge said.
The same guy who said Michael Sipple was guilty also said he was innocent.
And yet Michael Sipple walked out of the door with three years of probation and a nasty legacy on Google. Sympathy for his situation was expressed, but no solution was found.His wrongdoing was punished, but his problem wasn’t solved.
And the hypocrisy of our views toward veterans was exposed.
When we see them, we thank them for their service. But when they need us, we push them off to oblivion.
Sure, we’ve got programs for homeless veterans. And discounts to baseball games. And a suicide help line.
But if a veteran just wants to live a life, to be normal, to serve and contribute, we nudge the door shut.
And we ignore the reality that PTSD is as much a plague to law enforcement as it is to the military. Things seen on the streets of Rochester can be as damaging as things seenon the streets of Afghanistan. And demanding that people be robots isn’t any smarter in a police uniform than it is in a military uniform.
The judge said that Michael Sipple was broken. That he had a wounding of the heart. A wounding sustained in our service, in our defense, in our unform.
But there is no medal for that, and no pension.
Just a trial, and the loss of a career, and a paycheck and a pension and a future.
Because his country called, and he answered.
And we don’t like what it did to him.