She drove her car to the closest lot and parked in an open handicapped space.  She came into the back of the room and sat down quietly.  He was taking roll.  When he finished he looked up.  “You were in for an hour of lecture but I think we can better use a resource I found wandering around loose on campus.  Mrs. King, can you come up here?”

It was hard.  This was the first time she was on display in front of a group since her amputation.  She crutched to his side.

“In case you don’t know, Officer King is a city police officer and a candidate for watch officer.  She was here on campus and I imposed on her to come to be with us.  In case you don’t know she is one of the officers wounded by the night sniper.  Officer King, do you want to take a couple of minutes and tell this class about police work?”

She looked around. “Police work is the most thankless, frustrating and difficult thing you will ever try to do.  No matter what you do or how you do it someone will second-guess you and say what you did was wrong.  They will plaster your mistakes and misrepresentations of your actions on the front page of the paper and you will testify in front of hostile committees and in courtrooms where lawyers will try to break your story, make you look like a liar and at times tell you to your face that you are lying.  And at times it can be worse than that.”  She reached over and pulled up the stool that was standing near her.  She propped her stump up on the stool so the end of it was pointed toward the class.  “You can do everything right and have a partner badly wounded.  That happened to me, twice.  I lost two partners to the sniper.  Then I too was wounded.  Three assaults and we didn’t even get off a shot.  The perp got away three times.  A couple of days ago in self pity I almost tried suicide and a good friend of mine did try on the same day.  Thank God she is going to be fine and I am too.”  She stopped and looked around.