Kevin and Steve, Not sure how many years my sister had in as a cop but it was more than most. She started as a dispatcher then became the head of that dept. and training and then became a patrol officer , then Detective and in charge of the unit that took care of child abuse, rapes and domestic's . She became Sargt. of detectives and then a training officer for the whole country and they would fly her in a chopper from Akron to Columbus to teach classes in the law of domestic and child abuse casses. She had a wall full of rewards and a lot of bruses , cuts and broken bones doing her job. The problem was that by the time she did retire she was really hard to be around. It always took her a while to trust or believe in anyone. She was just fed up with man's inhumanity to man. The things she seen done to children and women most people would not believe. Now that's she been retired for a few years she is so great it's like night and day. I guess she just needed to get away from it all . It will always be in her head and her heart but now she no longer has to deal with the slime that exist in our world.
You will make it Kevin , just don't make it your life and keep up the hobbies and the "Me" time you have to yourself.
My best friend years ago was a police chief and I spent many nights riding with him and he always had me carry a gun just in case. We had some close calls togeather but we had some fun to and I seen some things I would rather forget but never will. He tried everything to get me to attend the academy but I knew there was no way I could read some of those guy's there rights before I tore there head off.
In other words I wasn't cop material.