Reservations

There was a homicide at the national park I used to work at last week, and I worry about the impact on the rangers I used to work with who responded to it. I based the book I wrote on that park (writing rule #1: write what you know) and used elements of it to illustrate a problematic social issue around how we handle people with mental health issues (Michael Connelly's "Everyone counts or no one counts" maxim summarizes it nicely). Even though it's fabricated, it has rangers as characters, one of whom represents the problematic side. How do you ever criticize people who do that work for a living? I know people in law enforcement aren't perfect any more than anyone else, and I know there are good and bad apples, as they say, but it's truly heroic work. For every mistake or imperfection, there is so much generosity and sacrifice. The stress and toll of the work is immense. I wonder if some jobs earn the right to be left alone about how the work gets done. Not in cases of racism or abuse, obviously. We clearly have a systemic problem that needs to be addressed and reformed. But in cases like the one I wrote about where the right or wrong of how a situation is handled is less clear and the people making the decisions are truly doing what they think is right, maybe "thank you" is the only appropriate response.