Roger Eichler’s fascinating and frequently troubling autobiography reveals the stresses faced by those who are tasked with tackling crime and keeping the public safe. For almost two decades Eichler was on the front-line facing down criminals, confronting drug dealers and calming often ferocious domestic disputes. Add to this the frequent attendance of horrific scenes of suicide and car wrecks and it’s not difficult to imagine how the stresses and strains of the job would begin to infiltrate his personal life. In a moving prologue, the author discusses the mementos of his time on the force and reveals how the traumas led to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and his eventual retirement and how, even now, he cannot bear to look at the old uniform he kept or display the medals he was awarded.
Though the police officer with a troubled life is a cliché of many television cop shows, THE PRICE OF PROTECTING OTHERS is an eye-opening real life account of the day to day incidents faced by those whose job it is to ensure the safety of the public. It’s well written, concise and always brutally frank. Eichler demonstrates an empathy and understanding for many of the troubled individuals he encountered which may have gone some way to explaining the effect the job had on his own life. In the face of having to frequently deal with people in crisis his superiors would tell him, and other distressed officers, that they should just “man up” rather than be affected by what they were seeing on the streets. This poor management and lack of compassion only added to the toxicity of the workplace and exacerbated Eichler’s own struggles with his mental health.
There are a few moments of gallows humor and Eichler manages to evoke a sense of camaraderie with his fellow officers, but all too often his memories are so troubling that it’s impossible for him to make light of them even so many years after the fact. Towards the end of the book Eichler recounts a fatal accident at work that saw him facing prosecution and potential jail time. Though he would be found innocent, the stresses of the court case were the final straw. He was a broken man. He had to leave the police and try to rebuild his life. The writing of THE PRICE OF PROTECTING OTHERS is obviously part of that journey to healing and Eichler bravely opens himself up to the world with endearing honesty.
THE PRICE OF PROTECTING OTHERS is the disturbing, sometimes traumatic memoir of policeman Roger Eichler, whose career ended with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Well written and painfully honest, the book is a valuable insight to the stresses of law enforcement and the awful cost that some serving officers end up having to pay.
~Kent Lane for IndieReader