Letters of Appreciation from The Field

Linda,

Jenni Campbell gave me your email tonight while I was signing books at a Barnes & Noble in Cedar Rapids, IA. You were on the right track for the email address, but I changed providers recently!

Thank you very much for the compliments regarding Eleven Days and Known Dead.

Dispatchers are some of my favorite people. I, in fact, began my police career as a dispatcher for the Clayton County Sheriff's Department, Elkader, IA. It was obvious to me from the start that we (dispatchers) were actually running the place. Seemed perfectly natural.... When I was a uniformed officer I still felt that way. We would have been absolutely lost without them.

Dispatchers are such an integral part of law enforcement, I'm amazed they haven't been written in as main characters long ago.

Sally's role in Known Dead and in the third book has been pared down a bit, but she'll be back full force in the fourth. The real Sally is one of my good friends, and I hope she remains so. She was also one of my most accomplished partners, and quite possibly the most reliable of them all, armed or not. We were always able to discuss things in her presence, regardless of the security level involved. The local FBI would, in fact, ask if it were her on the line before they would give dispatch messages for me. She was a priceless asset. Still is, but just isn't quite as appreciated as before. This I attribute to insecurity on the part of some of the officers, as she's so far ahead of them most of the time. [grin]

Thank you again, both for the kind words, and for the recommendations.

Don Harstad

***************************************
Subject: anything
From: "Steve"
(last name & e-mail address deleted for privacy)
To: gryeyes@redshift.com

Hello,

I'm a 16 year veteran police officer, currently a 1st Sergeant. I know more than most police officers how important a Communications officer can be. In 1982, as a police officer in the city of Richmond VA, I was engaged in a foot pursuit of a burglar suspect. After cornering him in an alley about a mile where I had started from, he turned and fired 6 rounds at me -- striking me 3 times in the lower torso just under my ballistics vest. I returned fire, 2 rounds, before realizing I had been hit, striking him both times in the head. I bled out so bad that I became confused and could not give an accurate location of where I was at. The Communications officer, going back over my previous radio transmissions as I chased the suspect, and listening to my open mic as I tried to transmit, was able to determine my location as close as one half block and get EMS and other officers to me.

Obviously my life was spared. That was 16 years ago and I still keep in touch with her. I own my life for the most part to her professional ability to remain calm and her accuracy in tracking me from my radio broadcast during the pursuit. You have to realize that this was my second day on the job. Thank you for taking your job seriously so that my job is a little safer.

Steve

~From a CHP Officer I don't know, who found the Break Room~

From: (e-mail address deleted for privacy)
Date sent: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 03:11:41 EDT
To: gryeyes@redshift.com
Subject: Hi

I DO appreciate everything you dispatchers do for us. Were it not for you, I would have been on the side of the road fighting with the violater without assistance, assisting injured parties without help, and More importantly perhaps not getting home on time because you make me "signal 10-11," just to make sure I was safe.
THANK YOU for all you do,
Albert C. #13020, Area 620
***************************************

From: SLOS6 (e-mail address deleted for privacy)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 16:37:46 EST
To: gryeyes@redshift.com

Subject: a short note on the subj. of dispatchers

I have always held the dispatch centers and the wonderful people (voices in the night) in them close to my heart especially the CHP DISPATCHERS.

As you may have guessed by now I am a CHP officer; retired.

There is no more welcome sound in the middle of the night when you're in trouble and your voice doesn't say what you want it to over the mic but your partner at the other end knows what you said and need. To all of you thanks for the good times and the help in the bad times.

I am now with a small agency in the Midwest (deleted personal comment)

I enjoyed your web site. Keep up the good work and take care of all your boys and girls out there.

THANKS

slos6 6287(RET)

Honest-to-god greeting card dropped off at my Comm Center

Click the card to go back to the outside greeting.