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Starting fourth from right, members of the CPD Honor Guard standing on line at the Candlelight Vigil included Jacek Leja, Paul Zogg and Kevin Murphy.
Attention to detail
CPD Honor Guard stand tall to lend support at Police Week
n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
n PHOTOS BY AMBER RAMUNDO
“Ten-hut” put members of the CPD Honor Guard in the po- sition they had come to National Police Week to take. Standing three a side along two blue lines thick with officers from across the country, they helped formed a corridor at the entrance to the Candlelight Vigil on May 13.
Rain had been threatening since 5 p.m. Now, as dusk set in and the ceremony where names of officers lost in 2017 would first be read during Police Week loomed in about an hour, the six officers representing the honor guard could not have been more still and straight if they were statues.
Yes, this was right where they wanted to be, standing at at- tention as family members of fallen officers entered the Vigil. This was the real service for honor guards at Police Week – not just striking a pose.
“We’re honoring the fallen. That is our main reason for being here,” asserted Kevin Williams, who has been in the CPD Hon- or Guard since its inception in 1998 and for 20 of his 32 years with the Department. “It has nothing to do with being on TV or getting medals. It’s about helping those families in their time of need.”
Their tour standing on the blue line at the Vigil lasted 30 min- utes. That 30 minutes at attention lasts a lifetime for any officer who has ever had the chance to make such a stand.
Members of the CPD Honor Guard train to handle this type of detail. They’ve done it in the cold and the rain, and there was extreme motivation for being able to endure not moving a muscle for half an hour at Police Week. Especially for K9 Officer Jacek Leja, who has been with the CPD Honor Guard for two years and made his first trip to Police Week this year.
“It’s just a little sacrifice for the families that go through a lot more pain than standing at attention for 30 minutes,” confid- ed Leja, who moved to the K9 unit in October after serving 13 years in 011. “Some people dream to do this all of their lives. It’s
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Members of the CPD Honor Guard serving at National Police Week includes (from left) Cullen Murphy, Rich Robles and Mike Ostrowski.
something phenomenal that words can’t explain.”
Anybody who has ever seen the honor guard lines at the Can- dlelight Vigil during Police Week probably has asked the same question: What are these officers thinking and feeling as thou-
sands who have suffered a catastrophic loss pass before them? They could easily be focused on looking the sharpest and the most squared-away an officer can ever be. The precision with which the line changes every 30 minutes enhances the “honor” in honor guard and connotes the respect these officers want to
bring to the ceremony.
Behind the stoic faces, however, they must be thinking, “If
only I could reach into my pocket and give these family mem- bers something to take away their pain,” Williams shared. Imag- ine the thoughts that go through your mind as you see young children without their mothers or fathers, wives grieving over a lost husband or mothers crying over a fallen daughter or son.
“There is a hurt. It hurts,” said Mike Ostrowski, an original honor guard member who has stood on this line for the past 16 years. “When you’re around the fallen families, there’s so much power within them. You see a spiritual side that you’ve never seen until them. That’s what keeps us going.”
Paul Zogg, who has been on for 19 years and works in 025,