Page 25 - November 2015

A salute to our Veterans
In honor of Veteran’s Day, we pay tribute to Chicago Police Officers and Lodge 7 members who have served their country with the same dedication and passion they have served the City.
‘The fortitude to march through any storm’
n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
To fully appreciate the Lodge 7 members that have served their country in the military and fully understand why we need to honor them on Veteran’s Day – and every other day – we start with our very own First Vice-President. Ray Casiano served active duty in the Marine Corps from 1990-93 during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield, and those of you who know him know why it takes a special type of person to answer the call to serve and protect throughout the world and the City.
Ray’s voice takes on that soft, respectful tone so many of you have heard when he talks about military service and draws a correlation between being a soldier and being a copper. He references the work ethic, the discipline, the giving 110-percent mindset that links the two aspects of serving and protecting, and provides an authoritative perspective to what Veteran’s Day means to police officers, and especially officers who are veterans.
“There are people that came before me that set the way for me, and I don’t want to let them down,” Casiano begins. “Our veterans are the thread that holds the stars and stripes of our flag together. So I want my work to reflect who I am and where I came from and what I learned not only from my father but in the Marine Corps that gives me the fortitude to march through any storm.”
Ray said he joined the Corp at 19 years old because he hoped it would be a stepping stone to a career in law enforcement, even working for the FBI. Before being deployed to the Middle East, he was part of the Marine Corp unit that evacuated the Philippines in 1991 when Mount Pinatubo blew.
He then became a weapons instructor and trained the Saudi Royal Guard to operate crew-operated machine gun systems. Not coinciden- tally, that was the stepping stone to become a Department firearms instructor where he served before coming to work at the Lodge.
He notes that military service and law enforcement attract the Type A personality, what Lodge 7 President Dean Angelo, Sr. describes as, “those willing to make the sacrifice and do what nobody can understand unless you have done it.” And there’s probably more that soldiers learn and experience and bring to being good cops.
“It gave me the discipline to overcome,” Ray explains. “To overcome the challenges I face within the Department, in training, in the streets. That’s not to say that cops who don’t serve haven’t overcome obstacles, because they definitely have. I feel what I went through in the Marine Corps prepared me to suck it up and keep going forward because in times when you think you have it bad, you realize you have made it through
worse times.”
What people who have
never done it also might not understand is the appreciation soldiers feel when they see how the rest of the world lives. Ray again took on the reverent tone when relat- ing how villagers in Saudi Arabia were so curious about how Americans lived. He was awestruck by individuals taking what he and other Marines threw away and how they made use of the trash.
“Every place I went, it
felt like everybody
wanted to be an Ameri-
can,” he recalls. “That
gave me a real sense of
appreciation and pride for the country we live in.”
Ray takes extreme pride in classifying himself as USMC, Department firearms instructor and Lodge 7 First Vice President. And from where he sits, he readily sees the parallels between serving your country and serving your city, between protecting the rights and democracy in other countries of those who can’t defend for themselves, and coming back to the city to protect and defend for those who can’t protect themselves.
And from where he sits, Ray puts this feeling into perspective for all those who have served and for those who have not.
“We are able to exercise democracy as we do because of the veterans who secured the way for us to exercise our rights, and, as police officers, without a doubt, we are responsible for perpetuating that,” he asserts. “It’s that call to service, and it’s a privilege to be able to touch a part of American history.”
To continue to answer that call, Ray and colleagues at the Lodge advocated for a Veteran’s Day tribute to members and officers who served their country and their City. That tribute comes in the stories that follow in these pages.
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COVER STORY
Ray Casiano