2003 First Place Winning Essay

TO PROTECT AND TO SERVE

An essay by Eden Hanish, age 12

Sergeant Henry Boggs, Orange County Lodge Five, presents $1,500.00 award and plaque to Eden Hanish. Eden attends the Alexandria Academy in Agoura Hills, CA Eden's teacher is Stacey McEnnan.

Why is it that the average person upon seeing a police car feels his heart beat a little faster, questions his recent actions, and wonders if his sense of right and wrong is accurate? Could it be because the police represent law and order, justice, and integrity? Why do we care? We care because integrity keeps society running smoothly, and chaos at bay. Personal integrity promotes and preserves harmony in our homes and in our relationships with others. Professional integrity maintains fair business practices, and ensures good value for products or services received. Perhaps most importantly, all types of integrity promote peace, even world peace. It is important for all people to have integrity, but even more so for people in a position of public service. Law enforcement officers have a tremendous responsibility on their shoulders to not only "protect and serve" society, but to support and even personify integrity.

This becomes a dilemma because everybody's interpretation of integrity is different. Personal integrity is closely related to one's sense of honor, of doing what is right. Being "as good as one's word" is an example of this. You do what you say you will do, and others know that you can be counted on. It is important that policemen, firefighters, and other community service personnel can be counted on. Society puts their lives in the hands of these people. Honesty is important, too. When one is consistently truthful in speech and action, their relationship with others is also more consistent. Friendships last longer and romantic relationships become more intimate when both people are trustworthy. Also, a person's reputation in the community is based on the perception that his integrity is genuine, and that he can be depended on to be consistently fair. An officer must be perceived to be trustworthy so that the people of the community will cooperate with him (her). Cooperation is born out of respect, and respect is a natural response to personal honor and integrity.

In business, integrity is important because reputation plays such a large role in one's success. Giving honest value for goods and services, treating employees fairly, and obeying local, state, and federal laws all come down to professional integrity. If a businessperson is only out to make money, and has no regard for his or her customers, employees, or the regulations governing the place of business, then he or she will not be in business for long. However, if the company demonstrates honor, cares about its reputation, its standing in the community, is law abiding, and therefore provides good value and customer service - it is likely to remain in business for a very long time. Service providers, especially community service providers such as law enforcement, must do the same. Individual officers, as well as entire law enforcement divisions, must be honorable, consistent, supportive of fellow officers, respectful of superiors, and must abide by the same laws they enforce in the community they serve. Perhaps it can be said that officers best serve their communities by protecting both personal and professional integrity.

When practiced on a personal and professional level, integrity carries over on a much larger scale. National and international relations depend on a universal standard of conduct. When a variety of cultures and governments differ from one another, cooperative behavior can result from common decency. Disagreements on political issues cannot alter the fact that we are all human, and we share the same physiology and range of emotion. If, as humans, we are true to our nature, and if we acknowledge that regardless of race, nationality, or religion we are all human, then we have no choice but to maintain "human integrity". Taking this even further, it is wise for individuals to also remember that they are the same as their neighbors in many more ways than they are different. As each person worldwide comes to this realization, humanity is that much closer to world peace.

So why is integrity important? Because developing integrity on personal, professional, and worldwide levels is the first step toward world peace; and as an ancient Chinese saying goes…"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". In addition, one does not have to be a law enforcement officer to understand that integrity is important because it helps us to protect and serve each other.

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