There are a great many factors which collectively — to one degree or another — shape the person we ultimately become; good, bad or otherwise. These obvious factors include, but are not limited to, our upbringing, family influences, education, relationships, experiences and a myriad of other factors which help to shape our character and personalities. In this article, I have chosen to focus on what I refer to as defining experiences, which I define as single events that were so impactful and significant as to immediately change the trajectory of my life.
To illustrate my definition of defining experiences, I am going to lay bare several personal experiences that absolutely did make a major modification in my actions at the moment the situation occurred. A brief glance at my resume will suggest that I have had several significant experiences, but the three that I will discuss continue to stand out in my mind as those which were among the most impactful. I hope the readers will learn from my candor and perhaps reflect on their own defining moments, and perhaps even enjoy a couple of my painful experiences
on the road (good or bad!) leading to who I have become. For my friends and acquaintances, maybe this will help explain a few things…!
#1 Mosquitos and Potential Insanity
On a beautiful California Friday afternoon, as a 17- with year old Marine at Camp Pendleton, I was in the process of departing the base for what I believed was going to be a hot date with a hot chick when the first sergeant told me, and about a thousand of my closest friends to get back to the barracks and start assembling our gear. By Saturday afternoon the following day I was sitting in a foxhole with live ammunition along a remote jungle perimeter that separated the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay from Cuban soil, which was about fifty meters to my front. That was the day that the rest of the world learned of the Cuban Missile Crisis where President John F. Kennedy made clear that the United States would not tolerate the Soviet nuclear missiles that were being placed on Cuban soil. As I sat in the foxhole, I begin thinking that perhaps I should have stayed in high school! I had never previously seen such an assemblage of weapons, from grenades to machine guns and everything in between, but my greatest enemy were the millions (at least!) of mosquitos that decided to feast on me, and the gnats that instantly converged on and covered every morsel of food on the field rations that we were issued. After several hours of continuous slapping the non-stop barrage of mosquitos that had converged on every part of me that was not covered, and the gnats that covered every morsel of ration that I was trying to eat, I was absolutely on the verge of hysteria. Then, in an instant something within me snapped and I realized that I had to either go crazy or ignore the mosquitos and focus my energy on my responsibilities. I can remember as if it were yesterday when I held out my arms and said to the mosquitos and gnats, “F—k it, take all you want (my blood) and we’ll enjoy the rations together!” At that moment, I discovered some type of inner peace and to this day, including having spent time in some truly nasty places, I am able to tolerate all manners of bugs, spiders, reptiles and other creatures who seem to conspire to make my life miserable. I don’t like them, but they do not interfere with the accomplishment of whatever endeavor I am pursuing.
#2 The Truth Really Does Hurt
To comprehend the totality of circumstances of this defining moment, it is necessary to forget today’s intelligence gather standards and revert back to the 1960s, in which the practices and environment were completely different. As a deep undercover LAPD intelligence officer, my job was to go anywhere in the nation and infiltrate any subversive or un-American organization whose activities might eventually impact the city of Los Angeles. I carried no gun or badge, had altered identification and false vehicle registration, could not go to a police facility and got my pay in cash from a Taco Bell managed by a person friendly to the department. During this assignment, I travelled extensively throughout the nation, typically in junk cars with the subjects that I was investigating whose actions included bombings, planned assassinations and various types of crimes “to fund the revolution.” This defining moment occurred somewhere in Southern Missouri as two radical travelling companions and I were enroute to a convention of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. During a rambling conversation, I mistakenly perceived that my two pals had discovered that I was a cop and were dropping little hints to that effect, and that my life was in danger. Of note is the fact that I had no contact with my police superiors, they had no way of knowing my location, I had no back up whatsoever, and that I could easily have been killed and dropped in a ditch alongside the road – a crime that likely would never have been solved. I mistakenly perceived that I had been “outed” as a cop and that I was in imminent danger, and foolishly felt I had to address the issue in some manner. I grabbed one of them by the collar, told him that I was tired of his accusations, and threaten to beat the s—t out of him. Both guys apologized profusely for whatever they might have mistakenly said and assured me that they knew that I was not a cop. At that moment, I realized that I had made a horrible mistake by letting my paranoia cloud my judgement and caused me to overreact. Part of that moment also drove home the adage that “the truth hurts.” Fortunately, my two pals did not come to the same realization! From that moment in Southern Missouri to this day, my suspicions go up when I encountered a person who appears to be over-reacting to a situation; remember, the truth does hurts.
#3 The Greatest Satisfaction Must Come from Within
The final defining moment occurred when I was an LAPD captain in Hollywood Area that had just been rocked to its core by the discovery that two of our police officers had been committing burglaries while on duty and in uniform. Ugly is too kind a word to describe the consternation and heartbreak that we all felt, which led to the forced retirement of my boss, a good man but not up to the challenges of the assignment. I believed that I was up to the challenges of the assignment and that I was going to be promoted into his position. I had worked very hard on the investigation and in providing the leadership deemed essential to get the command back on track and was just waiting for the congratulatory call of my advancement. The call came alright, but it was not what I had expected. Instead of being promoted in place, I was being transferred to a much less challenging assignment, which could only be interpreted as an indication that I was not suitable for the advancement. Worse yet, my boss told me that my transfer would be among the items reported on the following day in the Los Angeles Times. I was humiliated beyond description and could not fathom how I would face my fellow command officers, including at a meeting the following morning, which my boss excused me from attending. Shortly after hanging up the phone, I had another of the defining moments that from that moment to this day has defined a major part of my performance as a command officer. The reality that politics and perceptions are not always fair or accurate, and it is essential to derive satisfaction primarily from just knowing internally that you have done your best, and just keep your head held high and do not falter when things do not work out as hoped. At the following days meeting, I was the first to arrive and the last to leave! I remain deeply grateful for this defining moment and feel that it has contributed to the several successes I have achieved during my civilian and military careers.
Summary and a Question for Each Reader
I hope this article is helpful in the identification of the extortionary defining moments in your life, the ones that from that moment on affected your character and potentially the trajectory of your life. What were your truly defining moments?
Keith Bushey retired from the Los Angeles Police Department as a commander, from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department as a deputy chief, and from the United States Marine Corps Reserve as a colonel. Other law enforcement experience includes having served as a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff, a State of California deputy game warden, and as the Marshal of San Bernardino County. He is an instructor emeritus for the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Association and has lectured and written extensively in the areas of leadership, management and ethics. His entire eight booklet Leadership Series is in the public domain and may be downloaded without cost from KeithBushey.com.
Featured om American Police Beat, November 2024.