Look Sharp. Feel Sharp. Be Sharp.

They wanted to be able to look around corners with them. I thought that was a really strange use for a pair of boots.

The Recruits

After being hired as a police officer, the weeks leading up to the Academy were filled with PT, getting fitted for uniforms, and the coveted pepper spray to the face. The sergeant assigned to us new recruits could have been a comedian in another life. But as funny as he was he had his fair share of experiences, to include three officer involved shootings.

I remember him telling us of a series of conversations his wife’s father had with her. After the first shooting he told her it was a fluke. After the second shooting it was just a coincidence. But after the third shooting her dad told her she had to get away from that guy before he got her killed. Our sergeant’s reaction? He just laughed.

Because of his experience, our sergeant was taken on as cadre at the Academy. He had the daunting task of getting us non-military people ready for the Academy. I had never shined a boot in my life, never mind ironing creases into my PT shirt and shorts. I mean, who does that anyway?

The Mantra

Over the course of weeks and months, our sergeant repeated the following phrase to us over and over again: Look sharp, feel sharp, be sharp. That was the mantra. His point was that if you wanted to be sharp, then you needed to feel sharp, and the way to feel sharp was to look sharp. That meant shining your boots and pressing your uniform. That meant boots so shiny you could stick your toe out and see around corners. That meant uniforms pressed and creased with brass polished so well it would make Napoleon jealous (Bonaparte not Dynamite).

The Science

But why all the trouble? Because: science.

There was a study done some years back on factors that contributed to assaults on police officers. One interesting factoid was that officers were less likely to be assaulted if they had a professional appearance — fit physique, shined boots, shined brass, and a pressed uniform. Which makes sense, if you think about it. If you show up with a wrinkled uniform looking like a soup sandwich you are just asking for the bad guy to take his chances with you. But by the same token, if you’re 300 pounds overweight no amount of shoe shine will convince him he won’t beat you in a footrace.

The Beach

Imagine a summer day at the beach. As your bare feet hit the sand the sound of the crashing waves gets louder with every step. You breathe in the ocean, the fried dough from the boardwalk, and scan the people laying out like rotisserie chickens. Just before you roll out your towel, you look over at the lifeguard tower. There you see the lifeguards in all their glory wearing red bathing suits with matching flotation devices at the ready. Except these lifeguards are not the ones you’ve seen on TV with the rippling abs and chiseled quads. They look like beached wales in red shorts. How much confidence do you have in them to save your life should you catch a wave and get sucked out to sea by an undertow while reliving your glory days? Let’s just say their appearance, which results in an extrapolation of their physical ability, doesn’t give you confidence that they could, in fact, save your life should the need arise. Their appearance informs your impression of them and of their capabilities.

The Shoes

Now, put yourself in the bad guy’s shoes. You are approached by an officer. In scenario one, the officer stands tall, is fit, and wears a sharp looking uniform. In scenario two, the officer is overweight, slouches, and their uniform looks like it had been stored in a pillow case. Half of their pins and badges are crooked and smudged by a week’s worth of take-out. Based on those two scenarios, which officer would you be more likely to try to resist arrest and get away from? Remember, you’re the bad guy, and you play the odds. It doesn’t take a PhD from an Ivy League school, a government grant, and a 10,000 person survey to figure that one out.

Now put yourself in your own shoes (weird I know). How do you feel after a fresh hair cut, a new pair of shoes, or the extra medium t-shirt that gently accentuates your biceps? You feel pretty good, right? And it doesn’t take a nerd with more degrees than a thermometer to know that when you feel good, you behave differently. You’re more confident, bold, and optimistic. How you look affects how you feel which in turn informs your state of being. To be clear, wearing a pressed karate gi does not make you a karate master nor does wearing a pressed uniform make you a super cop. I’m not saying you become something that you are not. What I am saying is that caring about, and taking care of, your appearance in uniform sharpens what you already are.

The Results

I get it, some people are going to try and escape or do you harm no matter how good you look in a red bathing suit. And for those people, we prepare ourselves in other ways. But if you can reduce the likelihood of being assaulted or of someone resisting arrest, even by 1%, why wouldn’t you? It costs you little more than time and effort. We must always be doing what we can to mitigate risk and tip the scales in our favor. If you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. Every incremental improvement contributes to our success through the aggregation of marginal gains. Small improvements compounded over time have big results.

Now repeat after me: Look sharp, feel sharp, be sharp.

See you out there — maybe even at the beach.

__________________________

• Are you keeping yourself physically fit?
• Have you let your uniform care and maintenance degrade over time?
• Do you pay attention to detail?
• When’s the last time you polished your brass?
• What can you do today to improve by 1%?

__________________________

Thanks for reading! Do you have a story that you think we could learn from and that you’d like to share with Johnny Tactical nation? Fill out the contact form and include your name, rank, and department, or email it to [email protected] and follow these guidelines:

• It must be a firsthand account
• True
• Have a lesson, principle, or tactic to apply
• Cleaned of names, dates, and places
• Include your call sign

 

If your story is selected and published in our blog you’ll get the credit using your call sign and we’ll send you a free Johnny Tactical morale patch.