That is not my point in writing this piece.
I take the Secret Service’s word that Trump is all right despite what happened on Saturday. But I can’t join in the rush to delve into the who, what, where, when or how this sickening event occurred. At least not now.
What stays with me — and will never leave for the rest of my life — is what immediately unfolded on the stage when shots were heard, when Trump’s hand went to his right ear.
I wasn’t on that stage, but I could have been in that situation.
Think of the anonymous men and women you saw come rushing to help Trump.
In another professional life, and in another federal agency, I was one of them. I was trained to do what they were trained to do. Protective security was not my principal duty as a State Department special agent. I performed a lot of activities both here and overseas to protect U.S. national security interests. One of them, when called upon, was to serve on a protective security detail.
Nothing during my days at State, nor in my long and varied career since, has ever come close to those sobering moments when I strapped on a gun as a member of a protective security detail.
I need not bore you with the training, times on the shooting range, or stories of what did or didn’t happen to prevent a disaster.
This I know: The armed, dark-suited men and women who rushed to the stage when Trump went down just experienced one of the worst moments of their lives. They failed, perhaps through no fault of their own, to protect the person they had taken an oath to defend from all harm or danger.
Oh, we sing the praises to “first responders” — those women and men who sprint to the scenes of shootings, who climb ladders, staunch bleeding, bring frightened children and treed cats to safety.
That’s not what I was trained to do. Neither were those agents who rushed to a fallen Trump today.
Their job was not to defeat danger but to put themselves between the source of the danger and Donald Trump.
Agents raced to not only see to Trump’s condition, but to put their bodies between themselves and the gunfire coming the former president’s way. The agents, like countless other men and women protecting public leaders across the country, had sworn to take the bullet.
Some onlookers love to make fun of the people with frowns and nervous demeanors who lurk in and around public officials. Next time, take a closer look at those men and women standing so watchfully.
Their lives are on the line.
In my short stint in protective work, my nerves were on end imagining what the next day might hold. I might have to take the bullet. And in those days, we didn’t wear protective gear. Only guns and handcuffs.
Think of the agents who instantly surrounded Trump with their own bodies. What that meant. Who they are.
When I saw that, I cried.
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