Rest in Peace, Dan

It's hard to lose a family member.  It's sad to lose a friend.  It's sobering to lose an acquaintance.  What do you call it when you lose a fellow sworn public servant?  What if the fellow public servant used to also be a friend?  What if he was a friend and former co-worker and was murdered in the line of duty?

I knew Dan Sakai when we went to college together.  We worked at the UCPD where he taught me the ropes.  We were pretty good friends for a time, then he moved to Japan to teach English while I moved to LA to become a paramedic.  We were both the EMTs of our group at work, but he eventually continued the law enforcement path and I took the fire route.  In reading the recent news about him, I realized we were both hired by the City of Oakland in December 2000, he at OPD and I at OFD.  We popped up in each others' lives every so often, sometimes on scene at an incident in Oakland, sometimes outside of work.  I last ran into him a few days before I left the OFD.  Our engine and a few patrol units happened to converge on a Starbucks for some emergency caffeine.  We caught up a bit, his wished me luck in med school, and I wished him luck at OPD.  A couple months ago, I texted him out of the blue when I was in Big Bear, because I remembered he was from there.  Of course he asked me how med school was going and such, I told him to stay safe, and that text exchange was the last.

What is it about emergency services?  Is it having served in a dangerous place like Oakland together?  Is this what military people feel when they hear about a downed soldier?  What was it that I felt after 9/11 when 343 firefighters I'd never met died 3000 miles away?  It must be a bond of some sort, although I have a hard time describing it.  It must last even after one leaves their agency, because I still feel sad even though I'm not at OFD anymore.  When they swear you in, you take an oath to serve and protect.  But of course that means you swear to your crew and co-workers, too.  And when you leave, they don't swear you out.

Still, I am mostly sad because although we grew apart in recent years, he used to be a good friend and mentor.  It must be a combination of sadness for a friend and regret for someone who worked the same streets I did, because I wonder if I would feel this way about a similar friend in college but with whom I didn't serve the public.  I've had a flurry of calls with former UCPD and OFD co-workers over this.  I really want to go to the funeral.  I miss being around them.  I have not regretted changing career paths, but right now all I want is to be in Oakland and sit around a firehouse table or run into AMR or OPD on a call and sit around and BS or just look at each other, and know.  I feel stranded out here.  I requested the use of one of my two days off for the year so I can attend the funeral.  I hope they don't reject my request just because it's not for a family member.  There is a very strong tie among those who wear navy blue, and even though I gave up the blue on the outside, I think I will always be a lot of blue on the inside.

My thoughts to the families and the kids who will grow up not knowing their dads, particularly Dan's, who I think must be about three years old by now.  I hope their sorrow soon abates to pride.