When I walked in the lobby I met the shocked stares of
forty-nine, all male fellow academy classmates. I was
dumbstruck at the hostility of some of the glares being sent my
way but it was the smirking and smack talking about my
various body parts that made me square my shoulders and
walk boldly up to the front desk. As I signed in with only my
high school identification, the female sergeant behind the desk
whispered “Good Luck!”
Welcome to twenty weeks of hell on earth also called the
police academy. The academy is similar in some ways to a
military boot-camp starting with physical fitness activities and
then hours of classroom instructions on the many laws enacted
by various local, state and federal governments.
Every morning after I was dropped off, I was immediately
thrown into the physical fitness part of the academy. We would
start with a long run and then go to the gym to learn how to
defend ourselves. I had never even been in a physical fight and
it showed. On two occasions I had to visit the ER for stitches
and cracked ribs that I had sustained from my fellow
classmates. It was hard for my father to see his little girl with
bruises and cuts but he did come to respect my decision to stick