It is an incredible honor to meet both current, and retired police officers as well as Vets and their families as I travel around the east coast doing book events for my new book In Pursuit the Hunt for the Beltway Snipers. Here is one response that the author received from the wife of a retired Navy Man that also spent his career serving the great people of this amazing country. As a country we are truly blessed to have susch families that are willing to serve and potentially sacrifice their lives for all of us.
On Tuesday, April 30, 2019, 5:51:16 PM EDT, Cathy Baird <3nazarenes@comcast.net> wrote:
Dear Lieutenant Reichenbaugh,
It may be unwise to confess to a trooper that I’ve stolen a book from my husband but he gave me the means and opportunity when he left it on the coffee table unattended and I was motivated by the desire to read the book before it began its rotation among his “old men saving the world breakfast club” friends. Given that I had so many strikes against me, I decided to confess.
My husband and I were fortunate enough to get a signed copy of your book when we were at Barnes and Noble bookstore Saturday last. You gave us your business card and asked for feedback after reading the book.
I finished reading the book this morning and in a word…Wow!
No matter what I am reading (so take no offense please) my eyelids tend to get heavy after a few pages but as I traveled with you in in car 662 at 110 mile per hour on the way to the rest stop adrenaline brought them wide awake.
I well remember the days of the sniper shootings. I especially remember going out to dinner with my husband and son and having an uneasy feeling getting out of the car in the parking lot. My relief upon entering the building was short-lived when the hostess sat us at a booth directly against a large picture window facing the parking lot. I remember looking out at the lot and thinking that at any moment a bullet could come through the window and kill one of us. But just as you mentioned in your book, you can’t live in fear so I turned my attention to my meal and family knowing that the chances were remote. There was something insidious about this particular threat that made it hard to ignore though. The randomness and hiding in plain sight of it. In years since that evemt I’ve become a stage 3 cancer survivor and I would now compare the sniper shootings to cancer. Insidious.
Firstly, let me say thank you. Thank you for your tireless and selfless dedication in bringing about the capture of those snipers. Along with all the rest of the population, we breathed a sigh of relief when news broke of their capture. It was intriguing to read about the event from your perspective. One thing that didn’t surprise me was what appeared from your book to be a collective feeling of disdain for the media from law enforcement officials. I remember commenting on a few occasions how stupid I thought the reporters were being. I suppose, as you said, they do have a job to do but sensationalism seems to override common sense in their reporting. Not unlike a certain reporter not so long ago reporting during an imminent hurricane strike to the East Coast stating that if caught in the storm we would die and our children would die and everyone we knew.
Please also pass along my thanks to Jean. Being the wife of a career Navy man, I can appreciate the sacrifices she has had to make. Being the glue that held your family together made your successes possible and we all benefited from them. While John was often out to sea for 6 and 7 months at a time and I was not always permitted to know where he was located or headed to, I did at least have the satisfaction of knowing he had a full deck of sailors onboard and possible weapons of mass destruction that he could neither confirm nor deny onboard. I can’t imagine how Jean dealt with knowing you were on your own at times and the bad guys were better armed.
Lastly, thank you not only for capturing the snipers but for all your years of service and the many ways you served to protect and aid. You touched on some of it in your book but I’m sure there are volumes to add during your years of service. I’m in awe.
God Bless you and your family,
Cathy Baird
