Several years ago I visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC for the first time. It impacted me in a way that nothing else has in my life. Recently, I extended a business trip to DC for one full day, just so I could see the museum again, with no place else to go,…

As most of our Rockaway residents probably know, they have been doing significant work on the beach, building rock jetties to try to stop the erosion. A few months ago, during an early morning walk on the boardwalk, I stopped to talk to a few of the construction workers. They were standing together chatting, just…

A wonderful thing about life is that people touch us along the way and bring us the gifts that last long after they leave us. I was in a classroom on the second floor of the 61st Precinct, Coney Island Avenue, Brooklyn, the day after I graduated from the Police Academy, in December 1981. Speakers…

I have learned that after we experience something in life and we look back, we have a clearer understanding of what actually happened. During the last two years police officers have been vilified, assaulted and murdered at levels we have not seen in decades. Today, our hearts are broken as our city and nation mourns…

There is so much we share in humanity, and so much that each of us share in this amazing American experience. Each of us – or our ancestors – picked up their lives from places all over the world, sometimes at great risk, with nothing but the clothes they wore, and came here to find…

A couple of years ago I spent a few solemn hours visiting the Pearl Harbor Historic Sites in Hawaii. It’s a visit I will never forget, and its profound impact stays with me. This week, we will again remember and honor those American soldiers and sailors who died that day, 80 years ago. 2,400 were…

On January 8, 2018 – a day I call my “other” birthday – I retired from the NYPD after 37 years of service. My career was amazing, a true journey, emotionally and spiritually. I experienced the greatest honors, and inspirations and joy, as well as some of the deepest pain, that many cannot imagine. In…

In 2016 and 2017 I would listen to the audiobook by Wayne Dyer, “Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life”, over and over again, when I walked on the boardwalk in Rockaway. The book is a collection of his interpretations of the “Tao Te Ching”, written by Lao Tzu in the 4th Century BC. It…