The Story - "Operation Wedding Proposal"

It was March 23, 2002. Months of physical planning and over a year of mental planning were all about to come down to a mere 15 seconds of my life. Just over a year ago, I made a plan that I was about to propose to my girlfriend in one of the most unique and special moment in our lives.

The plan: To propose to my girlfriend at a park, while I was in my police officer uniform in the presence of our family and friends as witnesses to this special event.

Saturday, March 23, 2002 was a cloudy day. It had been raining heavily for the past two days and the rain was to continue on though this very day as well as the rest of the weekend. I wake up at approximately 5:30am. I look outside of my window and the sun is barely peeking over the eastern mountains. My mind is racing and my heart is pumping. Today is the day that will change the rest of my life. I try to go back to sleep. I close my eyes and suddenly, I wake up again. I look at the clock. It says 5:33am. I end up staying up, hopping online to do some real-time weather checking. It says it’s going to rain.

The time is now 8:30am. I look at my chair and I see the little white box. Inside that white box is another box…only, that box was the ring box. Having only seen it once since I purchased it two weeks ago, I bravely opened it up again. Upon opening it, this flashy little glassy looking thing glitters in the dimly lit room of mine. I close the box for I feel a heavy thumping in my heart. I put the ring box back inside the white box. The next step is preparation to get out of the house. I walk outside and it’s cold. The cold didn’t bother me, but the sprinkling did. Fearing that the plan would be ruined, I turned to prayer. I prayed to God that the day would be a nice day. That today, the rain would stop for the time of the proposal. I asked for that mere 15 seconds of rain weather to stop and if He wanted to, have the rain continue on that 16th second.

I drive to work at the police station. It is now just a shy over 9:00am. Knowing that Kelly would be at the dentist from 10:00am until 10:30am, I have roughly two hours to get everything fine-tuned. To show how serious the fine-tuning things have to be, I have one hour to get ready!!

I enter the locker room and I open my locker door. I place the little white box in my locker. I take out my uniform and I use the little lint brush on my uniform. I straighten it out and make sure my nametag and pen are on there. I take out my police “bat belt.” I shine all of the brass up, making sure that I can see the reflection of myself off of them. I polished and shined them up so well that it would make my previous Academy’s Recruit Training Officer yell at me a lot less than normal. I put everything on. Things are looking good. I feel good. I look good. Everything is going good. Then I look at that little white box. I think I need to go to the bathroom. But mustering up what little energy I had, I opened that little white box. I see that ring box again. And I open the ring box up and the ring is inside.

Sitting in that ring box is a nicely set “1.08 carat F-colored, VS2, diamond nestled on a platinum solitaire 4-prong setting” ring. Not too shabby on a cop salary, I suppose. I take the ring out of the box and place it inside of my leather business card holder. I place it on my left breast pocket…knowing that the ring is at its closest point to my heart and protected by the golden-colored police badge that I wear just on top of it. I flatten out the pocket and straighten out my badge. There’s a number on it. It’s engraved on there with the number 42. That’s me…42. I walk outside of the locker room and into the hallway.

I am greeted by my fellow officers. Everyone knows about the plan. After all, it was planned out months ago, right? All of the officers are already married. So either they were giving me words of wisdom or just tormenting me because they’ve gone down the same path. Either way, I give them a nervous smile and I walk up to our police lot. I chose car #10. I don’t know why. It’s not the normal car usually drive, but it was clean and nice. Well, cleaner than the other cars anyway. I went to our friends and family would be. They are all there at “the park”. All 15 of them…smiling…giggling…laughing…and some not paying attention to the event and focusing their attention to the Colt fully automatic sub-machine gun that is locked up in my patrol car. For the most part, everyone was ready. I debrief them on what will happen and everyone is prepared for it. I return to the police station and walk up to dispatch. It is almost 11:00am. My cell phone rings and I pick it up. It’s Kelly. She says she is just around the corner and will be there in a few minutes. I portray the sound that I’m busy working and that I will meet her at the police station as soon as I can. After all, she believes that I am working today and she was supposed to be on a ride-along with me. I enter into our dispatch center and tell them what the plan is. So now, the entire police department as well as our dispatch center is involved. Dispatch will give out a fake “loud party” call and will require ALL of our units to assist in this “loud party” call at “the park”, where our family and friends are hiding for the ultimate surprise. A ring tone sounds. That ring tone is a lot like that annoying sound when someone walks into a store. I suppose the purpose of that tone is to alert the storeowner that someone walked into the store and not necessarily annoy the customers that are already shopping. Well, the police department has one of those and our dispatchers see that it’s Kelly that showed up. I see her and I’m more nervous than a blade of grass that’s about to see a weed whacker come its way. I left the dispatch center and enter into the lobby to greet Kelly. I take her downstairs into the police parking lot and explain how I have a feeling things are going to get busy today. She gets into the car and we begin to drive around the city. The time is now 11:10am. I begin to explain radio communications between police officers and dispatchers. She has a hard time listening to the “radio codes” and constantly asked, “What did they say?” Suddenly, it beings to rain. I watch in horror as my windshield wipers fly left and right, left and right, left and right. This cannot be happening!! It’s about 11:15am and dispatch will give out “The Call”. A tone alert comes out…but it isn’t for me. It’s a real call. It’s a call of four males stripping a vehicle for parts. Terror strikes me like a lightning bolt. Every available unit is out there on that call. I remain on the perimeter since I was not supposed to be “working” that day. Kelly is asking why I’m not going to that call and I make up some lousy explanation for police tactics and procedures. She believed me and things were good. The officers responded to that call and said everything was okay. Turns out the call was a misleading call since the four males stripping the vehicle for parts was at a small junkyard, which they were told by the owner of the property to do so on the vehicle he bought. Geez!! So all the police units begin to leave the last call. So not only are our friends waiting that extra time, but the rain continues to pour. Miracles of all miracles were performed when the rain stopped and the sun broke though the clouds. It was one of those moments where you just put your arms up and proclaim the hymn sound, “Aaaaaaaaaawwwwwwww.” Just as the clouds cleared up, dispatch came though with the fake call. Loud party with lots of drunk people. The sergeant comes on the air and requests everyone to respond to this call because of “the inherent danger” of the drunk people. All 5 units with about 8 officers drive up to “the park”. I explained to Kelly that she has to come out to watch us talk to these people. Kelly tells me she wants to say in the car. I thought to myself, “Nooooooo!!” All the units roll up to the park with their red and blue lights flickering and flashing. I exit my car and motion Kelly to step outside with me. She hesitantly steps out and I explain that there are a lot of officers to protect her if the drunk people attack. She steps out reluctantly and began furiously looking for a crowd of drunk people. Suddenly, our family and friends arose from their hiding spot. Kelly sees them and is shocked. She’s wondering what they were all doing here. Kelly looks behind her and sees my fellow co-workers lined up behind me. I can tell she’s confused. I try to muster up some type of speech…which I could not verbally articulate very well, not to mention my stuttering and trembling. I reach into my breast pocket and take out the leather business card holder. Kelly puts her hands over her mouth and is overcomed with emotion. I take out the ring and slowly and trembly, drop down on my right knee, raise the ring in the air and asked the magic phrase: “Will you marry me?”

She says yes and I reach out for her left hand. She extends it for me while still holding her right hand over her mouth covering her laugher/excitement/joy. I slip the ring onto her ring finger and everyone claps. I get up and was congratulated by my co-workers. I inform our dispatch that everything was fine. I turn up the volume so that Kelly can hear the dispatchers.

The dispatcher asks Kelly what the answer was. I key the radio for Kelly to talk and she told the dispatchers that the answer was “Yes.” The dispatchers sent a congratulatory message over the air and apparently, a few surrounding cities and the county heard the message. They too, congratulated us over the air.

The day ended with lunch with our family and friends. That night, I prayed to God, thanking Him for that break in the rain. And, in a sense, that car stripping call helped me such that the rain stopped once we finished with it. All in all, a very good day.

The event was videotaped by a family member and also, my dispatcher will make a copy of the transmission of the event…from the starting of the fake call to the congratulatory message from our own dispatchers and from the county. Not only do both of us have an emotional memory from it, but we can both relive our special day visually and auditory though the magic of police radio communications.