Within The Trenches

Within The Trenches

911 Dispatcher Tribute

Nine one one, What's your emergency? Keeps replaying in her head.
When she lays down at night and she can't sleep instead.
Her mind keeps going backwards to when her heart began it's fall.
Memories of the other end the night she got the call.

She could hear a woman screaming, was it a husband and a wife?.
Then she heard the gunshot the night a woman lost her life.
There were many times before when on a call she'd wait.
But she prayed she'd never see the call that came too late.

Nine one one, What's your emergency? He said into the phone.
“I can't find my mommy and I think I'm here alone”.
He tried to reassure her and to keep her on the line.
One more family murdered there wasn't enough time.

So he lives his life these days beneath a blanket of the shame.
As he now bears the burden of his own misplaced blame. 
The rise and fall of all mankind right from the very start.
Buried deep within the trenches inside a dispatchers heart.

Praying still with all their heart someday the world will see.
All that's taking place today is not how it has to be.
Like a ship safe in the harbor still subject to the fall.
Each day a brand new heartache as they're witness to it all. 

Depravity in someones mind who's passions have run wild.
Buried in a shallow grave, now remnants of a child.
Haunted by what's taken place they never will be free.
As they wait for the answer to, what's your emergency?

Edwin C Hofert





Within The Trenches is a poem that was written to be a tribute to 911 dispatchers. I think that some people would find this to be an odd poem to want to write about, but, my personal connection with this poem goes very deep because my mom is a 911 dispatcher. 

The poem itself is explaining the mindset, trials and tribulations that dispatchers face every day. Although you never see them at a crime scene, you have to remember that if it weren't for them, the responding officers and emergency personnel would never know about the emergency that they need to respond too. They most definitely are the unsung heroes of emergency response. The main purpose of the poem is definitely to try and give the reader an insider’s view of what goes on in the very unnormal everyday life of a dispatch worker. It talks about the different types of calls that a dispatcher might receive throughout the day, and sadly, the different ways that those calls could end up going. The poem reads examples of possible calls varying from a domestic dispute between a husband and a wife that ends in in the woman losing her life, to a little girl who’s lost her mother and is worried that she's somewhere alone. The poem also lets you know very blatantly that these calls don't always end well, and that these unsung heroes in the trenches feel a connection to these people that they haven't been able to help. They feel that these terrible things that have happened are by proxy, their fault. They begin to feel as though they didn't do their job well enough, that they didn't react quickly enough, or maybe didn't react in the correct manner towards the situation. I believe that part of the underlying message of the poem is that these people don't get to just brush these things off their shoulders when it's time to go home. These feelings are burdens that they'll carry with them for varying amounts of time, and possibly even for the rest of their life. They can make a person feel depressed and worthless, they can make it so that the individual can't sleep at night, instead they lay awake wondering if they could have done something different, blaming themselves for the death or injury of another person, someone that they don't even know. The ending of the poem really hits home for me and I also find this to be another underlying message within the poem; it states that the dispatcher will never be the same person again because of their job, but that they'll always be there waiting for the answer to, "911, What's Your Emergency?" I can relate to the ending of the poem and feel a personal connection to it as well because I've seen first-hand what this job can do to someone, the way that it can affect someone from something as simple as being able to sleep at night, to something as deep as how they feel about and value themselves. I have a thorough appreciation for this poem and really like it because of what it's about, and how it lets people know about the hardships that dispatchers, the unsung heroes of emergency response, face each and every day, be it that they're facing them at work or that they've carried their work burdens into their personal lives.