Much of it is analogous to your SD argument. To a large degree physical fitness is dependent on what a person does or needs to be fit at. I have always said in terms of overall fitness male gymnasts are by far the strongest/fittest people I have ever met. They are strong in every dimension and have great power regardless of angular stresses, gravity, or leverage.
So, yes, fire fighters should be fit for their craft. Front line soldiers, yes. Careered desk jockey, likely to a lesser degree. The same can be said for LEO for the most part. There are the donut shop cops (in all your examples) but they are the exception not the rule. However, these are the ones usually compared as the standard model which is incorrect.
LEO is such an underappreciated, underpaid job. Two of the reasons I no longer do it. A job were you can be right 99.99% of the time and it still not be good enough, to the point people die. Yet very few people understand this fact and only want to bash when the .01% happens to be a LEO stopping for a donut after a 14 hour midnight shift where 3 people died in an accident.
My last two years as a LEO I was the defensive tactics and accident reconstruction trainer. Accident reconstruction is taught in a 40 hour classroom environment. DT is a regular part of 2-week in-service plus 2 hours each week. All hands on. So two very different training models.
Proficiency had to be shown (yes, to industry standards). Even so, I can think of on the job occurrences where even though the officer knew what to do other stressors (fear, etc...) affected their ability. This falls in the 'some people just should not be LEO' category for me.
This is an excellent example of something
@Tony Dismukes said about practicing material under various and unexpected scenarios. It is the best case practice scenario. And while we tried to do this as much as possible, using many different scenarios, unknown people, always being very hands on, etc... there are/were still unforeseen variables.
The strongest tool we have is our mental strength. Strength can overcome skill in many ways but the guy who is mentally strong enough to keep going, keep working when the first/second/third thing does not work is going to win.
Until you have been outside the theory dimension you will not understand this. Even being in competition is rules bound so still limited scope.
The LEO on a domestic call alone who is 5 foot nothing and has to stand down an crowd of young, drunk, angry males in a housing development. That takes skill, and great big cahonies. As well as some great mental attitude.
I suppose they’re perfect for us vegetarians. Truffles, on the other hand, are musty and overrated!
