Book excerpt: It's raw, profane, offensive, bizarre. It's not politically correct or warm and fuzzy. It's real. How did police officers do their jobs four decades ago during some of the nation's most turbulent and violent times? These aren't one-dimensional Hollywood characters. They're society's soldiers, real people cut from whole cloth. They try to help when they can, bristle when they're insulted, retaliate when they're attacked, bleed when they're injured, laugh when they're amused (sometimes inappropriately) and get ready for the next shift. Without bulletproof vests, portable radios and other equipment considered essential today, often riding alone, they developed a "One riot-one ranger" mentality by necessity. This book will put you beside some of them, sometimes inside their heads-om radio calls, both mundane and life-threatening, in interrogations, in hostage situations, undercover arrests, investigating burglaries, robberies, rapes and murders. These are the type of stories cops share with each other-stories of comedy, tragedy, chaos and the endless uniqueness of human behavior. These are some of the experiences that make them what they are, for better and worse. The experiences that forever change them, that set them apart from the rest of us, that make them a brotherhood closer than most brothers.