10 Code Marriage

By Lance Allerdings and Rachel Allerdings

The First Responder life is a crazy roller coaster. It is something we become, something we absorb and accept. We love this life, but we can despise it at the same time. It will never leave us. We have been the husband and wife who were searching-the wife longing for someone to understand, the wife not sure how to handle a husband being a First

• Language: English
• Publisher: ONBrand Books
• Release date: Feb 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781950385553

Lance Allerdings

Lance and Rachel began 10 Code Mission in 2020. The book 10 Code Marriage was written when Rachel felt that she wanted to do more for First Responder wives and families after Lance had been in Law Enforcement for over twelve years. Lance has served as a Patrol Officer and as an Investigator. He is currently a Master Police Officer in Investigations. and also an Assistant Team Leader with his Regional SWAT team since late 2012. Lance and Rachel were college sweethearts and were married in 2006. They call North Dakota home with their three children and their boxer. They love spending time outdoors, especially at their family cabin or fishing! Rachel is a full-time stay-at-home mom and active in volunteering at their home church. She also has a "side-gig" in Real Estate. Lance is busy with work, serving on the security team and co-leading a connect group with Rachel. Their children keep them busy-life is crazy and they wouldn't have it any other way! Their website is www.10codemission.com

Book preview

Dedication

---

Rachel’s Dedication:

The book is dedicated to my Law Enforcement Officer—the most amazing husband and best friend that I could have ever asked for. There were so many times life threw us curve balls and rocks, but I’m so thankful to have made the most wonderful life with you. The best is yet to come. I love you, always and forever.

Lance’s Dedication:

This book is dedicated to my one and only. I thank the Lord that He put you in my path and I’m forever grateful for everything you have done for this family, and especially for me. The time, dedication, and sacrifices you have made cannot be summed up in a few sentences. You have fought for this family time and time again. I love you.

To our kids:

Norah, Grady, and Baya: You are our cheerleaders. Whenever we felt a time that we wanted to quit, you always picked us up! We know you all are our biggest blessings! We love you so much and are proud of the amazing people you are growing up to be.

To our family and friends:

Your constant support and love are something we can never repay! We are thankful for you every day!

Foreword

---

Rachel

This 10 Code Life. It is something we become, something we absorb and accept. We love this life but we can hate it at the same time. It will never leave us. Writing a book was never a dream of ours. I know, I know, don’t throw the book down just yet, we know how cliché that sounds. In fact, when it did come about that we were going to write a book, it was only a vision for me, Rachel. I never thought for a chance I would be good at writing. I loved English in school, but even more so, I loved studying the meanings of words, not actually writing them. So, when I had this feeling that I was supposed to write a book, I guessed it would be a cookbook, or something to do with baking. (Backstory: I owned a bakery for almost 6 years! More on that later.) Naturally, I assumed a cookbook. . .NOPE.

Now back to the inspiration for writing this book about the First Responder crazy rollercoaster life. There was a time in our life together that we were really searching for our next steps. We have been the husband and wife who were searching: the wife longing for someone to understand, the wife not quite knowing how to handle a husband who is a First Responder, the husband trying to show commitment to family and career, the husband not sure of his next steps.

We are in no way marriage experts. We aren’t professional counselors who are telling you that this book will totally make things better and you will be automatically enlightened on how to fix everything. However, this book will tell you a lot of our personal stories that we hope you can relate to, stories of our trials, and ups and downs in having a 10 Code Marriage. We hope you find comfort in our stories and know that you are not alone and that these chapters speak into your life and you gain wisdom from our trials!

This book is specifically geared toward a First Responder marriage, however, it is really for any marriage. Anyone who wants to better their relationship with their spouse or grow deeper. It’s for anyone who wants to know a little more about First Responder lives and the difficulties in their work and family life on a daily basis. We hope you love it.

Lance

Well, I’ll start by saying that never in a million years would I have wanted the general public or even my close friends to hear about the stuff that we are going to talk about in this book. I have typed countless reports in the twelve-plus years of being a Cop and for me to sit down at the computer late at night and type has been a challenge. It truly was only by one defining moment that I was able to humble myself to do this project (as Rach said, we will touch on that later).

I can definitely echo what my better half says when she talks about being the couple that is searching, or the couple that just thinks: Is this it for us? Is this the best that this is going to get? Are we going to keep this repetitive behavior and cycle, and just keep going around in circles?

We have been there, and our hope is that this book will touch on what the life of a First Responder is like, the struggles along the way, how to adjust to this life, but most importantly how to thrive instead of just surviving.

We, as First Responders, know that this profession we choose has consequences. Aside from the daily craziness that we might encounter, we took an oath to protect and serve. We signed up to put others first. We miss birthdays, anniversaries, dinner dates, social events, and potential huge milestones in our lives because of this profession. It’s what we signed up for, but just because we miss these events does not mean that we don’t care about them! Hopefully, this book can be a good glimpse on how to navigate through those tough times.

Imagine this setting. You just get a full plate of Thanksgiving food—you know the good stuff—turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, creamed peas, and buns. You sit down to eat and guess what rings—the DREADED work phone! It can’t go off on Thanksgiving. Well, it does, and it’s an all-hands-on-deck for a protest camp forty miles away wanting to storm an oil line. Or how about the time when you’re in the middle of your son’s fourth birthday party and you get a SWAT page for a barricaded subject with a firearm. Or the time when you’re stuck working Christmas weekend.

Yup, these are just a few of the many, many times Rach and I have experienced. If you’re reading this and nodding your head, then you definitely know the feeling. You know the look that your wife has when she hears that phone go off during an important event. It’s like someone punches her right in the stomach and she knows. She knows you’re gone and removed from the entire event or party she has been planning. That look kills me. The problem with us was that we were having to navigate all of this on our own. Unfortunately, we both took some wrong turns along the way, but have found ourselves at the best possible spot now because of them.

We definitely do not always have it together, but most days we do. Our goal and hope in writing this book is to give some insight and advice into how to navigate this crazy, beautiful, purpose-filled life of a First Responder. This book is a journey. It describes what it took for me to understand that the things I thought were not important when I would come home would end up being the most important things in my life.

We both agree that we have shed a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to figure out how to be the best 10 Code family that we can be. We wouldn’t want it any other way!

The 10 Code

---

Rachel

I can still hear it. The sound of applause when my husband graduated from the academy. When the entire auditorium stood up and were excited to have their friend or family member start on this First Responder journey. It was such an exciting and unknown time. The sound was loud and echoing, you could tell most of the graduates wanted to smile but they kept straight, macho looks on their faces. I was pregnant with our first baby. I can remember exactly what I was wearing, and how I was beaming with pride that my husband was going to be wearing the blue uniform. Of course, I cried, too. It was a very, very proud moment for my husband, but especially for me. It was the start of a new crazy journey. What I didn’t know was the incredibly difficult road we had ahead. No one prepared any of us for the changes in our family and our lifestyle. I wish we could have had some sort of family class or something to get us ready for the life ahead, some sort of academy for spouses.

We are a blue family. No, I am not talking politically. Not even close. We are not referring to the red vs. blue in the political world, in fact it has nothing at all to do with it. Our blue family means that our blood bleeds blue even when it hits the oxygen in the air—we bleed the Thin Blue Line that refers to Law Enforcement. It wasn’t until someone mentioned that we should distinguish what exactly blue meant to us that I had to think twice about how it could also be related to the political world.

As First Responders we relate to the color associated with our line of duty. Red for Fire, Blue for Law, Camo for Military, White with Red for Medical and so many more. We live and breathe this life. We will always be a blue family and First Responders will have a special place in our hearts no matter what. This book is for our 10 Code family. We are a Thin Blue Line life, but this book is for more than just Law Enforcement. This book is for all First Responder husbands and wives, and any relationship trying to navigate through life. Yes, our stories are totally related to First Responders, but we know this book will reach many different types of relationships in many types of professions. We know it relates to oil field families, railroad workers, traveling families, or pretty much any demanding profession. It took us awhile to come up with a name for the book. We wanted it to be something that everyone in the First Responder field would understand. We wanted it to be something other than just Relationships for First Responders. So here it is, 10 Code Marriage.

Just in case you don’t know, the Ten Codes, officially known as ten signals, are brevity codes used to represent common phrases in voice communication. Almost all First Responders use some sort of Ten Code to communicate and we found it perfect to tie it in to the title of the book. We, as First Responders and spouses, learn to use them often. They become a sort of second language that only we know. There have been many times that Lance and I have used them to describe situations or laugh secretly about something. If you haven’t experienced the code conversations yet, you will.

For the longest time I, Rachel, have felt a pull toward spouses of First Responders. I don’t really know what kind of pull, other than I felt like I needed to do more. I wanted to be more for those wives that had a hard time understanding this life.

We have all sorts of First Responder friends: Homeland Security, Firefighters, EMTs, ER doctors, Military professions of all kinds, CNAs, nurses, dispatchers, and so many more. We have learned so much from them. We are SO lucky to have them all in our lives, they play an essential role in helping protect Officers, so I will forever be indebted to them. Because of our friendships and knowledge of First Responders and the life that we walk, I knew I wanted to do more to offer support. I really thought maybe it was a small group or some sort of support group, but those didn’t feel quite right. So, I pushed that thought down for a while and we kept offering advice, insight, and even personal experiences to our close friends and those who reached out to us. But I still felt like I needed to do more.

This can be a lonely thing, being a spouse of a First Responder, or being the actual First Responder. . .it’s lonely. This is a life that no one can relate to, unless you are actually living it or have lived it. We walk an incredible line. It is important, brave, resilient and so much more. When I researched more and more about the Thin Blue Line, I learned a lot, and the history about it was so cool. The Thin Blue Line is used interchangeably with all sorts of First Responders, but it essentially means the Line as in the Line of Duty. It is a stance on the sacrifice that each of those lines make in the nation every single day. The Flags of Valor website explained that the phrase Thin Blue Line was initially penned in 1911 in a poem and in the 1950s it was adopted by Law Enforcement. This public domain poem is quite powerful, and we can thank Nels Dickmann Anderson for it.

The thin, blue line that falters not,

Though wavering like a fluttering veil

Beneath the sun so burning hot,

Shall it forget, that ne’er forgot,

The flag whose stars can never pale

Out of that sky whose bend of blue

Is one triumphant arch and grand

Where marches under warriors, who,

Returning from the thin, blue line,

Bring honors for their native land,

And trophies for her Freedom’s shrine.

The thin, blue line that fights for right,

That never bends the knee to might,

Has ever since it knew God’s light

Fought dark Oppression in his lair,

And routed Wrong, from valleys fair,

Sweet Peace and Plenty leaving there.

O God! The thin, blue line is Thine;

The man behind the gun is Thine;

They’ve left their labors and their kine:

The old, bowed man, the youth, the boy,

Have left the implement and toy:

Because their Father called them then -

O God, the thin, blue line of fighting men!

I had no idea it dated that far back. I thought it was something more modern. It was kind of fun to go back into history a bit and learn more about Law Enforcement and the Thin Blue Line. It gave me more love for First Responders, it opened my eyes more when I saw a Thin Blue Line flag or any First Responder flag for that matter. My favorite one is the US flag with the stars and stripes, then it has Nurses, Dispatchers, Law Enforcement, Firefighters, EMS, and Military showing their colors. I mean, you’ve seen our book cover, right? It then states at the top, NO ONE fights alone. I love it. It really does show just how important each one is, and there are a lot more that could be recognized on it.

Here is a little tidbit you may enjoy, once you google Thin Blue Line a couple of times, your social media feeds BLOW UP with Thin Blue Line—gear, water bottles, stickers, water shoes, and literally everything you could ever think of putting a sticker on. It blew up my news feeds for weeks, until I googled something else a few times in a row, which was probably something for the kids, like slime or ooblek. But seriously, has anyone else had this happen? When it is like they are inside your brain and totally know what you are thinking? Okay good, I am glad I am not alone.

Anyway, you will see the stories unfold that led to us writing this book. It was VERY obvious that this was what I was meant to be doing. Once I nailed down the details, I didn’t have the constant pit in my stomach of how I could be reaching First Responder families—this was it! And then when Lance told me that he was on board to write the book with me, it all fell into place, it was meant to be.

Here’s the deal. Please don’t think of this as a Law Enforcement book, it’s not. It will have a lot of examples about Law Enforcement because that is the life we live, but there will be other First Responders that touch on their stories, too. Like I said before, this is our life, our relationships, our story but it could really be for anyone!

We are a unique brew. . .

---

Rachel

Let that title sink in for a bit. If you don’t know by now, hanging out with Officers, Officers’ wives, Firemen and their wives, EMTs, ER doctors, Coroners, Emergency Responders of any kind—we are a unique brew of people. You find out quickly whom you can mesh with and whom you don’t. There are so many different kinds of egos and narcissists, along with lovers, kind people, quiet people, and no joke, some of the loudest and most ignorant people you will ever meet.

This is a real conversation that happened on a dinner date with another couple:

Did you get to go on that call for the dead body?

Yeah, the guy was in ‘riger’ pretty bad.

Yeah, I am glad I didn’t have to go. I heard he was pretty bloated and had some pus coming out of his orifices already.

Yeah, it was tough to draw body fluids but somehow we got enough.

Are you kidding? Legit, that was a dinner conversation. It is SO NORMAL for us. I was probably eating some white sauce pasta dish and the guys were talking about pus coming out of a dead body and it didn’t even phase me. I didn’t flinch and didn’t even think about comparing the sauce and pus until I wrote this. Could you imagine having that conversation the first time you were meeting a new couple that was in the profession of banking or teaching. We would FOR SURE never see those people again! Ha. Do you see why we had to call the book 10 Code Marriage? Only our unique brew of First Responders would understand this kind of conversation.

The one thing that I have noticed is they all have big hearts—they really do. Some of them pretend they are too cool for everything and every one and act like they are the only ones that will ever matter to them, but let’s be honest here, every single First Responder you meet will come to your rescue if you are part of this family. Whether you walk the blue line, the red line, the white line—we are all on this crazy journey together. This unique lifestyle that we all live, we just get each other in so many ways that non-First Responder families wouldn’t quite get. It is a complete sacrifice, and you wear many, many hats, and it really puts the line, You will never know until you walk in their shoes, into perspective!

Recently, a sweet girl on my fall volleyball team mentioned that her fiancé was considering joining Law Enforcement. Of course, I wanted to tell her how it is crazy, your life changes, there are sacrifices, and it is not easy. But all of me held back my word vomit about how hard it is, and just told her that even though it is a tough job, and tough on families, it is totally worth it. I wasn’t lying, it IS totally worth it. No one wants to be told that this job isn’t something for the faint at heart. Is it hard to juggle all of the schedule changes? Yes. Is it difficult to be just married to an Officer? Yes. Is it hard to raise a family with a First Responder? For sure. But not one of those times did I ever regret the decision my hubs made to become one. I was proud. I am still proud but more careful, and I think that comes with being Seasoned. Uffda, that makes me sound old! (And saying Uffda makes me sound like a mid-westerner. LOL)

I am careful to answer people when they ask me, Oh so what does your husband do? Sometimes, I say, He works for the city. Which is true, just not the entire truth. HA! The sad part about how our world is now is that it has a skewed view of Police. Actually, a lot of First Responders jobs get a bad rap. Is that hard to swallow? Yup. Every day we have to be guarded. We have even had a harder time with our kids going to school sometimes and telling other kids that their dad is a Police Officer. There was a time last year that our son, Grady, went to school and the boy is so darn proud of his dad. He loves him with all of his heart, he loves that he is the only son, and he loves that his dad is a Police Officer. Remember when we were kids and everyone in the class either wanted to be a Police Officer or a teacher? Come on! Who is with me here?

Anyway, Grady went to school and was so excited to tell his class that his dad is an Officer (He is in kindergarten, people. . .kindergarten!). One kid in his class turned to him and said, My dad says we hate cops, and we should never talk to them. UM WHAT! Needless to say, he came home in tears that day. His dad, his hero, was just taken off a pedestal because of a parent’s view of hate that trickled down onto his child. It makes me so sad. And think about trying to explain to Grady that some people do not love his dad because he is an Officer, good luck. That conversation was hard, but it was the new harsh reality of the world we live in.

I sometimes forget that people fear the Police. I forget that they have completely forgotten that First Responders are also people. I can totally remember being that sixteen-year-old kid that had a cop pull up behind them, I went 10 and 2 immediately. I started to sweat and sat up straight. I convinced myself that this Officer was out to get me, and I probably did something wrong. Then, the Officer turned on their lights, and I pulled over. Wait?! What? He went by me to get someone else! Whew! I was off