One-word prompt: Color
When I wear my dress uniform, I look ok. I can still cut it, even if the real cutting these days is around the collar and the waistband. I can't afford a new one - we're talking about two hundred bucks or so.
It's the only time other officers can look at me, take in the color bar ladder above my badge, and get a real idea of my achievements, without having to fall back on what they have heard about me in the mess hall or the locker room or wherever the hell else it was I first started getting referred to as "The Whack Job". Or "The Rat".
I have the EPD for Excellent Police Duty. As does Eames. She has the MPD as well - Meritorious Police Duty. Last time we were both in dress uniform she had her MPD bar on upside down and I had to fix it for her. Quinn's funeral. I think she can be forgiven a little sartorial absent mindedness, under the circumstances.
I've got the Liberty Citation for the small part I played in the 1986 celebrations.
But the most important - perhaps the one that means the most of all to me, on reflection, is the all-black bar with the letters WTC embossed on it.
World Trade Center.