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Veterans know how to lead. The lessons we learned in the military form the foundation for bigger successes in business, entrepreneurship and community.
Host John S Berry, CEO of Berry Law, served as an active-duty Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, finishing his military career with two deployments and retiring as a Battalion Commander in the National Guard. Today, his veteran led team at Berry Law, helps their clients fight some of the most important battles of their lives. Leading successful teams in the courtroom, the boardroom, and beyond, veteran leadership drives the firm’s rapid growth and business excellence.
Whether building teams, synchronizing operations, or refining tactics, we share our experiences, good and bad, to help you survive, thrive and dominate.
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[00:00:02.640] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
If ever my deputy were ever to testify, what's the point of criminal investigation? His answer or her answer would be to win. I would terminate them on the spot. The objective is the truth, the end. Because if people lose faith in the system, how— no matter how imperfect it is, so we're in trouble.
[00:00:20.980] - John S. Berry
Welcome to Veteran Led. I'm your host, John Berry. Today's guest is Eric Kirsch. He is a Marine Corps Veteran and the Wabaunsee County Sheriff in Kansas. Eric, welcome to the show.
[00:00:30.730] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Thanks for having me.
[00:00:31.730] - John S. Berry
So, Eric, you have had an amazing career, not just as an officer in the Marine Corps, but also in law enforcement coming up to the point where you became the unopposed sheriff in 2025 in Wabaunsee, Kansas. I want to go through that journey. So you go to the Citadel, you're an officer in the Marine Corps, then what?
[00:00:49.860] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
I went to, um, had to go through the basic school in Quantico, Virginia and went to I had to go to Dam Neck, Virginia for counterintelligence, human source intelligence school. It's the only school in the Marine Corps where the officers and enlisted go through as, as, as peers, essentially. If you're a second lieutenant or a warrant officer or a staff sergeant, you go through no rank, no names. It's just based on merit. So that was 3 or 4 months in summer of 2006. I selected for Camp Lejeune. I, they— I just heard that they were the, they were the ones over there. So did my first tour to Iraq in 2006 to 2007, and then we worked up all summer of 2007 to go back to Iraq. '07, '08, I was back in Iraq, and then I was getting out of the Marine Corps because my Citadel scholarship— you were ROTC too, right?
[00:01:42.290] - John S. Berry
Right.
[00:01:42.650] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
So it was what, 4 years active, 4 years reserve?
[00:01:45.500] - John S. Berry
Yep.
[00:01:46.160] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
My— I was going to get out in EIS after 4 years and could become an FBI agent. And my monitor at headquarters, Marine Corps, said, hey, we have an open hot-fill billet at— in DC for NCIS as a special military special agent. Are you interested? And I said yeah. So I had to go through a 6-month, um, intelligence school. I was part of the Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy to make me a case officer. And then I had to do 6 months of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco to become a special agent. And then I went to report into DC. Um, my very first case in law enforcement was a serial killer in the Marine Corps, Jorge Torres. That was in 2009. So, it was 6 years with NCIS active duty. I finished out my years active duty, uh, as an active-duty captain. Um, in 2011, went to Afghanistan for 4 months and doing a whole bunch of cool and not so cool stuff. And then I, uh, I came back home, got out. I worked for DIA as a tradecraft instructor at Quantico for the Joint Camp, making baby spies essentially.
[00:02:56.580] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
That was fun. And then I took a contracting job working for a, uh, an entity over in Kurdistan in 2014 into '15. Um, we were helping out with the fight against ISIS. Nothing— I didn't do anything cool over there, just a lot of back behind the scenes stuff. Very interesting. Nothing super sexy, but very satisfying work. And then I came home and I kind of didn't know who I was anymore because I'd been gone for so long. It was, you know, 5 deployments, military and civilian. I'd been gone for years and years and years and was— got amicably divorced. And my ex and our daughter moved to Missouri., and I knew I had to be a dad, like, you know, near my daughter. So, I moved out to Missouri, and then, um, and my current better half, she was in Kansas getting out of the Army. She was a Black Hawk pilot. Now she's an attorney in Kansas, and she fed me. And I, I just— I was getting my VIN inspection done. I was getting my plates transferred from Virginia to Kansas, and I met, um, my coworker Brian Hasenbank at the sheriff's office.
[00:04:05.550] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
I met the then-sheriff, and he, he hired me on the spot. It was kind of weird. Um, but Kansas accepted my federal credentials. I didn't have to go through their academy. And yeah, I became a deputy sheriff, went into— did a lot of undercover narcotics work, and then worked major cases until I was promoted to undersheriff. And then, um, the former sheriff retired and I ran unopposed and got elected. So, I was serving as the sheriff, baby sheriff of Wabaunsee County, Kansas.
[00:04:37.790] - John S. Berry
And how big is the county?
[00:04:39.670] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
It's about 1,000 square miles, but we only have 7,000 people.
[00:04:43.330] - John S. Berry
Okay.
[00:04:43.650] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
So, it's a tiny place, but it's huge at the same time.
[00:04:47.270] - John S. Berry
All right. And I, you know, the interesting thing is, as a law enforcement officer, we talked about this a little bit before the show, was I've cross-examined a lot of law enforcement officers, and what I found is the most difficult ones to cross-examine are not the smartest or the slickest. And I've had some that are like kind of like rattlesnakes, were like, you know, that if you ask a certain question, they're going to take it a certain way. Right. And I was always scared of those, you know, or I should say cautious. But the ones that scared me were the ones that were just so honest. They'd be like, yeah, you didn't do this.
[00:05:14.050] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
I messed up.
[00:05:14.710] - John S. Berry
No, I messed up. I screwed up. I screwed that up. I screwed that up. And they're just so honest that they build so much credibility with the jury that then by the time, you know, it's getting back, it looks like I may have torn them down. But then by the time it gets back to redirect, the cross-examiner says, yeah, but, you know, and then they go through the list and, you know, it's like, yeah, We all make mistakes. We're all human. There's no, there's no perfect case. As a lawyer trying cases, I do my own after-action review. I'm like, man, I screwed up this. Maybe I won the case. Maybe I got the result I wanted, but it's never perfect. I got to imagine every investigation goes that way, just like any—
[00:05:45.520] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
For better investigators, we know that every question you ask, you already know the answer to.
[00:05:49.500] - John S. Berry
We do. Yeah.
[00:05:50.400] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
And I watched a painful amount of defense attorney, like, instruction videos on YouTube because I wanted to get better at my job, for one. And two, it was just, it made me a better cop. You know, when I was watching baby defense attorneys be educated by like seasoned— like either they were sociopathic defense attorneys trying to like one-up the system, or people that I was more philosophically aligned with, that we had the same job. We wanted to demonstrate that the accusation was lawfully substantiated by evidence, right? Um, there's, there's a lot of conflicting right now generationally. I mean, we're going off track real quick, but
[00:06:26.770] - John S. Berry
Sure, why not.
[00:06:27.410] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
within law enforcement, there's a passing of the torch, so to speak, where, you know, my generation is body cameras, accountability, transparency, taking ownership for mistakes. That's a huge part of it too. I'm very open with the fact that I've been sober for 9 years from alcohol. In my dark days post-war, I was suicidal. I got help, got sober, and like, I'm not ashamed of it. That's just one component of like, you know, leadership and everything too. But court, I like court. I've always liked court.
[00:06:58.510] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
It's like the big game, right?
[00:06:59.470] - John S. Berry
Right.
[00:06:59.950] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Yeah. What are we doing? You know, don't like—
[00:07:02.010] - John S. Berry
it's like the deployment, right? You train, train, train, and now you're going to deployment. Now you go to the show, you're going to do the real thing that you— yeah. So it's— yeah.
[00:07:08.730] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
And every case has a weakness. And if the case is hard, typically they'll attack, you know, the investigator. So, um, you're right. If you could— I've said things like, I don't know, or I didn't do that, or you're right. To defense on cross-examination. It's like, you, you, how do you argue that? It's like, did you, is it true that you didn't interview this person?
[00:07:26.750] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Yes.
[00:07:27.250] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Why not? I was really tired that day. I'm sorry, I forgot. You know, there's a lot of people I had to, he would, I didn't think he was a, I messed up, or whatever I said, you know, on the stand at the time.
[00:07:37.930] - John S. Berry
And that's so disarming, right? Because as a, as we're going through and it's like, and you can see because the jury should give sympathy that, you know, there's the oldest stories in the world are either ones of grace or betrayal.
[00:07:48.090] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Yeah.
[00:07:48.490] - John S. Berry
And a lot of times when you're up there on the set and you admit that, hey, this was not perfect, these are some of the mistakes I made.
[00:07:55.650] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Hey, it was also fear.
[00:07:57.350] - John S. Berry
You just build credibility points. It's a story of—
[00:07:59.860] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
it was also fear-based because I never wanted to end up on a Netflix documentary. It's like, Detective Kirsch let the, you know, let the bad guy, you know, go, or let the good guy get punished unfairly and unjustly by this corrupt system. The, the two things I'm most proud about of all the cases I've worked, I was able to prove that and exonerate two people accused of rape. Thank God for digital evidence, you know, and because I've watched all the documentaries. Are you familiar with the Innocence Project?
[00:08:33.150] - John S. Berry
Yes.
[00:08:33.530] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Huge supporter of that. And Thomas Jefferson, this great quote, he's like, I'd rather nine guilty men go free than one innocent man be imprisoned.
[00:08:40.500] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Right.
[00:08:40.700] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
So there is a sense of there you have to have a sophisticated understanding of morality and good and evil, to make distinctions in order to be effective and credible. And we have to demonstrate credibility on a daily basis with every interaction. And you're not doing our profession— anyone doing our profession— any favors if you're just kind of maintaining continuously bad traditions of, you know, all of the worst stereotypes of law enforcement are not our friends at all. And, uh, we're proud of Wabaunsee County to be doing our part, um, as a progressive agency to, to, to break away from that old, you know, mold of things.
[00:09:24.460] - John S. Berry
Yeah, what I like about getting, you know, the former military personnel into law enforcement is you've got that oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. And, you know, it's, it's not about winning the case It's about justice,
[00:09:38.490] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
finding the truth,
[00:09:39.390] - John S. Berry
finding the truth and justice.
[00:09:40.600] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
And if, if ever my deputy were ever to testify, what's the point of a criminal investigation? His answer or her answer would be to win. I would terminate them on the spot because it's, it's not— the objective is the truth, the end, and nothing but the truth. And like, it's okay to still have that as a core belief and to defend that belief. It's incredibly important because if people lose faith in the system, how— no matter how imperfect it is, we're in trouble. As a nation and society.
[00:10:08.700] - John S. Berry
Yeah, we are a nation of laws, not a nation of men. And we find out— I found this so many times in dealing with prosecutors and judges. It's a different— what people don't understand about the Constitution is that it is a different standard for prosecution and law enforcement than it is for defense attorneys. In fact, defense, our job is to zealously advocate for our clients. And a lot of times people come to me and say, well, how can you represent someone charged with those parallel crimes?
[00:10:40.610] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Because you love the Constitution.
[00:10:41.310] - John S. Berry
Right. Because if you love your country more— and I found, and, and there were times when I can give you some examples, and I won't, where things got political. And people— I always say this, that criminal defense lawyers represent clients, not causes. And when people start going off on causes and they get very political about, you know, I mean, your, your job is to support and defend the Constitution. And if you represent that client. That is where your loyalty lies, not to your cause. And I've seen that get confused, especially recently, so many times. And, and, and that's— I think that's the, the honor in the criminal defense law, because, hey, the public doesn't like you, that for most— for the most part, until you win, right? Then someone's innocent. And, and, but, you know, the, the judge is not happy, you're slowing things down. The prosecution's not happy. Client usually isn't happy because you have to have some tough conversations. Their family usually isn't happy. So you got to stand out there, right? And sometimes, you know, take that beating. But if someone and they say, how can you do that? Right? And it takes brains, it takes intestinal fortitude.
[00:11:39.650] - John S. Berry
Most importantly, it takes a belief in the Constitution. Whether this person is guilty or not is irrelevant. If this person does not have the right to effective counsel, then none of us do. And so, you know, from my perspective going in, I would, I would, like I said, I had some law enforcement officers that I, I think I did a good job cross-examining sometimes. Sometimes it got a little brutal, sometimes it got contentious, but you know what? It was like sports.
[00:12:00.940] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Good.
[00:12:01.000] - John S. Berry
And this is why I love law enforcement officers who played sports or served in the military. Hey, we're going head to head. And at the end of it, they were some of my best referral sources. They'd refer me Veterans, they'd refer me cases because they say, you know what? You came after me, but I respect that you were well prepared. I respect how you handled it. And like I said, win or lose—
[00:12:20.400] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
You can't take it personally ever. That's the other mistake.
[00:12:23.340] - John S. Berry
But yeah, they take it personally.
[00:12:24.880] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Yeah. Strange. It's like, yeah, don't— this is not a— this is bigger than you. Just like service to the nation too, or to your community, or whatever you're doing. There's a larger entity that's more important than however you feel about it or however you— what's your, what's your place in this? It's to honor the reverence of, you know, the— it's not just the Constitution, it's the spirit, the letter of the spirit of the Constitution. And it's perishable, right? That's each generation is going to have to carry the torch into the future. So, you know, we don't need any people playing too many games or messing around with, you know, with law per se, or especially constitutional law. And these things have a tremendous impact if, if there's not a strict adherence to doing things the right way. And it's rather easy if you already have that discipline instilled in you. That's another benefit of working, I found, with Veterans too, that already have in a good way. They're, they're more stoic and robust, uh, than, than other people. And just because you're a Veteran doesn't give you a higher standing, in my opinion. I know plenty of people that are civilians that make Veteran, you know, the stereotypical Veteran look like garbage.
[00:13:33.100] - John S. Berry
But well, we did have the dirtbag E-4s or the dirtbag O-4s, you know, the E-4 mafia. You had the majors that shouldn't have made it past.
[00:13:40.680] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
What did you, what did you retire as, Lieutenant Colonel?
[00:13:42.480] - John S. Berry
Lieutenant Colonel.
[00:13:43.040] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
I was just below the captain, which is the which is the Lance Corporal of the officer corps. But I got out before I picked up major because I effing hate majors. Yeah, no offense to— there's some good majors out there, but by and large they can— yeah, I don't like majors.
[00:13:55.570] - John S. Berry
Well, I didn't like them either until— I gotta tell you, one time I was on staff duty, officer's lieutenant, and there was a guy from Nebraska, Mark Dewhurst, and he was a major. He was the XO.
[00:14:02.890] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Sure.
[00:14:03.410] - John S. Berry
And that guy, I swear, I would get there for PT about 5:30, his, his red Corvette was there. I'd leave every night, it was still there. And you know, they have them like they have them by the throat because if you're a major, you don't have enough— general, you don't have enough years to retire. You got to make lieutenant colonel to retire. And so they're fighting for that one block on their OER. And I mean, these guys were just— they were like zombies. They worked them so hard. So I was like, I never want to be a major. So I came off active duty before I was a major.
[00:14:30.910] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
That's a good thing. Yeah.
[00:14:31.890] - John S. Berry
But yeah, I saw that. I always thought, yeah, I didn't like them. But then I realized that iron major was indispensable to a great battalion.
[00:14:38.810] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Typically, if they were prior enlisted, they were an exceptional one. But if they were someone that was too ambitious or—
[00:14:44.010] - John S. Berry
yeah. Oh yeah, they want to be a general. Oh yeah.
[00:14:45.970] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
They were okay with trampling their prior, prior held convictions and beliefs in order to attain Lieutenant Colonel, right? And then when they get to Lieutenant Colonel, they're cutthroat to get that bird. And when they get that bird, it's up to the star. And then something happens. I mean, Marine Corps obviously is a lot smaller than the Army, but I have had the luxury of working for incredible O-6s in the Marine Corps and incredible 05s, Lieutenant Colonels. And so when I met the off bad one, they were exceptionally bad, if that makes sense, you know, and like just everything that I was like, oh God, gross. No.
[00:15:18.250] - John S. Berry
Yeah.
[00:15:18.650] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
this is horrible. How did you get here?
[00:15:21.130] - John S. Berry
Oh, and we're going to, we're going to touch on that in the after-action review because, yeah, some of those great leaders make the bad leaders look a lot worse. Now, what I want to get to now is the leadership challenge, you know, that you faced today. Right now, back, you know, when I was a young lawyer, The FBI had a policy. They didn't record. Right. And there weren't a lot of body cams. And so the credibility of that testifying officer was everything. And in state court in Nebraska, we could take depositions in criminal cases. In federal court, we did not. A lot of it was called trials by ambush, the Jencks Act, where you get a lot of discovery like 2 days prior to federal trial. There was a lot of challenges, but You know, the one thing that I noticed was that, uh, it seemed to me that everybody still respected the Constitution. I know today people are flipping out about what's going on with ICE and all these stops and searches. As you know, being in Kansas, I'm sure you know Interstate 80 drug pipeline here, defended a lot of Fourth Amendment issues, you know, why cars were stopped, why they were searched, why.
[00:16:23.840] - John S. Berry
And, and so we would fight those. And so people are acting like the Fourth Amendment's a new thing now. It's always been, it's always been something that we had to be very, uh, I think vigilant.
[00:16:31.720] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
The Sheriff's Office did over 5,500 traffic stops in 2025, and we had a grand total of one unsubstantiated complaint on a deputy, which was a pretty good, you know, yeah, that's pretty good, right? That's because we, we prioritize the fact that every stop must start with articulable or reasonable suspicion. The end. And all of us, we We run it like, you know, it's a paramilitary organization, um, and leadership sets the tone, and everyone's a leader. That's the way I look at it, because unlike a big city PD, we've got 1,000 square miles, and there might be at 2 in the morning one deputy, and you're it, and you've, you've got to take on whatever comes your way. So if you're a safe— a knowledgeable officer is a safe officer is a competent officer. So everything matters. Your knowledge of basic fundamentals of Fourth Amendment Being conversational with the, you know, the Terry Doctrine, uh, or Terry Frisk, and, and the, the Carroll Doctrine, the mobile conveyance, the Fourth Exception, or the, the mobile conveyance exception, the Fourth Amendment, things like that. Pennsylvania versus Mims, officer safety, which is still not as important as being professional, competent, polite, and being able to handle everything that you can, and then having the courage to say, I need backup, whether it's from another agency like a highway patrol or for investigations like the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
[00:17:58.360] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
So those are all aspects of leadership that we've instilled in our deputies from the top down, where if I were to die today, I know the show would continue if our wonderful, uh, our XO, our undersheriff, uh, Chris Herbel, if he, if he were to pass away too with me in a car accident. Our agency's survival, because it's our, it's our charge to be the force in readiness and being prepared at all times when the county's least prepared. But those little things matter. How was the stop legal? Because if it isn't, everything gets tossed. And what's the point if we're doing that? And we talk about these things. We talk about, would we want to work in a world without body cameras? I've had long discussions with my peers about this, and it's strange. You think about not that long ago when detectives in big cities would off-camera soften someone up, and then when they— at 7 hours later, when they were worn out, then they would turn the camera or the tape recorder on, read Miranda, and have a— typically get a false confession, you know. And how many times was that to that actually happen.
[00:19:10.530] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
It was a lot, you know, bigger. My first introduction to like real law enforcement was in 1991, Rodney King, LAPD, right? Like, I was a kid, I was 9, 8 or 9 years old when I saw that. The reason I became— I wanted, I wanted to be a Marine and then I wanted to be a cop. I watched Die Hard a lot, and then that damn Fire Monster commercial got me, you know, the Marine Corps, the thing.
[00:19:32.200] - John S. Berry
All right, yeah.
[00:19:32.690] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
I got climbing up fighting the Fire Monster. That commercial got me and like, you know, thousands of other guys and gals. But when I saw the video on the L.A. freeway of Rodney King getting beaten, I got— I was a kid, but I got mad because I was like, that's not what I've seen in movies. Like, I've— those are real cops. Like, that's not good at all. And I realized with this is the only profession that could apprehend killers and monsters and child molesters. And also it's responsible people for a lot of injustices too. You can't pretend like it's without sin.
[00:20:09.350] - John S. Berry
Yeah. Well, and I think as a leader, and especially in law enforcement, I said everybody's a leader.
[00:20:13.610] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Sure.
[00:20:13.770] - John S. Berry
I mean, you know, bad things are going to happen on our watch. We, we are not perfect. We, you know, we're going to make mistakes, and, and that's, you know, it's just something we have to live as a military officer.
[00:20:22.770] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Sure.
[00:20:23.110] - John S. Berry
And then, you know,
[00:20:23.670] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
who's responsible?
[00:20:24.630] - John S. Berry
Who's responsible?
[00:20:25.330] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
You, me, right? I'm responsible for everything we do or don't do. End of story.
[00:20:29.570] - John S. Berry
Yeah.
[00:20:29.990] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
If we mess up, it's on me. And it will always be on me, you know. Ultimately, that's what— that's the obligation of a leader. The end. You can't hide from that, and you shouldn't. And I'm suspicious of people that try to— what's the word— outsource it, really. Because I've met those weenie wieners before. Yeah, well, so-and-so didn't get the X, Y, and Z done. And I'm like, well, no, you're in charge, sir. You're the— you're the battalion commander. Yeah, you're the company commander. You know, you should know better. You're the platoon sergeant, the platoon commander, whatever it is, you got to take care of your ward.
[00:21:03.120] - John S. Berry
And I think, you know, for law enforcement officers who have had that face, face that burden of command before, they understand this better than anyone. And as we talked about before the show, I represented a few law enforcement officers who were involved in fatalities where if someone dies, you know, there's gonna be a grand jury investigation. If someone dies in custody or— or when they're trying to pursue them and get them into custody. And so, you know, these are all great upstandings, a lot of former military, and it was, you know, just doing their jobs.
[00:21:32.460] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
I'm grateful they taught Graham v. Connor and Tennessee v. Gardner at FLETC, and that was the basis for constitutional use of force by LEO in any use of force situation versus that force continuum pyramid that they used to train throughout the United States, which resulted in a lot of unnecessary deaths and injuries. An officer need not be right. An officer need only be reasonable. And then I like the fact that we've got a duty to intervene too. I've got like a prerecorded thing I have to do if I see a suspect. I don't care what they've been accused of. If they're being treated other than a suspect, which is just basic, like, hey, you know, turn around, put your hands behind your back. Even if it's after a chase or even a shootout, right? You have to render aid., right? Just like overseas with the ROEs and laws of land warfare, if you go into some of the deeper USM— UCMJ aspects of things. But yeah, just because it's a child molester or a killer doesn't mean you could, you know, shake them up a bit. Like, you gotta intervene. You gotta say no, because if you don't, that's on you too.
[00:22:37.700] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
It's a vicarious guilt, and you're a perpetrator. And that— it's really important that we as law enforcement talk about that stuff. And we, I think we do by and large because violations of the law and not so much policy, because, you know, it's not really— it's important but not the only encompassing thing. But you have to disrupt the culture where of silence, you know, a lot of times there, there will be like, oh man, back, you know, the old '80s movies and stuff like don't talk to that guy, he ratted, you know.
[00:23:13.190] - John S. Berry
Yeah,
[00:23:13.590] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
he cooperated with IA. I'm like, I'm like, I want to be friends with that guy who cooperated with IA.
[00:23:19.270] - John S. Berry
Yeah.
[00:23:19.590] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Like, rats are not bad. And like, if they're, if they're telling the truth about something and there's an organized effort to cover anything up, like, I don't want to be any part of that at all. It shouldn't be celebrated. It shouldn't be part— a lot of times incompetence masquerades as conspiracy, you know, and I think we're finally in an era where I can confidently say that there's a transition away from the whole, like, my version of brotherhood means that, like, you're gonna come and help me, not you're gonna help me cover anything up. Does that make sense?
[00:23:53.400] - John S. Berry
Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, the old, like, oh, you're throwing somebody under the bus. But if there's accountability,
[00:23:58.360] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
sure.
[00:23:58.780] - John S. Berry
it's— if someone's thrown, appears to be thrown under the bus, it's because they screwed up. They're being held accountable.
[00:24:03.680] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Everything comes out in the wash anyway. Yeah, it all— everything's front street.
[00:24:07.350] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Yeah, so.
[00:24:08.550] - John S. Berry
eventually, yeah. But that is it. How does— how do you, you know, maintain, maintain that culture where, you know, I would say fortunately you're in the Midwest where I think in the Midwest we respect our military, we respect our law enforcement, uh, but how do you maintain that culture where it looks like we're just like in the military recruiting, uh, law enforcement seems to be very difficult.
[00:24:28.340] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
We're fully—
[00:24:28.740] - John S. Berry
a lot of pressure.
[00:24:29.410] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
We're fully staffed and we've been fully staffed for 3 years. I wanted to my undersheriff and I, we're a partner, we're a team, you know, together. He's a former Highway Patrol trooper, Kansas Highway Patrol. He's a— and I'm kind of a hippie, you know, like, and he's not. And the reason why I brought him on was because we're opposites, and that's why it works. He has the permission, and I encourage him to shut the— shut our door and go, this is where you're messing up. And I'm like grateful every time because look, I didn't want a sycophantic XO to be like, yeah, yeah, problem, Sheriff, but we could do that stupid thing that you want to do,
[00:25:07.130] - John S. Berry
right? Yeah.
[00:25:07.660] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
I need someone like— I think every— I think every general officer should have a land— like a salty lance corporal or an E-3 next to him. We got, hey sir, that, that, that's really stupid,
[00:25:16.770] - John S. Berry
right?
[00:25:17.010] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
It's—
[00:25:17.320] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
we shouldn't do it because of these reasons. And the general going, yeah, you're right, we shouldn't do that. I think it would offset a lot of disasters and catastrophes, but I haven't an incredible team. I have an incredible team. Half of them are GWAD vets, and that— it works. You know, our corrections staff is fantastic. Everyone has better options and they choose to stay at the sheriff's office. There's 12 of us sworn, there's 5 corrections officers in the jail, we've got 5 fantastic dispatchers, and it's just— it's, it's an amazing place to work, and that's by design. Because I didn't, you know, one day woke up and I realized I was sheriff and I was back in Marine Corps captain mode where I wasn't perfect at all as Marine captain, but, or lieutenant. But the best thing I did in the Marine Corps my first 2 years was to shut my mouth and listen. And I had great NCOs and senior noncommissioned officers just go, hey sir, let me tell you how not to suck. And I couldn't be more grateful for those, uh, types because they really cared about us because they didn't want to They didn't want to help participate in making like really shitty, uh, you know, field-grade officers or company-grade officers.
[00:26:25.230] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
So everybody knows their jobs and then some. And it helps the fact that we in leadership, we work too. I'm at— I'm on duty Monday through Friday at 5 AM so I can get face time with the night officer and some of the corrections officers that are working at night. I wear body armor every day, and I'm out doing traffic stops too. I'm backing them up on calls. Um, it's by necessity, obviously, but it's also by choice. So, and even if I had a huge department, I would still be out doing that. I'd still take one day a week and just do patrol and go out with the guys. And, and I watch our body cameras. I watch my deputies, their body cameras every day. And when they do something great, I'll take them aside and be like, hey, that was great. Or I'll send them an email if they're on days off and say like, I loved your stop with that older guy on K4 highway with the dog and you were— you excellent. I appreciate it because you were super polite, professional, and you explained the reasons for the stop. You didn't— when he was kind of acting like a grumpy jerk, you didn't, you know, take the bait and bite down on it,
[00:27:31.550] - John S. Berry
right.
[00:27:31.800] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
So you give him praise. And if there's things that we need to correct, we talk about it too. And I, I show him my own mistakes, officer safety mistakes. I'm like, hey guys, where did I mess up here? And They'll say it right here, right here. I'm like, you're right. And you forgot that one too, guys.
[00:27:45.450] - John S. Berry
Right.
[00:27:45.620] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
So it's accountability. Any one of the deputies has the authority and encouragement to like unannounced inspection of my patrol vehicle. And it happens like I'll have one of my deputies come up like, all right, Sheriff, you know, inspection time. I'll have to open up all my stuff and show that I've got my stuff in proper working order. So, there's 360 accountability is super important to me. We're all— bullets don't care what your name or your rank is. Lawsuits certainly don't. And, you know, as we're, we're all meant to, to serve equally, and I'm glad we have a very unique, um, organization because we have a lot of different things going on. And some child crimes are escalating. We've been able to do a lot of proactive, efficient work on significantly reducing recidivism. We've introduced a lot of rehabilitation for substance use disorders in the jail.
[00:28:46.810] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Recidivism rates have dropped, burglaries have dropped, narcotics stuff. We specifically targeted certain people and made no secret about it, like, hey, if you're, if you're doing dirt in Wabaunsee County, you're gonna, you're gonna be stressed out because of us. We're, we know who you are and we're coming after you lawfully, obviously, but I don't— bad guys are not comfortable in Wabaunsee County, Kansas anymore. And I've been— that's all due to my teammates, because we— I'm an egalitarian, and that's my former leadership, which is like to try, like, hey John, what do you think? Like, is this a good idea or not? And that's where I came from, the Marine Corps, where, yeah, I was the officer in charge, but I had subject matter experts that had a lot more experience and knowledge than I did. And how dare I put my own opinion above that? So, take advantage of it, work together, collaborate, and you can be successful and victorious and sleep good at night as a result.
[00:29:41.120] - John S. Berry
Yeah, especially they have different training and specialization than you. That's— we learned that in the military, all, you know,
[00:29:45.220] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
sure.
[00:29:45.590] - John S. Berry
all day long, that there are specialists that we need to rely on, that, uh, they may not have as much experience, but they may have better training and better skills than us, and we got— we rely on. So, Eric, this takes us to the after-action interview. Your example of great leadership and terrible leadership. Don't have to name names.
[00:30:00.410] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Sure. Um, great leadership my company commander in Iraq, Joe Burke, there we had a terrible day and I won't go into details, but there were some, there were some deaths involved. And we were, we were in the compound working on reports and doing an AAR after, after a tough day. And he was there too. And he got done smoking his, he was an old radio reconnaissance enlisted Marine. And there was, you know, did you deploy to Iraq?
[00:30:31.960] - John S. Berry
Yes.
[00:30:32.210] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
All right. So you know how the moon dust gets in everywhere?
[00:30:35.390] - John S. Berry
Yeah.
[00:30:36.200] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
And he needed the room to be cleaned up because it was just getting nasty. And without saying anything, he just started sweeping. And then one by one, all of us stopped working on reports and we picked up brooms and we swept too. And before we knew it, the room was clean of dust and everybody had taken care of what they needed to. They swept the floor, they wiped off the computers and everything else and the gear. And then we went back to reporting. It was like the next day I realized how powerful that was, where he didn't say anything. He just picked up a broom and started sweeping. And then Marines took his lead, grabbed the broom, and it was this kinetic effect, a train wreck effect. And it was very elegant. I don't even think he meant to do that. That was just the way he was, where he didn't yell, never. He never raised his voice. And one thing I'm most proud about, after 8 years in the Marine Corps, other than like combat scenarios. I'm not a badass at all, but even in combat, like, I, I never yelled. I wasn't a yeller because you just tune those guys out.
[00:31:35.010] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
But I appreciated— it was as simple as picking up a broom, which motivated other Marines to pick up brooms and collectively clean the floor,
[00:31:44.070] - John S. Berry
which is hard in that environment because, you know, that next dust storm is coming through.
[00:31:47.050] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Sure.
[00:31:47.690] - John S. Berry
You know, I mean, it's only a matter of time. But to say, hey, yeah, that's, you know, leadership by example, and just sometimes just taking the initiative, then you really know.
[00:31:55.210] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Yeah, sure.
[00:31:55.450] - John S. Berry
Let's start following you. Let's go to the bad.
[00:31:57.770] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Uh, me. Yeah, confess some sins here. So when I, when I started drinking hard, there was several PT tests and combat fitness tests that I would— I was hungover because I was hiding the fact that I was in pain. I was drinking and I called in sick and lied. So like, I can't, you know, it was spread off over enough time where it wasn't so close together where it drew scrutiny. But I knew I was having problems with drinking, and I knew my Marines were out doing the PT, the physical fitness test, or the combat fitness test, and I was at home nursing a hangover because I was too much of a coward to get help, real help. So I just kept drinking. And, you know, looking— I'd kick my old ass now for doing that, but, you know, different times, different chapter of my life. But yeah, lied and hid and was weak and didn't have the ability to— because any one of them on my team back then, I could have said, hey, I'm struggling, and they would have helped me. But we all had to— we all felt like we had to maintain this fake, I'm good, man, I'm good,
[00:33:02.290] - John S. Berry
right?
[00:33:02.710] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
And more likely than not, almost none of us were good back in the dark days of things. So yeah, that was bad leadership. Right there. I'm glad I'm aware of it. I'm glad I'm like trying to hide that, and I'm glad it wasn't— didn't cost anyone their life or something. But you can't mail it in, you know, and you're, you're gonna face struggles and adversity, and that's okay. But this epidemic that we still have, Veteran suicide, it's just— it's such a, such a tragedy. There's been 30,000 Veterans, I think, since 9/11. That have committed suicide. And I just, I was almost one of them too. And it took the former commanding general of Walter Reed to go on a, it was like a Stars and Stripes broadcast back in like 2009, 2010. And he disclosed to the journalist that he had PTSD symptoms. And I don't know where I was when I watched it, but I was like, here's a Lieutenant General physician the commanding general of Walter Reed who's expressing like a human side of himself. And that began my process of, of asking for help and figuring it out because, you know, it's— you try to assume this mantle of role, right?
[00:34:24.040] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Like, you know, Lieutenant, Captain, special agent, sheriff. And at the end of the day, you're just John, you're just Eric, you're just a person. And there's, there's moments of strength and then the moments of weakness. When you're really down your worst, there's strength available if you ask for it.
[00:34:40.090] - John S. Berry
I think this is important because serving as an officer in the military and then having that, this wasn't an easy journey to become sheriff, but now you're serving in a law enforcement leadership capacity.
[00:34:52.240] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Yeah.
[00:34:53.120] - John S. Berry
And I've heard from a lot of people that came out of the military, they went into law enforcement and some of it was amazing. Some of it was like that brotherhood that just wasn't there and it was more politics. And it seems like that was more in bigger cities where the chief of police or the sheriff was just a big politician that would throw anybody under the bus, never really took charge of anything. And then if you were scared to death that someone was going to turn you in, sue you, that there's an internal investigation, no one would have your back. And, you know, and I've, I've had some of those people on the show who went from law enforcement, you know, from military to law enforcement and, you know, PTSD on both sides of it. Right. And so, it's I think sometimes it's tough to, uh, to find the right place to land. But obviously working for a leader like you who has, uh, you know, experienced, I think, some of the struggle and has a space in the military— we get exposed to politics, so we know.
[00:35:51.000] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
Yeah, a little bit.
[00:35:51.670] - John S. Berry
We know what it looks like. Uh, how can, how can Veterans learn more about you or contact you?
[00:35:58.910] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
So we're on Wabaunsee County Sheriff's Office on Facebook. We've incredibly— we've, I think we've got 57,000 followers on our page from a county of 7,000, which is weird. I watch Super Troopers too much, you know? And like, allegedly I've done the, all right, meow, you know, the meow game. But we're on Facebook and also I'm behind two unlocked doors on the first floor of the Wabaunsee County Courthouse at 215 Kansas Avenue in beautiful downtown Alma, Kansas. And they can call me if they want to. I talk to people all the time. I meet with everybody. They can call me directly on my work phone, 785-765-3323. But a lot of times I talk to vets, a lot of times I'm talking to people that are looking to get into law enforcement. My advice to them is to pick a place where you want to live and then pick the best agency there, you know. So, it solves a lot of problems, you know. Like, if you want to really want to live in Key West, do that. I'm sure your options are limited. But if you want to stay home here in Nebraska or stay in Kansas, like, you know, pick the best agency and do ride-alongs.
[00:37:06.130] - Sheriff Eric Kirsch
I still do ride-alongs. I, with big cities, I did one last year with Wichita PD because I love law enforcement. I'm a huge supporter of our profession. I want to do what we can to help improve it. We're doing everything we possibly can to be better servants of the people. Um, I'm a huge fan of— the cops are still my heroes and they always will be.
[00:37:31.000] - John S. Berry
Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we seek to help Veterans build an even bigger, better future after military service. Unfortunately, for some of our Veterans, the roadblock to a better future is that they are not receiving all of the benefits that they earned. If you need help appealing a VA disability decision, contact Berry Law.