FMPD Roll Call
The Fort Myers Police Department is taking listeners behind the scenes of the agency. Each episode will highlight department initiatives, community partnerships, and the people working to keep our city safe.
FMPD Roll Call
Life After Service
The room changes when people who’ve seen the worst days talk about building better ones. We sit down with two Army veterans from our training division—Officer Wells and Officer Spencer—who trace a line from deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan to roll call in Fort Myers. Their stories are honest and grounded: why the uniform still matters, how civilian life can feel unstructured, and what it takes to make clear decisions when the pressure spikes and seconds count.
We dig into the training philosophy that shapes our officers: crawl, walk, run; basics before flash; mentorship that corrects and encourages. You’ll hear how hood drills and stress inoculation reveal true readiness, how leadership means anticipating needs and communicating cleanly, and why consistent reps on fundamentals—traffic stops, de-escalation, tactical movement, communication—build the reflexes that keep everyone safer. Along the way, they share the small moments that stay with veterans: the first cheeseburger back home, the feel of carpet under bare feet, the quiet gratitude of being stateside with family.
Threaded through it all is the spirit of Veterans Day—esprit de corps, service beyond self, and respect for anyone who signed the line, regardless of MOS or years served. We talk about transferring combat-earned calm to the street, turning experience into empathy, and living for the aha moment when a trainee finally owns a skill. If you care about public safety, leadership, and what real training looks like from the inside, this conversation delivers hard-won insight with heart.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with someone who values service, and leave a review to help others find these stories. Your feedback shapes future episodes and keeps this mission moving.
Welcome to FMPD Roll Call, the official podcast of the Fort Myers Police Department. I'm your host, Megan Fuentes, Public Information Officer. Today is Veterans Day, a time to honor the men and women who have worn our nation's uniform and continue to serve their communities long after. Here at Fort Myers Police Department, we're proud to have many veterans among the ranks, including the two joining me today from our training division, Officer Wells and Officer Spencer. Both have served our country, and now they dedicate their experience and leadership to training and preparing every officer in the Fort Myers Police Department. Thank you both for being here and thank you for your service. Roll call begins now.
SPEAKER_02:I actually enlisted in the Army right out of high school. So it was like 2009 and 2013 that I was active duty. I was stationed in Fort Drum, very cold. Did not like it, but just for that reason. Did a tour in Afghanistan while I was over there. I left that and then went into the National Guard for about six years. And I ended that tour in like 2019. I think total 10 years.
unknown:Sounds right.
SPEAKER_00:And how long have you been here?
SPEAKER_02:Seven. Yeah, working on year number eight.
SPEAKER_00:What about you, Officer Wells?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 2008 joined the Army right out of high school. Did six years active duty. Most of that time was spent with third ID uh Fort Stewart, Georgia. After I got out of there, I came and joined the reserves. And I'm still in the reserve. So I have 17 years of service in the Army now as a combat engineer. And I've been here for six years.
SPEAKER_00:So you're almost done.
SPEAKER_01:I'm almost done. Well, I have almost 18 years. So yeah, I have a couple more years left and then I retired.
SPEAKER_00:I joined probably a while out of high school, probably four or five years out of high school. So I was like one of the oldest in my division.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And they were like, wow, you're 21 already. And I'm like, yeah, guys.
SPEAKER_01:You're an adult. I know. I turned 21 in Iraq. Yeah, I mean, uh, it was just another day. So nobody even knew it was my birthday.
SPEAKER_00:You didn't tell anyone?
unknown:No.
SPEAKER_00:You kept that under wraps, too.
SPEAKER_01:It's a different culture in the military. You kind of get hazed for stuff like that. So they kind of make fun of you and make your day harder than it has to be.
SPEAKER_00:In the Navy, I could tell you that was not a thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Joined the wrong branch, apparently.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Ross Powell, you both spent your lives in service, first to the country and now to your community. What made you want to continue that mission with law enforcement?
SPEAKER_02:There was just something that seemed everything seemed empty without putting on a uniform and working with a bunch of like-minded people to come to the same kind of goal, like to working towards a common cause. I worked at Comcast, I did construction, I did none of those things are bad. They're all formative. But working with other people to, like I said, to to help, to just help folks. That was kind of the uh that was kind of the transition point.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I tried a couple things after active duty also. I didn't like working in the civilian world. I missed the military, I missed the organization. I missed the esprit decor, uh, you know, where people were proud of doing what they did. And I was actually on my way back. So I was I had my war officer packet in to go fly for I wanted to be fly helicopters for 160th night stalkers. However, I also put an application into Fort Myers PD. So the trajectory went quicker with Fort Myers PD. They were more responsive. So that's the route that I took, and I'm happy I did.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, in our department, I I feel it, especially with the command, the structure here. I can understand the easy transition from military to law enforcement just because of being here and understanding how it already worked.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, especially at Fort Myers. You got strong leadership. You know, our chief is still out at PT every morning at the academy. So that was just more things that linked Fort Myers PD to a familiarity with the military, which is why I wanted to be here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, chief would make a good drill instructor. For many veterans, obviously, transition back civilian life can be challenging. What was that experience like for each of you?
SPEAKER_02:It can be tough sometimes going from you know, being told what to do, not necessarily what to think, but you you have your day pretty much laid out for you. You know what's expected because it's gonna be the same thing that's expected of everybody else. The agency that you have over yourself as a civilian is something that you don't really appreciate until you've had it all stripped away and you've been in the military. And I mean, you can probably agree with that, you know, being able to make a decision of what I'm gonna wear today, do I even want to get out of bed? Like all these things are decisions that you make and people make every single day, but you don't get to do that in the you know, in the military. So I think that was that was a big a big transition point. That was probably one of the tougher things, and especially coming into law enforcement. You know, this is all decision-based work that we do. You know, we make decisions every day on the street, and that's and they can be pretty big decisions. So going from you know, regimented, I don't want to say autonomous, but you know, you're you're doing less thinking for yourself that and then being thrust into this place where you're, you know, expected to make these decisions all the time, every day, multiple times a day. And it's not just for you, it's for other people, and they can have some large impacts. You know, I think that was a big that was probably the hardest part of transitioning, especially not just into civilian life, but also into law enforcement. But again, I had great training cadre here. Um, we came in at a great time because I think we came in about the same time. That helped me break out of it because I had really good trainers to kind of guide me and say, hey, you know, go do this thing. And I just did it and it's like, oh, cool, I can make decisions.
SPEAKER_01:At transitioning, the hardest thing for me was the lack of discipline, I guess, in the civilian world or the lack of accountability to be disciplined. So, like in the army, you don't have a choice. You know, most everybody is at least to some extent disciplined in something, in some way. So it was easier to talk to those people, it was easier to hold them accountable when they did something wrong. Transitioning to the civilian world, that wasn't always the case. It wasn't very merit-based. And I and I missed that. You know, like if I worked hard and I was disciplined and I did the right things, then I can go as far as I want. But in the civilian world, it didn't seem like any of those attributes mattered as much as they did in the military. That's why I missed it so much.
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell It's clear that your military experience continues to shape the way you lead and serve. How has that background influenced how you approach your role as a police officer?
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Powell It plays heavily into how I approach my role as a police officer. I gained a lot of life experience being in the military, being around different walks of life, going to different countries, seeing different cultures, and then applying that to problem solving here in the city of Fort Myers, dealing with people and on their worst days. You know, and I've seen a lot of people's worst days outside of being a police officer. So it helps you bridge the gap of empathy and be able to help them when they're at their lowest and try to find a resolution.
SPEAKER_02:I would say probably the decision making under pressure is probably a big one that I like to like to kind of bring back to because you know, in in the military you're trained for all sorts of things, but like it's very job specific. But you're always there's always a baseline, right? And I mean they continue so they'll they all talk about crawl, walk, run. And we do that, we use that in training here. We try to teach people how to do something, talk about it, and then kind of show them, and we get a little harder and faster until we're like up to like full speed. And that type of model helped me in the military, to being able to make the decisions to where you're there's other things happening around you, and there's consequences for your actions, and you're persevering through that to try and like keep yourself calm and focused, and you're drilling into the actual you know crux of the issue and then being able to come to a resolution for all the parties involved. Without having that pressure testing beforehand from the military, I think it would have been a lot harder to come into this profession. Yeah. I mean, you know, having two grown men yell at you from left and right, you know, because your shoes aren't right. You know, if that's the beginning, right? But like that's that transitions directly, that relates directly into law enforcement because you go walk into a scene and people are yelling at each other for, you know, who knows what. And so being able to keep your head straight and make those decisions and go forward through that is kind of um it just translates directly into it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think being cobbed under pressure is something we learned as early as boot camp. So you guys both serve in our training division. So tell me a little bit about how your background as a veteran helps you train new officers.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I'm still serving as a platoon sergeant. So at the 365th Engineer Company here in Cape Coral, where I am in charge of 30 people there. And that kind of is a direct translation to what I do here as a field training officer coordinator. So I have a lot of new people who need guidance and need direction. So I take my experience from leading in the military and I just apply it here. I make sure that I'm one step ahead of whatever their needs are, so that way there's no nobody being left in the dark or being unsure. I try to communicate as best as I can from the top down. So they're never left uninformed. And then if they ever need anything, I have an open door so they can come to me and they always I want to make them feel like they are comfortable enough to come and talk to me about anything that they might need, so that way they could be successful as road officers on their own. Eventually, that's the goal. It's to make you the best Fort Myers police officer you can be from start to finish. So that way when you're out on your own, we've done everything we could do to give you all the tools that we could give you, the same way I would do with a new soldier who came in as a brand new combat engineer. I want to get you fully up to speed to where you can do this without my help.
SPEAKER_00:And Officer Spencer, I know your role is a little bit different than his. So he takes care of obviously all the new recruits that come in. Right. And your job is to train the officers that are currently coming here or have been here for a while. Right. So how do you keep that new and fresh and use your military background?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, it I remember you so I was an infantryman. It was, it's I don't want to say bare bones, basic like army stuff, but typically in the in in the army, at least, when you go to basic training, it's the same basic training for everybody. And depending on whatever your extra job is, on top of that, you get extra training. So if you're a combat medic, you go, they teach you how to put tourniquets on people and do combat medic stuff. Same thing for the dentists, and everybody else has that advanced school afterwards. In the infantry, it's basically a couple extra weeks of more basic training. So they just drill down the basics. And so that's what I have kind of started to adapt into a lot of my training is just drilling down the basics. To quote Bruce Lee, I think he said, you know, he doesn't fear the man who knows a thousand kicks. He he fears the man who has practiced uh one kick a thousand times. And it's it's knowing the basics and being able to get that like locked in and dialed in. That's what I tried to bring towards training now, because we do several micro training sessions a week. And we do uh block trainings, I think five times a year now. We're up to number five. And we do try to conduct training throughout the year. And just no matter how advanced and specialized we get, bringing it all the way down to the foundation and strengthening that foundation, making sure that's strong that so that everything else that comes on top of it is like also good or better.
SPEAKER_00:Would you say you draw a lot from your military experience when it comes to training new officers or officers that have been here for a while?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, and there's also the mentorship aspect of it. Because I mean, I had a lot of really good NCOs when I was in the Army that didn't just say, hey, you're doing this wrong. They said, Hey, you're you're you're doing this wrong, and this is how to do it right. So that's it's not just about browbeating and and and yelling at people, making them feel like they don't know, because if they don't know, well then cool, but your job is still to teach them. So that's the you know, that's what I kind of got out of it. Had a lot of good leadership opportunities to learn from a lot of people on on what to do. And that was uh that's what I bring.
SPEAKER_00:So I gotta ask, whose idea was it to cover the officers' heads before the scenario in this latest training?
SPEAKER_01:That's that's almost industry standard now. We learned it from our EFC training, Jay Wadsworth, who who hosts that and produces that kind of training. But in level two, you do those are called hood drills. So it makes you react to a situation that you're not prepped for. Just going back to like uh Officer Spencer said, your basic skills, like your foundation. Is your foundation strong enough to handle these law enforcement scenarios this quick?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we're not the only ones doing it. I mean, it's I I I would wager to say we're one of the first. I mean, I I don't know if the other agencies in the area have been doing it, but I mean, I know we have never done anything like that. And it's it's we're not the only ones doing it. It's not a new thing. It's just we're we're trying to bring everything up to speed. And and also that's how you test the reactions. That's how you test the foundation is and and and you add some pressure and see where everybody's at. So you can figure out who needs a helping hand, who needs some extra time or who's doing good and ready for more, and and just constantly building on that.
SPEAKER_00:So, since today is Veterans Day, what does Veterans Day mean to both of you?
SPEAKER_02:So, Veterans Day has always been to me not just going to Applebee's and getting your free, you know, pot stickers or whatever, though that's great, and I'll probably be doing that later. It's I don't normally take any time and like reflect on myself. I normally look towards other people and try to, you know, devote my attention to others because like I just I'm I I guess selflessness is part of the part of one of the job requirements here. But that's where I take a second and I say, you know what? You did something good, and then I take my kids the the parade and Kip Coral because I like to show them, you know, like hey, this is this is what it's about. Because kids don't usually know what you know mommy or daddy did when they're in the military, especially if they're little. So getting to show them, I mean, your kids are older now, so they have kind of an idea, but you know, that's what it is to me, is like say I did this is what I did and showing my kids and my my family this and just taking a second saying, you know what, you did good, and then getting back to it.
SPEAKER_00:I know I take my daughter for Memorials Day, it's over in Cape Coral. And obviously she's four, she doesn't know, but still I think it's the the sacrifice and also honoring that. And obviously as veterans, I want to honor other veterans as well, even if I don't tell them I'm necessarily a veteran.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's the esprit de corps. You know, that's what it means to me is if you see another veteran, you know we both did the hard thing, we both went through something similar, and it's the same thing if you're in another state or another city and you meet some of the officers there. There's kind of this unspoken respect that we have for each other because we kind of understand the similarities of what you've been through, of what I've been through, and and it's a connection. It's that esprit de course, that pride in the uniform, pride in the service. So that's what it means to me.
SPEAKER_00:What was a defining moment for you when you served?
SPEAKER_01:I think I've had a couple of them. I mean, a defining moment for me was getting back to the States after being gone for a year in Iraq. Like I didn't understand how much I appreciated America until then, until I was in another country and I was living in an austerior way where it wasn't comfortable, hardly ever. And I just missed things like a cheeseburger and actual bed or comfortability of being around friends and family. Like I missed a lot of those things. So when I came back home, I remember getting off the plane in Georgia when we landed and just being so happy and so thankful that I was I was out of another country and I was back home in my own country.
SPEAKER_00:I forgot how to use my phone when I came off deployment. Like after seven months, I forgot texting was a thing.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Completely. What about you?
SPEAKER_02:I actually uh so for me is the weirdest thing. And I my uncle served in in Iraq. He was he was a Gulf War veteran, and he he and I have like a like an unspoken little bond there. But he said, before I went to my first deployment, he said, you know, you're gonna miss some of the weirdest things when you leave. And when you're gone, you're not gonna realize how much you miss it until like you're it's not there. And I when I came back, I just walked barefoot on the carpet in my house, and I was just so excited. I felt so at home just have being barefoot on the carpet. That was such a and it's the weirdest thing. It's almost like that scene in Die Hard where he does that like in the very beginning. It's almost like that. It's just the weirdest thing. I was like, I never thought I'd miss carpet. Yeah. You know, until you go to a third world country, you can't really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00:What keeps both of you motivated to continue the mission every day, both in training and in the field?
SPEAKER_02:I live for the aha moment, and that's something that I kind of grew when I was in the military too. Because when you're in, you're you know, your NCO's job is always to like mentor and guide and coach and like try to bring them to you're always training the people below you to, you know, for your job, training your replacement, right? And so that when I'm able to push a concept and maybe explain something, and then seeing it click and it happened, and like they it's not just that you know the training of the students understanding it, but they like they really like they were struggling, and then they just kind of cross that peak, and it's just like, oh, that's what that's what this is, and that's why it's important, and then being able to put into action, that's what that's what motivates me for all of it. I mean, for anything. I do I love being able to convey that message and see that like that light bulb pop that that gives me joy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I would say my motivation is similar. I genuinely care about people, I genuinely care about the people at the Fort Myers Police Department. And when I can see somebody who's struggling and knowing that I can step in and apply uh some of my experience and my knowledge and get them to the next step or or help them along. And and just seeing that without any recognition at all, that's my motivation. Is like I saw I saw you from zero, now you're at 10. Like I want to continue to do that for as many people as I can do that for.
SPEAKER_00:Perfect. Is there anything you guys would like to add that I did not about Veterans Day or your service here?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, everybody's veterans experience might be a little different, but we all share a commonality in a lot of things. So, you know, whether you served two years or 10 years or 20 years, you know, we we all have that common ground where we can come together and talk. And it and it's a small community, but I would just encourage people to stay in that community as much as they can with whatever that is, VFWs or memorials or parades or whatever it is, just stay involved.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, it's just getting coming down to the trading office and we can, you know, talk shop for a little bit or like reminisce. And it doesn't matter if you did 20 years or if you did like three years, doesn't matter if you did all the, you know, cool guy special forces stuff, or if you were just, you know, a mechanic. It it does it doesn't matter because you don't always get to choose your lot in life. When you when you join, you're throwing your name in the hat for whatever they're gonna send you for. So just having signed your name on the line and then coming out of it, like we're we have stuff in common. We can, you know, we can pal around about that.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Officer Wells, Officer Spencer, thank you both for joining me today, and thank you for everything you do for the Fort Myers Police Department for this city and for our country. To all veterans, both here at FMPD and throughout our community. We thank you for your service, your sacrifice, and your continued commitment to making a difference. From all of us at the Fort Myers Police Department, happy Veterans Day.