CPT (R) Rich Nable

CPT (R) Rich Nable sat down with me for Heroes I Know.

Sandy Springs. North of Atlanta. Rural when he was a kid. Quiet. Parents lived there until they were gone. Last one in 2018. He has a brother still on the job. He cannot get him to retire.

University of Richmond. Biology. Four years. He thought research. Maybe a lab. He wanted something different every day. Help people. Fun. He did not mean to stay. Next thing he had 28 years.

Police academy. 1987. Six weeks. He got out and knew he was not ready. The shift was 50-plus. Every one a military vet. Most from Atlanta PD. Vietnam. He parked behind buildings and walked. Bad guys see a cruiser a mile out.

Last 12 years were SWAT. Training. Twenty-four seven on call. He hated days. Admin. Crowds. He liked the work that made you get out of the car. Mindset first. Training second. Nobody gets a free pass.

He retired from Fulton County Police. Twenty-eight plus. A year at Georgia Tech. Firearms training overseas. Professorship at Reinhardt. Then farther north. Mountains. Property on the National Forest.

Antiquities on the side. Twenty years. Weapons going back 5,000 years. Five volumes of authentications. Badge collection. Metro Atlanta archive to the late 1800s. He cuts dead hemlocks. Some 300 years old. Bears. A 300-pound pig. Bobcats. A mountain lion on camera. Georgia will tell you those are not here. The camera says otherwise.

He lives up there now. Peaceful. Quiet. That is why we hit record. Get the story on tape before we are too old or too sick to tell it.