Young Michael Shipley and friends played around in Target getting stickers from Military Recruiting Officers to put on their bikes. One day Shipley stopped in his tracks looking at a poster of an M.P. (Military Police). 

“He had a canine and his uniform looked really sharp and all that and I always thought like ‘Man, I would love to do that,’” said Shipley.

In high school, Shipley’s dreams were to become a machinist, a person who operates a machine and other tools of that nature. He took vocational machine shop. He had a desire to build tools because this really caught his interest. Shipley signed up for the military when he graduated high school at the age of 17.  He did not tell his mom, he just signed up on his own, but he couldn’t leave until he turned 18 which was in August. 

“She wasn’t very happy with me, but that’s what I wanted to do,” Officer Shipley said. 

When Shipley entered into the military, one of his first questions was to find out how he could become a machinist, he was told they do not have machinists in the army. Then Shipley decided he wanna be an M.P. Shipley was fortunate enough to be put in an army base where his group worked on police work. While he was in the army base doing police work, he finally realized this is what he really wanted to do.

“From then on I knew that’s what I wanted to do. Once I was in the Army and doing police work that’s what I wanted to do from then on. I didn’t want to do anything else,” Shipley said.

When Shipley came out of the army, he got a job at St. Charles High as a resource officer while working on the police force. With working on the police force comes a lot of emotions. He experienced happiness, sadness, and anger. He has given CPR to an infant and cried afterward with the mother when the procedure was unsuccessful. He has been super upset at people he has seen hurt kids or kids that have hurt their parents. When someone pulled a gun on him, Shipley found himself afraid. 

“Every emotion you can think of is involved with being a police officer,” Officer Shipley said. 

If Officer Shipley could be something different, he would be a professional boxing coach. There have been times where he has considered the thought of quitting and going back to his hometown which is in Indiana. Reasons for wanting to quit would be getting frustrated with others he has worked with or society’s view on police officers, but despite all of that he has decided to stay. 

“I kind of got grounded here and put down some roots here,”  Shipley said. Shipley is really grateful and thankful for his current job at St. Charles High. These last five years Shipley has felt like he has made more of an effect on people than he ever did in his lifetime. 

“I feel like I have more of an impact here doing this with kids than I ever did out on patrol arresting criminals,”  Shipley said.