HAGERSTOWN, md. — Martin Gallery took off his gold badge and put it on the table alongside his pistols, computer and collapsible night stick.
He had already brought the rifle and shotgun from his patrol car, where you can see the trace of the “K-9” symbol he removed from the rear bumper after his dog died in March.
Gallery, 70, and Samson had been together eight years. And the dog’s death was one of the things that brought the National Park Service lead ranger to local headquarters Wednesday to close out a career of more than three decades.
Saturday was the last day for Gallery, who said he was retiring as the Park Service’s eldest and longest-serving current law enforcement ranger. He had been stationed at the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park for 36 years.
He patrolled the 184.5 miles of the park, which follows the route of the old canal along the Potomac River, from Cumberland to Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood.
He chased poachers, was shot at by a squirrel hunter, and was assaulted by drunken fishermen and campers. He handled drownings in the river — 18 in one year alone in Washington County — and shot rabid animals.
He once worked a homicide, a case near Hancock, in which an assailant forced a woman into the river.
And for the most part, he worked by himself, accompanied in recent years by his dog — dashing along the interstates or back roads to reach remote spots on the twisting length of the park, ready for anything.
He carried four firearms, a Taser, a gas mask, a riot helmet, a hazmat suit, a medic’s bag, a camera, mace, a flashlight, handcuffs, a defibrillator and a cellphone.
“We work alone,” he said, “but that’s how the career goes. … You’d get a call at night (for a campground disturbance) and you go in and … there’s a keg of beer and everybody’s drunk and you’re the only (officer) there.”
But over three decades, he never fired a gun. “I had it out a lot, with the poachers, but never had to do that in all my career,” he said.
The dog was a godsend. “He was a 133-pound bomb dog, and he was no-nonsense,” Gallery said.
“Sammy,” as Gallery called the black Lab, was a protector, partner and companion.
He’s not over the dog’s death last year from leukemia, and he teared up when he spoke of the animal. “When you get into a vehicle with him, 10 hours a day … it’s hard. He just becomes such a fixture to you.”
He’d hoped they could retire together.
Gallery, who lives in Scrabble, W.Va., paused Wednesday, his last working day, in the park’s historic Ferry Hill mansion to reflect on his career.
A lean, amiable man with a gray mustache, he said he is the son of a U.S. Coast Guard customs officer and a native of Gloucester, Mass. He served in the U.S. Merchant Marine and in 1966 was married and living in Glen Burnie, Md., when he was drafted for the Vietnam War.
He said he joined the Park Service in 1978 and, despite a gimpy wrist, became a commissioned law enforcement ranger the next year.
As he reaches retirement, he said he’s not sure what he’ll do, maybe more fishing and kayaking, perhaps work with other police dogs or in another law enforcement capacity.
“It’s the end of an era for me,” he said. “My wife said I lose identity. So what. I’ll pick it up when I start doing something else.”
