Ben Olson was a U.S. Marine for eight years with deployments to Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Guam, Vietnam, Jordan, Kuwait, Djibouti in the Horn of Africa and finally seven months in war-torn Syria. He was in the 1st Battalion 5th Marine Corps unit that was embedded with Green Berets fighting ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in 2019.
He was promoted to the rank of staff sergeant in Syria and received an honorable discharge in 2020. Syria was a major combat deployment.
He was part of firefights and combat raids. His unit and the Green Berets help care for 800 causalities, including enemy combatants, in his seven months there. He describes it with two words: chaotic and dangerous.
KPD Officer Ben Olson
Today this 31-year-old veteran patrols the Knoxville Police Department’s (KPD) East District as part of Echo Squad. He joined KPD in March 2023 and spent five months in the Police Academy and four additional months in field training. His first day on solo patrol was on Monday, January 29, 2024.
Olson turned heads in the academy. He graduated as the class valedictorian and won two other awards : “Top Shot” on the firing range with his .45-caliber pistol and as the “Top Driver” behind the wheel of his cruiser.
There’s more. In only 10 months on patrol, he has been named “Officer of the Month” twice.
Last May, he was honored by Chief Paul Noel “for his persistent and thorough efforts to help address a neighborhood problem,” and his work was commended by the city’s Office of Housing and Neighborhood Development. “On April 23 his work resulted in the arrest of three individuals on weapons and drug charges and the recovery of two firearms, including one outfitted with an apparent Glock switch. One of the individuals arrested had multiple outstanding warrants out of a neighboring county” the KPD said during the ceremony.
The transition from Marine to patrol officer surprised him. “I thought I would have a lot more transferable skills from the Marines but I found out quickly that police work is a rude awakening and, in some ways, overwhelming,” he explained. “We have to learn what you can do legally, how to plan when you are working to make an arrest of someone or multiple arrests, know and understand the policies of the department. In the training academy we have to be proficient in our driving and our firearms and understand that we are helping our community and not at war.”
After leaving his Marine life behind, he took a year off to travel the country, trying to decide his next steps, taking time to visit 24 of the country’s national parks to continue his passion of landscape photography. He also stayed with several of his Marine buddies in various states he visited.
One of those visits brought him to Knoxville, East Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. While here he stayed with a Marine buddy and his family in Clinton – Brent Naveiro, who today is an R.N at Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center. “We deployed together to Japan and South Korea and it was a great visit.”
That visit changed his life. “I fell in love with the city (Knoxville), the UT campus and the Smoky Mountains and the people here and I can say that in my entire life the state of Tennessee was not my radar screen at all. I maybe had said the word Tennessee three times in my life. I knew almost immediately this is where I wanted and needed to be. I can’t tell you how much I love it here. I found my new home, my new career and my future with Bri.”
“Bri” is Brianne Sidner, who is from Atlanta and today is assistant manager of the Dogwood Restaurant at Blackberry Farm. They met in 2021 at the Fin-Two Japanese Ale House in Knoxville and things took off from there. They’ve been together for three years and share a home with their dogs in West Knoxville.
“We clicked from the start and my dog, Marcus, fell in love with her.” Brianne is a graduate of Maryville College with a degree in neuroscience. “While going to school she spoke to a recruiter at Blackberry Farm and decided to work there while studying and fell in love with the story of Blackberry Farm and the place and she’s still there,” he said.
Olson is a native of Rochester, New York, and a 2012 graduate of Brockport High School. Two months after graduation he reported to boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. “I knew I wanted to be in the infantry, so it was either the Army or Marines. After meeting with both recruiters, I just loved what the Marine Corps was all about,” he said.
It also didn’t hurt that his career decision was influenced by his father, Ken, who spent 20 years as a patrol officer for the town of On, New York, a Rochester suburb. “He’s very happy that I have followed in his footsteps as a police officer,” Olson said. His dad also attended his KPD Academy graduation. Olson has an older brother, Zack, and two younger brothers, Nick and Josh.
There was another special guest at that graduation. Olson became good friends with Staff Sgt. Fredy Herrera, who was his drill instructor in boot camp. “Gunny came in and pinned my KPD badge on my uniform and it meant so much to me.”
In his short career he has been part of two cases involving suicides. One was a woman who took her life at home and left a note on her front door for her family. “She and her daughter worked together and she left one afternoon and went home and took her life. Her husband found her and it was a tough situation,” he said.
The second was something he describes this way: “I never saw anything like it in Syria in the combat zone.” What he saw here was a young man who ended his life with a 12-gauge shotgun in his apartment. “It was so gruesome I can’t really describe it. But you deal with it and move on,” he said. “It’s one of those unexpected things that happen and we have to deal with it. We never know what’s next out here.”
Tom King has been the editor of newspapers in Texas and California and also worked in Tennessee and Georgia. If you have someone you think we should consider featuring, please email him at the link with his name or text him at 865-659-3562.
Our Town Hero is sponsored by Aubrey’s Restaurants.
