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I THOUGHT THE BADGE WAS MY IDENTITY. I THOUGHT IF I EVER LOST IT, I WOULD LOSE MYSELF. I WAS WRONG.
We honour first responders for their strength. We celebrate the rescues, the courage, and the lives saved. But we rarely talk about what happens when the person who spends years rescuing others is the one who needs saving.
In Not on a Horse, Anthony Buccella shares an unflinching, deeply personal account of twelve years in law enforcement across Correctional Services Ontario, the RCMP, and the Toronto Police Service—and the lasting cost of carrying other people's worst days.
From prison riots and life-threatening calls to the adrenaline that once made him feel invincible, Buccella takes readers inside a world few people truly understand. But behind the uniform, another battle is unfolding. A cancer diagnosis, the loss of the identity he built his life around, and the eventual diagnosis of complex PTSD force him to confront a truth he spent years outrunning: surviving the job and surviving what it leaves behind are two very different things.
This is a story about trauma, isolation, guilt, and the moments that follow when the sirens stop. It's about what happens when the coping mechanisms that once kept you going begin to fail—and when the person everyone expects to be strong can no longer hold everything together.
But this is not simply a story about what was lost.
Through the unexpected grounding of jiu-jitsu, the unconditional love of family, and the extraordinary bond with Trooper, his service dog, Buccella begins to discover that recovery isn't a sudden transformation or a tidy ending. Sometimes it's one breath, one difficult conversation, one request for help, or one small moment of peace at a time.
Not on a Horse is an honest look at the human cost of service, the struggle to rebuild an identity beyond the uniform, and the possibility of finding your way back when you no longer recognize yourself.
Because taking off the uniform doesn't mean your service no longer matters. And needing rescue doesn't make you any less of a rescuer.
Maybe there's no hero on a horse. Maybe rescue has been walking beside us all along.
I THOUGHT THE BADGE WAS MY IDENTITY. I THOUGHT IF I EVER LOST IT, I WOULD LOSE MYSELF. I WAS WRONG.
We honour first responders for their strength. We celebrate the rescues, the courage, and the lives saved. But we rarely talk about what happens when the person who spends years rescuing others is the one who needs saving.
In Not on a Horse, Anthony Buccella shares an unflinching, deeply personal account of twelve years in law enforcement across Correctional Services Ontario, the RCMP, and the Toronto Police Service—and the lasting cost of carrying other people's worst days.
From prison riots and life-threatening calls to the adrenaline that once made him feel invincible, Buccella takes readers inside a world few people truly understand. But behind the uniform, another battle is unfolding. A cancer diagnosis, the loss of the identity he built his life around, and the eventual diagnosis of complex PTSD force him to confront a truth he spent years outrunning: surviving the job and surviving what it leaves behind are two very different things.
This is a story about trauma, isolation, guilt, and the moments that follow when the sirens stop. It's about what happens when the coping mechanisms that once kept you going begin to fail—and when the person everyone expects to be strong can no longer hold everything together.
But this is not simply a story about what was lost.
Through the unexpected grounding of jiu-jitsu, the unconditional love of family, and the extraordinary bond with Trooper, his service dog, Buccella begins to discover that recovery isn't a sudden transformation or a tidy ending. Sometimes it's one breath, one difficult conversation, one request for help, or one small moment of peace at a time.
Not on a Horse is an honest look at the human cost of service, the struggle to rebuild an identity beyond the uniform, and the possibility of finding your way back when you no longer recognize yourself.
Because taking off the uniform doesn't mean your service no longer matters. And needing rescue doesn't make you any less of a rescuer.
Maybe there's no hero on a horse. Maybe rescue has been walking beside us all along.