It’s not easy being Blue. For several years now police departments have struggled to recruit, hire, and retain officers to fill their thinning ranks. In the wake of a spasmodic year of protests and pandemic, plus an aftermath of violent crime, the profession may be fast approaching a generational and possibly historic reckoning. “We are in uncharted territory right now,” Executive Director Chuck Wexler of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), a nonprofit police policy research group, told National Public Radio. “Policing is being challenged in ways I haven’t seen — ever.” The outflow of officers retiring and resigning earlier…