Mark Breen has stories to tell.

Of being at Ground Zero.

Of guarding presidents.

Of saving a hostage and shooting a gunman.

Of patrolling in New Orleans after Katrina.

They're true. All of them.

"Over the course of the last 20-25 last years I like to think of it as something of a James Bondesque experience," he said. "My wife calls it more of a Forrest Gump experience. I've actually found myself landing in the middle of some historical events. I've done some pretty interesting things with the state police."

Word of the New York State trooper's exploits spread all the way to Coeur d'Alene, leading to his visit here this week.

A college friend, Dave Renaldo, read of Breen's experiences on Facebook, and told his wife, Rondi Renaldo, about the man he knew long ago. Rondi, executive director of the Kootenai Humane Society, wondered if Breen might be willing to be "auctioned" off during a KHS fundraiser.

That led Dave Renaldo to call Breen.

"He said, 'Wow, you have quite an interesting life story. Would you mind coming out here and telling it.' I said absolutely," Breen said.

Monday night, Breen shared five hours worth of his stories during the auctioned dinner program at Beverly's - and he had more to say.

The 42-year-old husband and father of two considers himself "an unassuming, humble character."

He even works the afternoon shift "because nobody else likes them."

"At the end of the day, I do dishes and laundry like everyone else," he said.

It's just when he's not carrying out household chores, he tends to be in the midst of something pretty extraordinary.

Even his hobbies tend to push the edge.

He was a world-class ski jumper who competed in the United States, Europe and Canada, and today coaches young ski jumpers and helped build a new ski jump in Salisbury, Conn., which is the subject of a documentary film.

"I traveled back behind the Iron Curtain, countries like West Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, had some real neat experiences with ski jumping," he said.

It is his career in law enforcement, though, where his role astounds.

Can you share some of the stories of your career?

During the Sept. 11 incident I was employed right down to Ground Zero in the immediate aftermath of that event, and have a million and a half stories to tell about the devastation and the general atmosphere of what occurred.

After Hurricane Katrina, I was sent to New Orleans to assist the state police in the relief effort. I participated in the anti-looting patrols and search teams that were put together to go through houses and try and locate bodies and whatnot.

We were down there, two week waves. You go down for two weeks, come back for two or four weeks, then go back again for two more weeks.

I met Fats Domino at that time.

Can you talk about the hostage incidents you were involved in 2009 and 2010?

One of those involved a high school where I was part of the initial responding team. We treat things differently now in the wake of Columbine. That taught law enforcement a lot of lessons. You don't just go in and do surround and drown technique. Surround the scene, and secure, wait for hostage negotiators or the SWAT teams. In the old days, they thought whoever was in there had an agenda and wanted something. But now we know a lot of times they just want to kill and wreak havoc. So you can't wait for SWAT officers to gear up and get there. The initial responding officers actually have to go in and neutralize the threat immediately to try and lessen causalities.

I was involved in a hostage taking at a high school, where we were able to go in, isolate the bad guy from the students. I led that effort and was able to secure the school. A hostage negotiator was involved, the gentleman did end up giving up without any injuries.

What about the other hostage situation?

This time was with a divorced couple, they were estranged from each other, the husband had gone to the wife's house, shot his way in, ripped the phone out of the wall while she was on 911 in an upstairs bedroom. Within 19 minutes of receiving the call, I responded to the scene, I actually forced entry into the house, forced entry into the upstairs bedroom where she was being held. I grabbed her, threw her down a flight of stairs to save her, her husband was distracted momentarily on a cell phone. I kicked open the door, he pointed a shotgun at myself and a sheriff's deputy, I returned fire and ended up killing him.

Even with that sort of tragic ending, as a whole, it ended up successful. Those situations usually end up being a murder-suicide.

How do you face these situations?

I take the job seriously. You get involved in that kind of a career to get involved in these scenarios. However, these things can go south on you. I, like anybody else, don't want to have anything go wrong. I have two children and a wife and a lot to lose.

In all honesty, I'm kind of a faithful person, things just seemed to have worked out, in the events I've described, that ended up being successful like the shooting incident. I did a lot of things wrong, according to the book, it just ended up working out. I kind of look at it as divine intervention, so to speak.

What do you think about in these cases?

I don't worry about myself, I just hope for the best. For whatever reason, I've been able to compartmentalize. When I'm in a situation like that hostage taking, I'm just thinking like I'm a baseball player. When the ball comes to you, where are you going to go with it. Who's on base, what will you do.

Any fear?

The other aspect you think might creep in, the fear or the vapor lock you might get, don't seem to enter into the equation with me. I'm very thankful to have that ability. It's not a hero aspect. I'm 5-10, I weigh about 165 pounds. I'm just trying to do the best job I can. As time has gone on, I've been involved in these events, I'm just fortunate to have success going forward. I don't know why.

Is there a moment in your career you're most proud of?

The situation where I was able to save that woman, I kind of consider my crowning achievement.

We had another incident, very similar, the husband took the wife hostage in the house with a gun, sheriff's department handled the case. They didn't go in immediately, gave the gentleman time to barricade the house and then he ended up starting to shoot. When they realized they had to react it was almost too late. They couldn't get into the house because of the barricade situation. The husband ended up killing the wife and killing himself.

The press came down hard on the law enforcement agency for that. In those scenarios, it tends to be the case more often than not, the husband needs enough time, enough drink in him to get up the courage to kill the wife, and then he kills himself. No good is done in those scenarios. Being able to go into that kind of a scenario and actually pull that woman out successfully, I consider kind of my crowning achievement. I received numbers of accolades and awards afterward.

What type of work have you done with the Secret Service?

I've been involved in three Secret Service protection details with a vice president and two presidents. Two of those I was uniformed patrol in the security aspect.

Recently, I actually helped organize the Chelsea Clinton wedding. I acted as a liaison between the state police and the Secret Service and myself and a couple other individuals. I helped create an incident action plan for the wedding.

Nothing went wrong?

Everything went fine.

What about Sept. 11? What do you remember about that day?

There's not a second that goes by that I can't run the day through my head.

Of all the moments that went by, the one that was the most touching to me, I was down by the pile, I actually snuck down there. I wasn't supposed to be there, that wasn't my post. I snuck down there with a couple other officers because the post I was assigned to had enough police officers to handle the task at hand. We broke up into small groups, left a team there to do what we were told to do initially, and went down to Ground Zero to help out.

I remember moving through some of the buildings which were completely in the dark because of the power outages, and filled with smoke and dust. I passed a couple firemen going the other way as I was going to help out with a bucket brigade, heavy equipment hadn't gotten down there at that point, it was basically people trying to pull small bits of metal and concrete off the pile, find survivors or remains.

As I was going through this building, I passed two firemen, one walking two or three feet in front of the other and they were carrying a body bag. The body bag itself in the couple of feet between them, drooped right to the floor, and then came right back up in a U shape. In that body bag were human remains. When they walked by me, that kind of said it all for me. Heartbreaking.

If you had a choice, what would you like to do?

Having my druthers, I'd just like to go home at the end of the day, be with my family, have a beer, and watch TV, not have any stories to tell about my job, to be honest with you.