The battlefield is taking shape.
Four arenas, an assortment of weapons and characters preparing to face off in virtual combat. Before long, two young brothers will be able to hunt each other through the digital landscape, take aim and open fire.
Their younger sister will have a character of her own.
Behind the operation is Edward Buckner, an investigator with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Police Department who’s developing a virtual reality combat game for his three children, ages 12, 10 and 7.
Buckner has no formal training in video game development, but he’s learning to use artificial intelligence and game development software to create a Nerf-style experience his children can enjoy together.
His motivation is partly practical: Virtual battles, he figures, won’t leave the house littered with foam darts.
But the project also reflects something deeper about the 43-year-old father of three: a determination to keep learning, tackle unfamiliar challenges and share the results with the people he loves.
Much of what Buckner has confronted in his life has been no game. At 13, he weighed 315 pounds. Diagnosed with dyslexia and other learning disabilities, he spent much of his childhood in special education classes. His home life was troubled, his academic prospects seemed bleak, and the military career he dreamed of pursuing appeared beyond his reach.
Today, Buckner has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, spent more than a decade with the Chattanooga Police Department, earned a doctorate in strategic leadership and established a home life centered on the family relationships he considers his greatest responsibility.
“All I saw were closed doors because of my struggles in school,” he recalls. “I thought that meant I’d have limited options after graduation.”
A childhood of closed doors
Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, Buckner struggled in school. Diagnosed with dyslexia in the first or second grade, he spent much of his education receiving tutoring and attending special-needs classes. By high school, years of frustration had shaped his expectations for the future.
“I had a fixed mindset that this was who I was and how I’d be for the rest of my life,” he says. “I accepted that my disabilities defined me.”
Several of Buckner’s relatives had served in the military, and their example inspired him to consider following in their footsteps. But his weight and learning disabilities seemed to stand in the way. People repeatedly told him he’d never qualify because of those obstacles, reinforcing his sense that the future held few opportunities.
His difficulties extended beyond school and his physical health. Buckner describes his childhood household as toxic, particularly his relationship with his father. The tensions continued into early adulthood, contributing to his desire for independence even as he struggled to establish a direction for his life.
After graduating from high school in 2001, Buckner enrolled in a community college criminal justice program, reasoning that law enforcement might offer a practical career. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 intensified his desire to join the Marine Corps, but his initial efforts to enlist stalled, and he continued working toward his associate degree.
The two-year program took him five years to complete.
Eventually, Buckner approached another Marine recruiter, determined to secure the opportunity that had eluded him. He wanted a chance to succeed or fail on his own merits.
“Give me a chance to go to boot camp, and whether I succeed or fail will be up to me,” he recalls telling the recruiter.
On Dec. 12, 2005, Buckner arrived at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina. At 23, he was considerably older than many of the recruits around him and had spent years working toward a goal others had told him was unrealistic.
He graduated 13 weeks later.
Finding discipline
Buckner credits the Marine Corps with giving him structure and habits that had been absent from his childhood. The physical training was demanding, but the life lessons proved equally important.
“I learned self-discipline and organization, because I was a mess growing up,” he says.
He applied those lessons while working at a fitness facility in Dayton, eventually advancing from an entry-level position to managing the company’s corporate headquarters.
His military service also expanded. In 2009, he deployed to Iraq as a military police officer providing convoy security during a period when American forces were reducing their presence in the country.
After returning, Buckner continued pursuing a civilian law enforcement career. He’d previously trained alongside Chattanooga police officers while serving on a Marine special reaction team, a tactical unit with responsibilities similar to those of a civilian SWAT team. The experience introduced him to Chattanooga and helped establish relationships with officers who would eventually become colleagues.
He entered the Chattanooga Police Academy in January 2011, but his training was interrupted six weeks later when the Marine Corps called him back to active duty.
This time, Buckner deployed to Afghanistan, where he again provided convoy security. The assignment exposed him to small-arms fire, improvised explosive devices and the responsibilities of leading Marines in a combat environment.
He returned to Chattanooga in 2012, entered another police academy class the following January, completed his training and began working overnight patrol downtown.
Over the next decade, he became a field training officer, joined the department’s SWAT team, investigated organized crime and served as president of the local International Brotherhood of Police Officers.
Discovering new possibilities
During the 2013 police academy, Buckner befriended a former Army special operations soldier who gave him a copy of “Wild at Heart,” a book by Christian author John Eldredge.
Reading had never come easily to Buckner, and books were not something he naturally sought out. Nevertheless, he respected his friend and began reading before academy classes. The experience contributed to a spiritual awakening that would become one of the defining influences in his adult life.
Buckner embraced Christianity and began approaching his responsibilities through the lens of his faith. He came to believe that being a husband, father and police officer carried obligations that extended beyond simply performing the required tasks.
Buckner says he felt for years that God was calling him to continue his education. Memories of special education classes and the five years he spent earning an associate degree made the prospect intimidating, but he eventually enrolled in college again in 2019 while continuing his police career.
He completed a bachelor’s degree, followed by a master’s, and in 2023 earned a doctorate in strategic leadership from Liberty University.
Books, once a source of frustration, had become important tools for his personal and professional development. He recalls being influenced by “Call Sign Chaos,” cowritten by retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, whose emphasis on reading as an essential part of leadership resonated with him.
Buckner’s educational achievements also depended on support at home.
He met his wife, Lacey, in a community college class in 2003. Their relationship continued through his military training and deployments, and they married before he left for Afghanistan.
As his career expanded to include police investigations, tactical assignments, union responsibilities and graduate school, Lacey helped provide the stability that allowed him to manage those competing demands.
“I couldn’t have done half the things I have done, and I wouldn’t be half the man I am today, without her,” he says.
Finding a new purpose at UTC
Buckner’s career took another turn in 2023 when he left the Chattanooga Police Department to become police chief in Graysville, a small community north of Chattanooga.
He’d been seeking an opportunity to lead a department and apply the principles he’d studied during his doctoral program. Graysville seemed to offer that chance without requiring his family to relocate, although accepting the position meant a substantial reduction in pay.
His tenure, however, ended in 2024 amid disagreements with city leadership. Buckner describes the experience as one of the most painful professional setbacks of his life, particularly because he suddenly found himself unemployed with a wife, three children and a household to support.
Rather than move past the experience, he conducted what he calls an after-action review, borrowing a practice from his military and law enforcement background. He examined the decisions he’d made, the warning signs he might have missed and what he would do differently if faced with similar circumstances.
“I don’t have everything figured out,” he says. “Every day, I’m learning something I didn’t know the day before.”
After leaving Graysville, Buckner reached out to Sean O’Brien, a former Chattanooga police colleague who’d become UTC’s police chief in May 2024. O’Brien encouraged him to apply for an opening, and Buckner joined the UTC Police Department as an investigator.
Buckner initially wondered whether campus policing would be quiet after his years in organized crime investigations and tactical operations, but that impression didn’t last long.
During his third week at UTC, Buckner became involved in an investigation into hazing at the university’s Kappa Sigma fraternity. Two pledges had suffered serious burns during an incident involving rubbing alcohol and fire. The investigation contributed to the chapter’s suspension through August 2029, dispelling any notion Buckner had that university police work lacked complexity.
Much of Buckner’s work now involves investigating allegations of sexual assault, cases he describes as particularly difficult because the available evidence might be limited and the accounts of those involved can differ substantially.
“Curiosity is the biggest thing,” he says. “You want to know what happened, and that means reconstructing an incident you weren’t there to witness. You might be investigating something that happened two days earlier, piecing together the details through phone records, security footage and interviews.”
Buckner says he wants to help victims obtain justice, but he recognizes that not every investigation produces enough evidence to support criminal charges.
“It hurts when there isn’t enough evidence to establish that someone knowingly did something wrong. It’s heartbreaking when I can’t do more to help.”
Even when prosecution isn’t possible, Buckner says, investigators can help connect victims with counseling, support and other resources.
Becoming the father he wants to be
Buckner doesn’t speak of his childhood as an experience he’d wish to repeat. Although his relationship with his father has improved over time, Buckner hasn’t forgotten the difficulties of his upbringing.
When he became a father himself, Buckner wanted to provide something different for his children.
His approach begins with the conviction that parenting, like leadership, requires continuing education. He reads books, discusses decisions with Lacey and considers whether his own reactions are helping his children become the people he hopes they will be.
He also seeks feedback from the children themselves, even when their observations are difficult to hear.
“The most important feedback I get as a father comes from my children,” he says. “It’s hard for a 9-year-old to tell his dad, ‘You were too harsh on me,’ and it’s humbling to hear. But that’s his perspective, and I need to understand it.”
Those conversations represent a departure from his own upbringing, when he felt his father relied on established habits rather than seeking to improve as a parent.
Buckner credits his faith with giving him a framework for those responsibilities, particularly the belief that commitments he’s willingly undertaken deserve his best effort.
“I’m not a perfect father or husband, but I strive to be better,” he says. “I try to be intentional in my relationships with my children and my wife, and in my work as well.”
For Buckner, that means helping his children understand that difficulties need not determine the course of their lives.
And sometimes, it means building them a virtual battlefield.
A game worth playing
Buckner’s sons are already serving as his beta testers, offering suggestions and pointing out problems as he works toward making the game fully playable.
But the project is about more than mastering new technology. It’s also an opportunity to spend time with his children and show them that learning doesn’t end with school, that mistakes are part of the process and that unfamiliar challenges need not be insurmountable.
The virtual battlefield is still under construction, but Buckner is comfortable with that. He’s spent much of his life discovering that what seems impossible today might simply be something he hasn’t learned to do yet.