article by Chuck Bennett⟹retired Chief of LPD
Friends,

I have now been in Pakistan for a year and a half.  When I’ve been home a number of people have asked me why I’m working in an unstable third-world country.  If people haven’t actually asked that question, their eyes have.

Yesterday was the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  Eight years can crowd out one millennial event with almost three thousand daily events…

Some people say that we should forget, that we should “move on.”  We should never forget.  Just like we remember Valley Forge, and Gettysburg, and Pearl Harbor, we should remember September 11th.  Remember not just what happened, but the thousands of innocent people who were killed, and the hundreds of brave firefighters and police officers who, while answering the call of duty, gave their last full measure of devotion.

Looking at these pictures will help you understand why those I work with and I are in Pakistan.  Why our military personnel and civilian volunteers are in Afghanistan.  We are working to help ensure that no American citizen, or any citizen anywhere in the world for that matter, has to suffer and die at the hands of terrorists.  That no one is forced to choose between being burned alive in flaming jet fuel or jumping a thousand feet to their deaths.

I don’t know whether what we are trying to do will prevent an attack like this in the future.  But we must try.  And that’s why we are here.

Chuck Bennett

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
“Whom shall I send?  And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I.  Send me!”

Isaiah 6:8