Welcome to the July/August issue of OFFICER Magazine. As I type this greeting, it’s a beautiful summer day. Kids are playing in pools. Yards are being mowed. Teachers are celebrating having no alarm to wake up to every weekday and many backyard BBQs are taking place coast to coast. Law enforcement in our country is largely “as usual.” If you looked around and viewed most of our country, just taking it at face value, you’d see a wondrous place to live with plenty of happy and prosperous people in it.

In recent weeks, law enforcement in our nation has been faced with a lot of challenges. We’ve seen news stories about ambushes, shootings, close calls on traffic stops or roadside assists … Of course, we’re reminded again this year (if not constantly) that law enforcement isn’t really safe, is it? In September this year we mark 25 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. For an entire generation now, that is “only history,” like Pearl Harbor. For many of us, the memory is as fresh and raw as it was that morning, and we can still recount every detail as we experienced it.

Because OFFICER Magazine comes out every other month, this is our last issue before September 11th, and the next issue won’t come out until mid-October. Two months will pass between you receiving this issue and the next one being released. Two months with September 11th almost directly in the middle. I would not normally espouse anyone focusing on a given event for two months, but in this case, I make an exception. Far too many people downplay the events of the day that our nation faced a horrific attack. Too many are quick to say, “It can’t happen again,” and dismiss the lives lost and the sacrifices made as if they somehow don’t matter as much because of how much time has passed. Time might heal the wound, but it’ll never be 100% and the scar will always be the reminder. Nationally (figuratively speaking) we were cut long and deep, and it’s a wound we should never forget. We should never let the next generation forget. Not a year should go by that we don’t remember the loss and sacrifice of that day.

Despite the ambushes and attacks, despite the bad press, and despite the near-constant criticism of how we do our job, law enforcement is one of the most honorable professions in our country. The men and women who wear the badge leave home each day willingly and with motivation, unsure if they’ll go home at the end of their shift. When some in our country are unappreciative, we must support each other and take up the slack. We are a family; the Thin Blue Line. 25 years after we lost so many in a single day, let us resolve to lose fewer every year with the goal always being zero lives lost.

Stay safe. Never forget. Always honor.