Never Forget the Ones Who Are Still Here
Hi Friend!
Twenty-five years ago today, our nation changed.
On September 11, we remember the nearly 3,000 people who went to work, boarded an airplane, reported for duty, or simply began an ordinary Tuesday morning and never came home. We remember the firefighters, law enforcement officers, paramedics, military personnel, and ordinary citizens who ran toward danger when every instinct must have told them to run away.
But on this 25th anniversary of September 11, I also want us to remember another group: the people who came home, but didn't come home the same.
Years ago, I wrote about a friend who became what I considered another casualty of service. Not a physical casualty—she was alive, walking, talking, working, loving, and trying to build a life. If you met her casually, you might never have known anything was wrong. And that was part of the problem.
Her injuries weren't the kind that could be seen on an X-ray. Years of serving as a law enforcement officer exposed her to things most people should never have to see and required her to continue functioning through levels of stress most people will never experience. She kept going until eventually, she couldn't.
She reached out for help, but help wasn't always easy to find. Sometimes the message (whether anyone actually said the words or not) felt less like "Let's get you healthy" and more like "We need you to perform." She didn't want to stop serving. She wanted to be well enough to keep living and doing the work she cared about.
As depression deepened, relationships became strained. People who loved her didn't always know what to say or do. Some became frustrated. Others were dealing with their own families, jobs, bills, and problems. Eventually, she began building a wall around herself—a wall made of shame, guilt, regret, isolation, and the terrible feeling that perhaps everyone else would be better off if she simply stopped asking for help.
One day, you think about this friend and reach out. You find the wall.
You may not have come prepared to tear down a wall. You have a life, responsibilities, and problems of your own. But please don't automatically walk away. The person behind that wall may see you leave, and another departure can become another brick.
That's where I want us to behave differently.
If you have to step away, let it be long enough to get some tools or to find someone who has them. You don't have to be a therapist, and you shouldn't try to become one. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is remain present while helping someone connect with a person who is actually trained to help.
We Are Getting Better, But We Aren't There Yet
Law enforcement has made important progress in recognizing PTSD, cumulative trauma, depression, suicide risk, and other mental-health consequences of the profession. More agencies have peer-support teams, wellness initiatives, chaplains, culturally competent clinicians, and other resources that were far less common earlier in many officers' careers.
Yet access remains inconsistent. Even in 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice's Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act program provides funding to help agencies start law-enforcement-specific mental-health and wellness programs where established programs don't yet exist, as well as to improve programs that are already operating.
Think about what that means. We have made enough progress to recognize the problem, but we have not made enough progress to ensure that every officer who needs appropriate PTSD and trauma care can easily get it.
And there is another gap that concerns me even more: What happens when the badge comes off?
An active officer may have access to an Employee Assistance Program, department psychologist, chaplain, peer-support team, or other agency resource. After retirement or separation, access to those systems may change or disappear altogether. The Department of Justice has previously recommended that agencies consider allowing retired officers to continue participating in departmental peer-support programs after retirement or separation.
That's important because trauma doesn't necessarily retire when the officer does. Sometimes retirement is when life finally becomes quiet enough for everything that happened during the career to become loud.
There are encouraging efforts to address that gap. DOJ-supported initiatives such as Power in Peers are developing law-enforcement peer mentors, including active and retired personnel. But programs like these also remind us how much work remains to be done. We cannot spend decades asking people to absorb other people's emergencies and then assume their need for support ends when they turn in a badge.
This Year, I'm Remembering More Than the Dead
Every September 11, I remember . I also remember the survivors, first responders, families who never stopped grieving, and the men and women who have spent careers running toward situations the rest of us desperately hope we never encounter.
Some wounds bleed and leave scars we can see. Others show up months or years later as depression, anxiety, anger, isolation, sleeplessness, substance misuse, broken relationships, or a person who simply doesn't seem like the person we once knew.
And some wounds go to work tomorrow morning wearing a uniform, answering the radio, helping everybody else, and insisting, "I'm fine."
So this year, I'm asking you to do something in addition to posting "Never Forget." Remember somebody who is still here. Call an officer. Call a retired officer. Call the person who left law enforcement and nobody hears from very much anymore. Don't just thank them for their service. Ask how they're doing—and give them enough time and safety to tell you the truth.
If you encounter a wall, don't automatically walk away. You may not be qualified to tear it down yourself, but you can stay close enough that the person behind it knows somebody is still on the other side.
Twenty-five years after September 11, we honor those we lost. We remember the people who ran toward danger. We remember those whose lives were forever changed by what they saw, experienced, and carried home.
And let's fight for the ones who are still here.
Because Never Forget should mean them, too.
JJ
Comments