To Serve and Protect

Letter to the LNP Editor; text as submitted September 1, 2024

Early in my career, the senior officer who promoted me to a position in Loan Administration advised me that my tasks would be to “serve the customers and protect the bank.” Ideally, the goals of serving and protecting should guide everyone’s work with the public, from junior clerk to highest government official. The Republican nominee for President, however, falls dangerously short.

As we prepare to vote, we must not forget that when Trump left office in January 2021, he took with him thousands of official documents, including more than 300 bearing classified and highly sensitive U.S. defense information. It took government authorities more than two and a half years to reclaim and secure all the files Trump carelessly and unlawfully held in his possession. During that time, with thousands of visitors passing through Mar-a-Lago, the danger that national secrets could fall into the hands of our country’s adversaries and other malicious actors was immense.

We may never know the extent of the damage to our nation and to our allies that has resulted from this blatant mishandling of classified documents. The safety of our military personnel was certainly threatened. Lives of foreign nationals working with our troops may have been put at risk.

Returning to office the perpetrator of these security threats should be unthinkable. Yet here we are, with a significant portion of our population ready to do just that. When election time comes, may criminality be rejected and may honesty, service to, and protection for our nation prevail.