Letter: To those who serve

To The local police, firefighters, EMS, and all who wear the badge, thanks from one of your own, who sees what you do. THANK YOU!

In Hoonah we lost two police officers, the Fairbanks Alaska State Troopers post lost two more. We lay a wreath every year to “remember” Officers Richard Adair or Jimmie Kennedy, of Juneau.

Murdered, all of them. There have been too many others. We have a dispatcher here in Juneau who lost her dad, a trooper. These lives matter.

Every day you lay it all on the line, every time you work a shift its for us.

Family, friends, we all lose loved ones, but you the unsung, you do your job for people you usually don’t know — that’s what makes you special.

Family, your family is at work 8, 12, 24 hour shifts — you spend more time on shift than at home.

Then, someone decides it’s time to kill you. You have two families that mourn, one at home, and those you work with. Really it’s three families — the community mourns as well.

We all lose some of the finest.

I just want to say what’s happening is wrong, plain and simple.

My prayers and thoughts are with you.

Sam Dalin,

Master Chaplain,

Volunteer JPD, CCF/R, FFC, ICPC Alaska Rep.