R.I.P.

While we honor the sacrifice of our military forces (and rightly so), it's equally important that we remember our non-military patriots.

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - An American diplomat was killed Wednesday in an attack near the heavily fortified sector of central Baghdad known as the Green Zone, U.S. officials said.

Jim Mollen, 48, of Binghamton, N.Y., was the U.S. Embassy's senior consultant to the Iraqi ministers of education and higher education. He was shot while traveling in a car within a mile of the Green Zone, according to his mother, Anne Mollen.

In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a statement he was "profoundly saddened" by Mollen's killing.

"Jim dedicated his life to a noble cause: improving the quality of education for thousands of Iraqis," Powell said.

...Mollen, the slain American diplomat, was working to rebuild Iraq's 20 major universities and 40 technical institutes, research centers and colleges.

The problem for the terrorists is that this will only strengthen our resolve to destroy them and continue helping the Iraqi people.