Their names are James Foley and Stephen Sotloff. They were two American citizens killed this year under the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) terrorist regime.
Freelance journalist James Foley was beheaded in Syria by ISIS in response to U.S. airstrikes and military actions in August. This month, ISIS militants murdered journalist Steven Sotloff after his year-long captivity.
Both Foley and Sotloff are witnesses to things worth dying for.
They were both journalists who freely worked in the most dangerous parts of the world. They realized that journalism, rather than just being a career, was a vital necessity to life. They saw the evil of the world and decided to live amid it in order to report the truths of it. Foley, after his release from his first captivity in Libya in 2011, proceeded to Syria, where he was murdered. The horrors of kidnapping, torture, and death were fears that could not restrain Foley from pursuing the truth where it could be found, and ensuring that Americans knew that truth.
In the words of Secretary of State John Kerry, Foley was a courageous American who “went to the darkest of places to shine the light of truth…who lived out the meaning of the word journalism.”
They recognized that truth is something worth dying for.
More important than just being journalists, Foley and Sotloff were American citizens. They are still American citizens, and should be revered as true patriots. Foley was the first American citizen to be killed by ISIS. And a strike against an American is a strike against the whole country itself.
And most importantly, they were devout men of faith who upheld their beliefs at all costs. They did not just say that they believed, but they put their faith into action at great personal risk, even to the extent of laying down their lives.
During his captivity, Foley prayed the rosary by counting off the 100 Hail Marys on his knuckles. It was a source of comfort and hope for him. Despite the separation from his friends and family, prayer was a connection to those he knew were praying for him also.
“If nothing else, prayer was the glue that enabled my freedom, an inner freedom first and later the miracle of being released during a war in which the regime had no real incentive to free us,” Foley said, after being released in 2011.
Sotloff was a devout Jew who fasted and prayed during his imprisonment. The Washington Post reported that he would feign sickness during Yom Kippur in order to keep the fast, and would pray facing toward Jerusalem by adjusting the angle at which his Muslim captors prayed.
Foley and Sotloff recognized that faith is something worth dying for.
Americans can, should, and indeed must learn from these exemplary men. They are an endangered species in America these days. Foley and Sotloff were the truest patriots and faithful seekers of truth, selfless men caught in a selfish world.
Their names are Foley and Sotloff, and they must be remembered for their love. It was love which prompted them to do what they did. It was love for journalism, for the seeking of the truth, which prompted them on their way. Love for America was their crime. Love for God and their faith supplied the stronghold throughout the strife, and the endurance to fight the good fight. Love provided the courage, and love will provide the reward.
