The notion that Secret Service agents were calling home to say goodbye to their families as they valiantly tried to protect then-Vice President Mike Pence was the most shocking revelation from the Jan. 6 committee’s latest hearing.

It brought back vivid memories. On Sept. 12, 2006, al Qaeda attacked a U.S. facility in the Middle East where my wife and I were located. As a car bomb hit the back gate and automatic weapons fire, as well as grenades, rained down on us, my wife placed a call to her sister back home and said her goodbyes. We thought we were all going to die that day. Our children watched from their school a mile away and cried and hugged their friends, thinking their parents would never return home. So I get it. I understand the fear that those Secret Service agents apparently experienced. You don’t make those calls to loved ones if there is a way out.