No doubt many of you read this weekend of the violent death in Afghanistan of a young American foreign service officer, Anne Smedinghoff. Her passing rang an especially sad note for current and former staff at Public Campaign who remember her as a college intern with us during the summer of 2007.

She impressed us all. She was spunky, dedicated, full of pragmatic smarts, quick with a grin and poised beyond her years. We didn’t know then about her toughness. Her first foreign assignment for the State Department was a difficult one, in Caracas. She followed that by volunteering for a post in Kabul. She was due home in July.

Anne worked to make the world a better place. The brief glimpse we got of that at Public Campaign, where she assisted with research and writing as we promoted the launch of the Fair Elections Now Act six years ago, helps us to understand the trajectory she was on and the great loss that is her tragic, untimely end.

A long war, fought seven thousand miles away can too easily slide into an abstraction, despite the daily danger and widespread loss of life that is a constant in the battle zone. Anne’s death makes it very real to us at Public Campaign. It would be a fitting memorial to let her spirit lift our work going forward and to remember every day to not just make the world a better place, but to make it a more peaceful one as well.