Retired FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Miller has spent much of his life stepping forward when duty called.
His path to federal service began in the Air Force, continued on the streets as a Pittsburgh police officer, and eventually led to his selection for the ranks of the FBI.
It was during his years with the bureau that Miller first became directly involved in the fight against al-Qaeda.
In 1998, he was among the agents deployed to Africa after the coordinated bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, attacks that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
As a member of the FBI’s evidence response team, Miller was also on the ground in 2000 after al-Qaeda suicide bombers attacked the U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 sailors and leaving the destroyer badly damaged.
And 25 years ago, he answered the call again when al-Qaeda terrorists weaponized four passenger jets
"Not only did I work the command post during the day, an eight-hour shift, but I worked evidence response the second shift," he said.
Miller says he personally knows at least a dozen of them.
He pointed to Bob Roth, one of the first agents to arrive at the still-smoldering wreckage of the Pentagon on Sept. 11, who developed multiple myeloma in 2006 and died in 2008, according to the FBI's Wall of Honor.
Miller remembered Roth as one of the first names on the FBI's Wall of Honor and as a "great agent, a great family man."
"He did everything he could, but in the end, he succumbed to cancer. And that was initially my direct exposure to someone that I had actually worked with," Miller said.
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"We started thinking about it and the first week at the Pentagon, we didn't have PPE, we didn't have proper protection gear, we didn't have the proper masking," he said.