In December 2010, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was shot and killed in an armed confrontation with suspected criminals near Rio Rico, Ariz. Since then, the bang-up investigative work of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led by California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, has linked Terry’s murder to Operation Fast and Furious, the misguided and irresponsible program of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to sell guns to straw purchasers in the vain hope of tracking the weapons into the hands Mexican drug lords. Little by little, Issa and others have uncovered details that suggest knowledge of the reckless operation reached as high as the White House.

But no congressional questioning and no administrative answering (or evading!) mitigates the tragedy of Terry’s death. Instinctively, Issa grasps that. Even in the midst of a series of heated hearings, his office has taken the time to draft legislation — The Brian A. Terry Memorial Act of 2011 — to rename the Bisbee, Ariz., Border Patrol station in honor of Terry. Today, the Committee also released this video to honor the man who, according to his family, “from the very start … loved his job as a Border Patrol Agent and loved his fellow agents.”