He died in the line of duty during the pandemic response.
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The construction echoes 《孟子·尽心上》: 以身殉道 ('give one's body for the Way'). This idiom swaps 道 for 职 (duty/post) to honor those who die serving their profession.
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Formal and honorific. Used in obituaries, memorial coverage, and citations for police, firefighters, doctors, soldiers. Mao Zedong's 《纪念白求恩》 famously uses the phrase for Norman Bethune.