The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2020 51 Tandem Foreign Service Officers Alan Eaton and Timothy Reifenberger from U.S. Consulate Chengdu, part of the Flyaway Consular Team in Wuhan, China, right before the boarding of more than 200 passengers on the first COVID-19-related repatriation flight, Feb. 3. ALANEATON First-tour FSOs Alan Eaton (Chengdu) and Jessica O’Neill (Beijing) of the 196th A-100 meet again on the tarmac at Travis Air Force Base, California, between back-to-back Wuhan evacuation flights repatriating more than 800 Americans. ALANEATON MAPDATA©2020GOOGLEMAP consular officers in China. We had been assigned to Mission China and had all gone through the uniquely intense life that is learning Chinese at the Foreign Service Institute. On arriving in Seoul, I knew the mission would be successful because those in my cohort had also leapt at the opportunity to go into Wuhan. I knew if I were going to fly into a pan- demic to rescue Americans, I would want to do it with fellowmembers of the “Unlikely” 196th A-100 (so named for starting in late 2018 fol- lowing the end of the hiring freeze). My husband and I took this picture of ourselves [far left] after a fit of laughter over getting on a plane mid-mission without knowing to what country we were flying. Alan Eaton is a management-coned officer posted to Chengdu, China. He previously served in Port Louis, Mauritius, as general services officer, and in the Civil Service as a procurement analyst in the State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs. Pinpoints on this world map mark the locations of the contributors to this collection of stories.