There are practical, philosophical, and legal reasons for not commemorating all overseas deaths. The practical reason is that there is insufficient space in the C Street Lobby of the Harry S Truman Building of the Department of State to display the names of the more than 1,000 Foreign Service members and pre-1924 consuls and diplomats who died overseas. The philosophical reason is the desire to focus visitors to the plaques on the distinctive dangers such as terrorism of the Foreign Service career. To maintain that focus requires excluding deaths due to natural causes and in other circumstances not directly attributable to carrying out official duties in the location of assignment. The legal reason is that the 1933 Joint Resolution of Congress authorizing the placement of the AFSA plaque on government property made it clear that the names to be inscribed were to have died in circumstances distinctive to overseas service. Were AFSA to begin inscribing all deaths, it could prompt a challenge to AFSA’s authority to continue updating the plaques.

In 1982, AFSA expanded the plaque criteria to include anyone serving under Chief of Mission authority. During the remainder of the 1980s, only 16 of the 43 names added to the AFSA plaques were members of the Foreign Service. Later, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had dramatically increased the number of American civilian employees in harm’s way overseas, the AFSA Governing Board became concerned Foreign Service members would become a small minority of those honored on the plaques. The Governing Board also noted that numerous agencies and employee groups representing other federal employees who work at embassies -- including defense attachés, Marine security guards, Drug Enforcement Administration agents, and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents -- have their own memorial walls. Thus, in 2011 the Governing Board limited inscription to members of the Foreign Service, with other employees considered only in “exceptional or heroic circumstances.” In 2014, the Governing Board eliminated all exceptions. The plaque criteria have remained unchanged ever since.

While that phrase appears on the original 1933 AFSA Memorial Plaque in the C Street lobby, the formal criteria approved by the AFSA Governing Board avoids such general statements that are open to wide interpretation and instead requires “circumstances distinctive to the Foreign Service” for which the criteria list representative examples. Thus, plaque nominations are reviewed based on the AFSA Governing Board-approved criteria, not the introductory words on the original plaque.

In 2021, AFSA unveiled a $50,000 expansion of the AFSA Memorial Plaques in the C Street Lobby. Included in the project was the inscription of 67 additional names of early diplomats and consuls going back to 1794 who researchers in recent years had identified and documented as having died under circumstances qualifying for plaque inscription. Anticipating that researchers would continue to document additional qualifying deaths from past decades and centuries, the AFSA Governing Board in April 2021 voted that any additional historical names would be memorialized on a virtual Memorial Plaque on the AFSA website. The alternative of inscribing them on the physical plaques would produce a jumble of dates (for example, a 2028 death followed by at 1870 death followed by a 2032 death) and would leave less room to inscribe the names of current and future Foreign Service members.

The plaque criteria authorize inscription in cases of travel to or from post and travel at post while in the active performance of official duties. Qualifying examples include airplane crashes while enroute to post and vehicle crashes in the country of assignment while enroute to visit a USAID project site or the foreign ministry. Excluded from inscription are deaths during personal travel at post (such as weekend sightseeing) and while on R&R overseas after arrival.

Forty-two of the 65 names inscribed on the original AFSA Memorial Plaque when it was unveiled in 1933 died of tropical diseases such as yellow fever, cholera, and malaria. Qualifying diseases were those that were not widespread in the U.S. East Coast at the time of death. Thus, excluded from inscription were deaths due to worldwide pandemics (such as the 1918-20 Spanish Flu) and worldwide endemic diseases (such as tuberculosis and pneumonia) since they are not distinctive to overseas service. Today, the plaque criteria authorize inscription in cases of “death due to disease related to particular circumstances of overseas assignment” – excluding diseases that could have been contracted in the United States (such as COVID-19).

Death due to inadequate medical facilities was not a qualifying criterion when the plaque was created in 1933. Available AFSA records do not document when it was added, but it appears to have been added by the late-1970s when Thomas Olmsted was inscribed citing his 1975 death in Thailand due to a sudden attack of pancreatitis. Since then, only three additional names have been inscribed citing inadequate medical facilities: a 2010 heart attack while enroute from Kazakhstan to the U.S., a 2016 heart attack in South Sudan, and a 2017 death in Slovakia due to local doctors misdiagnosing a medical condition which prevented the FSO from receiving treatment that likely would have saved their life. Thus, this criterion applies only in cases where basic, competent medical care was unavailable to respond to a sudden health emergency overseas. Excluded from inscription are deaths due to slow-developing chronic diseases.

Yes, the AFSA Governing Board-approved criteria state: “Deaths involving the decedent’s illegal, negligent, reckless, or selfish behavior are not eligible for inclusion.”