The Foreign Service Journal, January 2008

42 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 8 arrived in San Salvador in early 1979, very shortly after the country’s civil war began. I later learned that these were probably the worst years to experience such a conflict, during the initial chaos and shock before the atrocities become commonplace and coping mechanisms are established. My husband was assigned to the USAID mission. I accompanied him to post and soon found work in a part- time intermittent position in the embassy’s consular sec- tion. I helped interview applicants for tourist visas and was also in charge of the American Citizen Warden System, working on evacuation planning. As the civil war heated up, I helped round up and evacuate the Peace Corps Volunteers and the Mormon missionaries once the embassy decided it was too dangerous for them to remain in El Salvador. In late 1979, as the situation became increasingly dangerous and Americans were targeted, family mem- bers of official U.S. personnel were offered voluntary departure. Few decided to leave at this time. However, on March 25, 1980, the day after Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated while celebrating Mass, I was evacuated along with the remaining family members and non-essential personnel. Only staff members returned to El Salvador; family members were required to continue on to the United States under authorized departure. Because of my job and the necessary nature of that work, I was quickly returned to post. I still vividly remember watching from my window in the embassy a few weeks later as government soldiers fired from rooftops into dozens of men, women and children con- ducting a peaceful demonstration. Through the warden system, I had become acquainted with many of the American citizens still residing in El Salvador, including the four American churchwomen who were raped and killed by U.S.-trained and funded Salvadoran National Guardsmen as they returned home from the airport on Dec. 2, 1980. As both the embassy and USAID experienced great- er difficulty replacing the staff that had departed our increasingly violent and dangerous post, I accepted a career appointment with USAID/San Salvador in the Health, Population & Nutrition Office. In addition to the health development and family planning programs, F O C U S O N P T SD & T H E F O R E I G N S E R V I C E N OT O NLY FOR C OMBAT V ETERANS PTSD IS NOT A NEW PHENOMENON WITHIN THE F OREIGN S ERVICE . N OR DO ITS EFFECTS EVER ENTIRELY DISSIPATE . B Y K RISTIN K. L OKEN I Kristin K. Loken was a Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development from 1980 to 2001. Since retiring from the Service, she has worked for an American NGO on women’s health and peace issues, and now writes and meditates at her home in Falling Waters, W. Va.