The Foreign Service Journal, March 2003

fact that I had been at a friend’s house was a difficulty. Our family was split up, and could not be imme- diately reunited. Needless to say, I was thrilled, because I would be able to spend a few more nights with my buddy than planned. When my dad finally did pick me up, I could tell by his mood that this thing was actually very serious. We drove home, where most of our necessities were packed up, ready for evacuation. As we waited for the day of evacu- ation to arrive, we had to stay in our basement, because our house was located between two hills on which anti-aircraft guns constantly blazed bullets into the sky directly overhead. While we were in our basement, we had no electricity; although the elec- tricity faithfully went out every night in Yemen, not having it at all was yet another annoyance to be dealt with. There was a lot of scrambling being done in the embassy trying to figure out a way for us to be evacuat- ed. All planes had been grounded at the airport, and so we would have to be evacuated on American military C- 130’s. People were still nervous, because even though the North Yemen government called for a short ceasefire of their anti-aircraft guns, the Yemenis had already mistakenly shot down one of their own fighters. Thankfully, the evacuation went off without mishap, even though the C- 130’s were very old indeed, and were not in any case meant for the trans- port of civilians. As we all sat in the netting, and lay back exhausted, the poorly-pressured bay area of the plane caused a good majority of ‘’trav- elers’’ to become quite airsick. Still, we were safe and we were going home, and that was all that mattered. Bill Stewart Washington, D.C. A Curious Definition of Hardship It was Dec. 17, 1998, a Thursday morning in Herzliya Pituach, a sub- urb of Tel Aviv. President Bill Clinton had just departed the country after a historic four-day visit to Israel, Jerusalem, and the Occupied Terrorities. I was asleep, catching up on rest lost during the long workdays of the presidential visit. The tele- phone woke me. “Pack your bags,” said my colleague. “The post has moved to ordered departure status.” After gathering my dazed wits (“What the heck?! The president was just here!”), I leaped into clothes and raced to the chancery. Yes, we were told, Washington had ordered the post to go to ordered departure sta- tus, though Amb. Martin Indyk had protested the order since he doubted its necessity. Among the suggestions which had long been discussed at our post was the idea of an internal evac- uation point. In our case, we all felt that it would make more sense for families to be moved temporarily to Beersheva, where they could be held in a wait-and-see mode so as to evalu- ate the necessity for a full evacuation. This suggestion, so far as I know, has never been seriously considered. We were still USIA employees then, so, after determining that there was no way to avoid the evacuation, I got on the phone to our area office. If 52 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 3 We were still dancing around when my friend’s dad walked in, and said, “those aren’t fireworks, it’s war.” Attention All writers An InvItAtIon For S u mm e r F I c t I o n o nce again the Foreign Service Journal is seeking works of fiction of up to 3,000 words for its annual summer fiction issue. Story lines or characters involving the Foreign Service are preferred, but not required. The top stories, selected by the Journal Õs Editorial Board, will be pub - lished in the July/August issue and on the Journal Õs Web site. The writer of each story will receive an hono - rarium of $250. All stories must be previ- ously unpublished. Submissions should be unsigned and accompanied by a cover sheet with authorÕs name, address, telephone numbers and e- mail address. Deadline is April 1. No fooling. Please send submissions to the attention of Mikkela Thompson, Business Manager, preferably by e-mail at thompsonm@afsa.org. Stories will also be accepted by fax at (202) 338-8244, or