The Foreign Service Journal, March 2022

34 MARCH 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Consular team leaders Jayne Howell (at left) and Jean Akers (at right) at Hamid Karzai International Airport early on the morning of Aug. 30, 2021. CONNSCHRAEDER AndThen, WeWent Back toWork Jayne Howell I’ve served in Afghanistan twice. First, in the heady, optimism- filled days of 2004 when we moved easily around Kabul in thin-skinned vehicles, our body armor growing dusty as we were welcomed into Afghan homes and weddings as liberators and partners. I toured tiled mosques and reopened museums. I got to know Afghan families over fragrant platters of qabuli palau and cups of green tea with sugared almonds. I attended Sufi concerts in antique rose gardens, learned to bargain for rugs on Chicken Street. I toured the ancient citadel of Ghazni, walked in the footsteps of Rumi in his birthplace of Balkh, and hiked along the base of the bombed-out Buddhas in Bamiyan. As an observer in the 2004 election, I cried as euphoric women cast votes, many of them literally shaking with the weight and privilege of having a voice. I returned to a very different Afghanistan in 2011. Our mili- tary presence and civilian surge were at their peak, and so, too, the insurgency and violence. The ambassador began our country teammeeting each week by reading the names of military ser- vicemen and women who had been killed since the last meeting. In 52 of those meetings, only one passed without that terrible marker. For each one of those names, there were hundreds of Afghans who also lost their lives, and we held space for them all. When Kabul fell and the department was seeking volunteers to assist with an evacuation, I went. I thought I could contribute; but, maybe selfishly, I also wanted to be there knowing no more American names would have to be read, no more ramp ceremo- nies honoring the fallen, no more young lives would be lost so far from home. Only that wasn’t the way it happened. On Aug. 26, just before our shift change at 6 p.m., I walked out of a planning meeting into the normally bustling Joint Operations Command Center we shared with the Marine Corps leadership. I expected to hear the usual hum as colleagues greeted each other, exchanged notes on the day’s events and maybe even joked a little. Instead, I opened the door into a stony, deafening silence. My colleague was waiting for me—“A bomb, Jayne, at Abbey Gate,” she said. In that silent JOCC, surrounded by the Marines desperately waiting to learn the fate of their comrades, we waited. And when the news came—13 Americans lost, and hun- dreds of our Afghan partners killed and injured—it was so much more horrific than I could have imagined. We were so close, so very close to No More Names. Instead, it was one of the deadliest days for America in the 20 years of conflict. And then, just a few moments later, a Marine quietly asked me if the consular officers were ready to go back to work. I consulted our Diplomatic Security colleagues, and then I asked for volunteers. I didn’t see a single person without a hand up. And so, we went back to work. The following day, we all lined up on the tarmac for the ramp ceremony to bear witness as our fallen colleagues boarded their final flight home, their hero flight. I will never forget what it felt like to stand there in the midday Kabul sun, hands clasped and shoul- Touring the perimeter of the airport with the U.S. Embassy Kabul consul general, August 2021. BOBSHIM