The Foreign Service Journal, March 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2022 37 remained. I thought of my father who worked as a U.S. government third-country national in Vietnam during the 1968 Tet Offensive. Now, here I was, his daughter, carrying on a similar service legacy more than 50 years later. Our time on the ground was limited; the end date would shift but was nearing. So many people were still outside the gates desperately hoping to get inside. Feelings of powerlessness grew among us as more gates closed for security reasons. Friends, colleagues and strangers with any distant Afghanistan nexus found us via email and pleaded for help getting in, and we tried des- perately to offer what little help we could when possible while still working our shifts. A small group of us were asked to be the last consular officers on the ground and to push through to fill the last flights with little sleep on Aug. 29 and 30. Sheltering because of one last rocket attack on the airport a few hours before boarding our own outbound C-17 was a surreal ending to our time at HKIA. Foreign Service and Civil Service officers worked alongside our military to look out for the most vulnerable in the airport crowds. That fact is sorely overlooked by media coverage. Our military were handed children at the gates by their parents in hopes of saving them. Foreign Service and Civil Service officers had the more onerous and longer-term task that continues even now to attempt reunifica- tion of these youngest evacuees, first at HKIA or at a subsequent processing point outside Afghanistan. The United States has taken in approximately 1,300 Afghan unaccompanied minors since August. Our time at HKIAmay have finished, but our evacuation efforts did not end on Aug. 30. Many HKIA alumni and additional depart- ment staff continue today to serve valiantly at our Doha lily pad in Qatar, in both temporary duty assignments and as part of our evolving Afghanistan Affairs Unit presence post. The State Depart- ment deserves due recognition for the heroism displayed by its own ranks. FSO Arleen Grace R. Genuino served as refugee coordinator at U.S. Embassy Kabul through the August 2021 evacuation and at Hamid Karzai International Airport, and subsequently as part of the forthcom- ing Afghanistan presence post and at Camp As Sayliyah in Doha. On Aug. 15, 2021, one of the first flights of Afghan evacuees arrived at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. This iconic photo shows the Air Force C-17, with a rated capacity of 250, packed with no fewer than 823 people. U.S.AIRFORCE LILY PADS The Evacuation Is On DOHA, QATAR Mark Padgett “We have a C-17 inbound in 30 minutes with approximately 400 Afghan nationals that rushed the plane in Kabul. Intentions unknown. Hijacking possible.” My jaw dropped. It was around 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 15 when an Air Force officer had tapped my shoulder, asking, “Are you State?” and said I had a phone call from Brigadier General Gerald Donohue, the 379th Wing Com- mander at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The night had begun innocuously enough when our eco- nomic officer, Nikhil Lakhanpal, and I volunteered to relieve some co-workers who had been at the air base the previous day