The Foreign Service Journal, March 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2022 39 In my three weeks there, we processed nearly a thousand evacuees for travel to the United States. As one of the final steps in their journey, we verified their identity, measles vaccination status and negative COVID-19 test, and ensured that no minors were left behind. Every person boarding that plane felt like a huge victory, the culmination of a massive interagency support effort plucking them out of Afghanistan to the relative safety of the United States. For every person who made it onto a plane, approximately 10 others have no clear way out and no mechanism to stay. While many of these evacuees are legitimately fleeing religious persecu- tion, without a visa in hand they are unable to travel to the United States or any other country. The concept of asylum does not exist in UAE law, nor does the UAE recognize those escaping war or persecution as refugees. There are many logistical challenges with processing some of these people. Many arrive with no national identity card nor any way to verify who they are. Things we take for granted, such as birth dates and last names, are more fluid in Afghanistan. Should we take on the risk of welcoming these evacuees? If we do, what are their chances of assimilating? What will happen to them if there is no path out? In parallel, humanitarian organizations continue to bring more refugees into UAE through privately funded flights, and the popu- lation of souls in limbo continues to grow. What becomes clear to me in my short time is that though we have left Afghanistan, our complex entanglement endures. Cynthia Segura is the information systems officer at U.S. Embassy London. She has served in Sydney, Beirut, Athens and Madrid. Prior to joining the Service in 2010, she taught technical writing at the University of New Mexico and worked in IT support for the Global Seismic Network. Attention toMental Health Aftereffects KUWAIT CITY, KUWAIT Karen Travers In late August and early September, I watched along with the rest of the world as the U.S. performed themonumental task of the Afghanistan evacuation. I would have gone to Afghanistan if asked, but mental health care is better provided on the tail end of any crisis, when the adrenaline has stopped flowing and people have a chance to sit and reflect on what they have just experienced. The second week of September I traveled to Embassy Kuwait to help manage the potential mental health sequelae of the mis- sion staff who had been involved in housing, feeding, clothing and caring for more than 5,000 Afghans and nearly 1,000 Ameri- cans and third-country nationals transiting through Kuwait. Because the Kuwaiti government only allowed evacuees to stay for 14 days, the Embassy Kuwait team and their Department of Defense partners had two weeks of incredibly intense around- the-clock activity, which ended abruptly when the last evacuee boarded a plane on day 14. By the time I arrived, the evacuees were gone, and leader- ship’s focus shifted to managing the potential aftereffects on the embassy staff. I spent a week in Kuwait, and while my door was open to anyone who might need to talk about the experience, the most important work happened behind the scenes. As I usually do during a regional visit, I scheduled “consulta- tions” with most of the section heads, as well as the front office, so that I could understand how their folks were doing post-evac- uation. To a person, the section heads were incredibly proud of the work their teams had done and the positive impact they had had on the lives of the Afghans. Each leader did a fantastic job of taking care of staff and was able to tell me who had fared well and who might need a little more attention. What surprised me most about the hour I spent with each was how therapeutic that time was for the senior FSOs them- selves. They had stepped up in a crisis and performed excep- tionally well. They had all thrown themselves into the situation and successfully guided their teams through the evacuation. All knew their sections had made a huge difference. Few of the embassy leaders, however, recognized that they themselves might need some mental health counseling—or at minimum, a chance to talk about what they had experienced and what had bothered them over the previous two weeks. In essence, my one-hour visit with each was a mini mental health house call. I asked questions that all mental health providers ask: How were they were doing? Were they sleeping? Eating? Engaging in self-care? I encouraged each to model a healthy work-life bal- ance in the aftermath of the evacuation. We often talk about second- and third-order effects of deci- sions made by those in the chain of command. In this case, I had the distinct pleasure of caring for the second- and third-order FSOs—the leaders who cared for their people, who cared for the evacuees. I’m not sure any of these embassy team leaders recognized that they had participated in a mental health appointment— I hope I was far more subtle than that. But, by leveraging the