The Foreign Service Journal, March 2022

48 MARCH 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL After five days at Dulles, I was asked if I could go to Fort Dix in New Jersey, to help establish that safe haven facility. I drove up the next day, hoping my travel authorization and laptop would somehow catch up to me (they did). The next weeks were a blur of 14- to 18-hour days as the military scrambled to turn barracks and empty fields into hous- ing for up to 12,000 Afghans, with all the life support services that entailed, and we on the civilian side scrambled to bring all the necessary arms of the interagency and NGO communities together to welcome, process and eventually move the Afghans from the safe havens on to their new lives in America. “Building the plane while flying” became our catch phrase. After a month at Fort Dix, and approaching my official retire- ment date, PRM asked if I would be interested in continuing this work as a reemployed annuitant. Of course I said yes, and after a few weeks of HR processing, I moved down to Fort Pickett to lead the State Department effort there. By this point, the “land- ing pads” had evolved from panic-tinged startups to functioning machines; the plane was built, although it still required constant improvements, and we had moved on to a new phase—caring for the thousands of Afghans on U.S. military bases and mov- ing them along to their new homes and lives in America. At both Fort Dix and Fort Pickett, I’ve found just walking around the villages on base talking to people, getting stomped at chess, sharing a cup of tea or hors- ing around with the many children has been a blast. We’ve had free rein to come up with morale, welfare and recreation (MRW) activities, alongside our NGO partners. At Pickett the State/USAID/ Peace Corps/AmeriCorps team has conducted cricket, soccer and volleyball tourna- ments (men’s and women’s); computer and ESL classes; basketball camp; Bolly- wood movie nights; a very popular women’s center with everything from teas, sew- ing, computer and cultural orientation classes; and even a skateboard camp with the help of a talented young woman skateboarder from Kabul. This work has been tremendously challenging, both emotion- ally and physically, but also the most fun I have ever had as a diplomat. I look forward to helping this most deserving commu- nity of friends as I move into (actual) retirement. John Wecker is a retired Foreign Service officer with more than 30 years of service. His career included postings in Jamaica, Malaysia, Japan (two tours), Lebanon and Afghanistan (three tours), with domestic postings in the bureaus of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Economic and Business Affairs, and Energy Resources, and as special assistant to the under secretary for global affairs. He is currently working with the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration as a reemployed annuitant at Fort Pickett in Virginia. The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily those of the U.S. government. Domestic Diplomacy for Resettlement Efforts in Virginia FORT PICKETT, VIRGINIA Baxter Hunt I was part of a group of 19 State Depart- ment and USAID staff working at Fort Pickett, an Army National Guard training facility in southern Virginia that was one of eight military bases around the country housing Afghan evacuees. The first group of Afghans was bused from the Dulles Expo Center to Fort Pickett on Aug. 28, and by the end of September we were hosting 6,000 evacuees. Several of us on the State/USAID team had served in Afghanistan, and all of us were gratified to be able to assist locally employed staff colleagues—100 of whom wound up at Fort Pickett—and other Afghan partners in their time of need. We worked with our colleagues from the Department of Defense and other agen- cies to set up, in a matter of days, housing, medical care, life support and resettlement processing for our Afghan guests. In addition to our support to the evac- Afghan evacuees stroll at Fort Dix in New Jersey. JOHNWECKER