The Foreign Service Journal, March 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2022 49 uees, we devoted significant time to building goodwill with the local community in and around Blackstone, Virginia. Two days after the first Afghan guests arrived at Fort Pickett, the mayor of Blackstone, also the owner of the local newspaper, paid an unof- ficial visit to the base and published a series of photos and a story raising concerns about how the influx of Afghans would affect his town of 3,300 people. We quickly arranged the first of a series of meetings with the mayor and assured him that the Afghans did not pose a threat to the town’s safety, health or public resources. Ultimately, the mayor proved to be an ally, pushing back on wild rumors and helping us reassure congressional delegation (CODEL) visitors. While basic medical care at Fort Pickett was provided through a contract with SOS International, Afghan evacuees with emer- gency needs had to go to small local hospitals that were already over-run with COVID patients. Twelve babies were born to our evacuees during that first month, and local hospitals raised the alarm over capacity issues with Virginia’s Department of Health. We were able to provide daily statistical updates to show that the volume of Afghan patients was not out of control. We also brokered an agreement between SOS International and a local Walmart pharmacy that allowed Walmart to fill essential medical prescriptions for our Afghan guests, which avoided adding to the number of hospital visits. Local residents were deeply divided in their attitudes about the Afghans. Some saw them as a threat, and when they encountered an Afghan off the base—and many Afghan Ameri- cans, interpreters and others showed up in Blackstone—they often went on social media to report an “escapee.” But many local residents opened their hearts and wallets in support of the evacuees. In addition to generous individual donations, a local church allowed members of Team Rubicon, a military vet- erans nongovernmental organization that was a vital conduit for receiving and distributing donations, to sleep at the church for weeks on end. I am hugely proud of our team’s support to our Afghan part- ners, and it was good to see how well our diplomatic skills trans- ferred to working with a domestic audience in southern Virginia. Baxter Hunt, who served as State Department lead at Fort Pickett in Virginia, is associate dean of the School of Professional and Area Studies at the Foreign Service Institute. He is a member of the Senior Foreign Service and served two tours at U.S. Embassy Kabul. A POLAD’s Perspective JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, NEW JERSEY Holly Peirce I found myself as the sole State Department foreign policy adviser (POLAD) at the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command in mid-July when the crisis planning began for Operation Allies Refuge. The senior Department of Homeland Security representative and I explained the intricacies of visas/parole and DHS/DoS authori- ties to USNORTHCOM planners. As I kept the State POLAD network and Bureau of Political and Military Affairs informed, I shared and “interpreted” State reporting, which was fed into the overall planning process. It felt like a State Department integrated country strategy on steroids, with dozens of complex multiagency taskers. As the evacuation operation progressed, the decrease in classi- fication level from SECRET to For Official Use Only / Sensitive But Unclassified greatly facilitated virtual, interagency communication and after-hours coverage. Given the uniqueness of the mission, the USNORTHCOM liaison officers at the Afghanistan Coordination Task Force, the Unified Coordination Group and I answered what seemed like never-ending requests for information fromplanners. Evacuees arrive at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey. JOHNWECKER