The Foreign Service Journal, April 2005

it is unlikely either of them was in harm’s way. Ted Coley Chief, American Citizen Services Section Embassy Bangkok The Scene of the Disaster American Citizen Services Sec- tion FSN Kuvaldi “Air” Akarapany- athorn and I were the first non-Thai officials to reach Phi Phi after the tsunami. We smelled the island before we closed within a mile. The island was almost deserted and deadly silent, with only a few remaining European tourists waiting on the pier, along with a handful of Thai police/ military rescue workers. The two main hotels were severely damaged and numerous small shops were destroyed. Many human remains were piled on the pier and arranged in ragged rows on the narrow strip of sand in front of the hotels. Investigating one hotel, we recovered guest registration lists with informa- tion on Americans present on the day of disaster. In front of the Phi Phi Cabana Hotel we met the dazed owner who had remained at the site of his damaged property searching for the bodies of several staff members. “I know she is there — I can see part of her uniform,” he told us, referring to the remains of a cleaning woman on his staff, partially buried under the debris. The hotel’s three flagpoles, including one flying the U.S. flag, had been toppled by the tsunami; the flags almost touched the sand. In the midst of the numbing scenes around us, it seemed important to try and restore some semblance of dignity and normalcy. Despite his grief, the hotel owner readily agreed when we requested that the U.S. embassy recover the flag. “Others have asked for it, but I refused. I think it is right that the embassy have it.” After I took the flag down, three accompanying Thai police officers saluted in an infor- mal ceremony. The flag is now cleaned, folded in a triangle and mounted in a frame, with the commemorative plaque dedicated to the Thai and American victims of the tsunami. A newspaper photo showing the sagging flags on the day of the tsunami, with survivors clustered around, is also in the frame. During a brief stop in Bangkok to thank the embassy for its efforts during the tsunami, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Maura Harty pre- sented the flag to the consular section, where it will be displayed as a small memorial to the tragic events of Dec. 26, 2004. Tim Scherer Consular Officer (currently assigned as Labor Officer) Embassy Bangkok A P R I L 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 49