The Foreign Service Journal, June 2013

the Foreign Service journal | JUNE 2013 43 Albania. He was over 70 at the time, but neither asked for, nor got, any special treatment as we made our way among the aid workers and journalists flocking to the scene. Our first night in Skopje was spent in a box of a room that I told him was the worst place I had ever stayed. Shep replied laconically that he could not make the same claim. From Tirana, we hitched a four-hour ride to Albania’s largest refugee camp, near the Kosovo border. We traveled the same treacherous mountain road where, several weeks later, the new chairman of Refugees International, his wife, and RI’s European representa- tive would be killed when their vehicle plunged over a cliff. We got back the same way. For Shep, it was all in a day’s work. A Fine Public Servant Not all extraordinary people can laugh at themselves, but Shep could. On a trip to Bangkok to visit a program under his responsibility as deputy assistant secretary, he later recounted, he and his local program director were walking along one of the city’s notoriously dangerous sidewalks when he fell into an open sewer manhole and literally disappeared from sight. He chuckled at the plight of his subordinate, swerving around and finding his big boss from Washington missing. “The poor guy must have thought, ‘My God, I’ve lost my deputy assistant secretary!’” Although Shep’s health began to falter several years ago, he enjoyed an esteem in the Washington area’s Indochinese com- munities that was palpable. Time and again, he and Hiep could be found at Vietnamese functions or in Vietnamese homes, where they enjoyed the status of honored guests. That may say it all. Despite his achievements, Shep Lowman was a modest man with no taste for ostentation. His friends will remember him for his intense loyalty to his family, his seriousness of purpose and his unwavering honesty. Untold numbers of Americans of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao descent will remember him for making possible their admission to the United States. His country should remember him, as well, for embodying our finest inclinations. n Moving? Take AFSAWith You! Change your address online, visit us at www.afsa.org/address_change.aspx Or Send change of address to: AFSAMembership Department 2101 E Street NW Washington, DC 20037 Courtesy Hiep Lowman.