The Foreign Service Journal, September 2021

44 SEPTEMBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Life Choices Shaped by That Day On Sept. 11, 2001, I was a blond-haired, green-eyed, slightly naïve college student from a small town in southern California who knew very little about Afghanistan and even less about al-Qaida. The events of that day irrevocably altered the shape of my dreams and the course of my life. I was fortunate enough not to lose any loved ones in the attacks, but the force of the change in my perception of the world blew the doors of my cozy, safe, insular world wide open and brought with it the realization that nothing would ever be the same again. For those of us who became adults post-9/11, our life choices have been indelibly shaped by that day. I eventually joined the Foreign Service and, when bidding on my second tour, readily volunteered for service in Afghanistan. I will spend the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks posted to Kabul as an assistant information officer in the public affairs section. The story of Afghanistan over the past few decades has been saturated in blood and punctuated by displacement and destruc- tion. I hope that our work here will ensure that the next chapter is one of hope, reconstruction and reconciliation. —Erin Rattazzi, FSO, Embassy Kabul, from her note in the compilation, “The Foreign Service a Decade After 9/11,” in the September 2011 FSJ. The Dust of Kandahar It was the youth of those around us that was so striking. One lieutenant who directed my security on several trips to Kandahar had only recently graduated fromWest Point. One private seemed so young that I was tempted to ask him: “Do you have a note from your parents giving you permission to participate in this war?” As the senior civilian representative for the U.S. embassy in southern Afghanistan from August 2012 until August 2013, I covered four provinces with a collective population of more than three million people, scattered over an area the size of Kentucky or South Korea that was mostly desert. Our efforts at outreach followed in the footsteps of those who preceded us. But now, more than a decade after we had helped Afghans overthrow the Taliban, our task had evolved to paving the way for our own pending departure while dispelling any sense of “abandonment.” We told our local contacts that it was now time for them to write their own narrative and achieve their nation’s destiny. Five of us flew up early that morning to meet our civilian col- leagues on the Zabul Provincial Reconstruction Team, discuss education issues with Governor Naseri and visit a local school. … Anne Smedinghoff was only 25, young for an FSO who was already well into her second overseas assignment. We talked briefly on the tarmac as we waited for our helicop- ter against the early morning sun, the sky a perfect blue. This was Anne’s first trip to Kandahar. ... She mentioned that during a recent vacation, she had cycled across Jordan. I also chatted with my translator, Nasemi, who was supporting a large extended family stretching from New York to New Zealand. Within hours both Anne and Nasemi were dead. Two other civilian State Department employees—Abbasi … and Kelly Hunt …—were injured, Kelly critically. Three soldiers walking beside us were also killed that day: Staff Sergeant Christopher Ward … Sergeant Delfin Santos … and Corporal Wilbel Robles-Santa. All three were born in 1988. … Not a day goes by when I don’t relive what happened on that cloudless morning, recalling every moment as it unfolded, reliv- ing endlessly what might have been. … The next day I attended the ramp ceremony for my col- leagues, accompanying their remains on the long journey home. We started with five flag-draped aluminum boxes in Kandahar and added four more in Bagram, bringing the American death toll for that day to nine. Three days later, I returned to Kandahar for the remaining 20 weeks of my tour. But I have never quite left Afghanistan behind, and probably never will. —Jonathan Addleton, FSO (ret.), from his article of the same title in the October 2015 FSJ. The Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS: A Success Story Sometimes a truth spoken resonates so organically that it prompts a collective sigh of relief from its listeners—relief that someone has emerged from the crowd to suggest a path forward, allowing us all to shift our footing from collective outrage to collective action. That is the essence of the story behind U.S. leadership of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. During the first six months of 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq