The Foreign Service Journal, October 2018

56 OCTOBER 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AFSA NEWS indeed, many of the panel- ists spoke eloquently about how embassy staff and family members worked together to rescue victims, to reopen the embassies and to rebuild the communities in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam that had suf- fered so much, with 224 killed and some 5,000 injured. Amb. Bushnell called Embassy Nairobi “one resilient family.” In a blog post follow- ing the event, she writes that those who spoke on Aug. 6 “reminded me howmuch we demanded from and depended upon one another, and how extraordinary our accomplishments were given the level of injuries and trauma. They verified that we became family through our struggles to heal. Many of us are still burdened.” She called the event at USDC a “healing and meaningful experience.” Amb. Lange, who was chargé d’affaires at the time, told the audience that the bombing changed him from a “manager” into a “leader” as he worked with his surviving Remembrance Continued from p. 47 staff members to recover and, eventually, to rebuild.“The combination of printed (and heartfelt) stories, key arti- facts on display and moving speeches and panel discus- sions was very powerful,” he said of the USDC event.“For those who went through the bombings, this proved to be therapeutic. For others, it demonstrated the magni- tude of the 1998 attacks on two U.S. embassies—and on America.” The State Department held a separate memorial event on the morning of Aug. 7. Deputy Secretary of State John Sul- livan, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Tibor Nagy and other senior State Depart- ment officials gathered with survivors and family members at the plaque commemorat- ing survivors of the attack. Kenya’s Deputy Chief of Mission toWashington David Gacheru and Tanzania’s Ambassador toWashington Wilson Masiling also attended. In his remarks, the Deputy Secretary said that,“many of you here today acted to save lives and help your colleagues and strangers.We thank all of you for your courage, bravery and valor as you answered that call—call of duty, call of basic humanity—to respond to those attacks and to those who were injured and killed on that day.” Survivors later gathered at a marker at Arlington National Cemetery, where bombing victims Julian Bartley, then the consul general in Nai- robi, his son Jay and Prabhi Kavaler, the assistant general services officer at the time of the bombing, are buried. In Nairobi two weeks of public outreach programming surrounded the anniversary, culminating in an official commemoration ceremony on Aug. 7 at Memorial Park in downtown Nairobi. About 250 attendees, most of whom were survivors or family mem- bers of survivors, attended. Ambassador Robert Godec and his wife, Lori Magnus- son, who were both in Kenya at the time of the blast, also attended. There was a concur- rent ceremony at the refur- bished memorial garden on the grounds of U.S. Embassy Nairobi. In Dar es Salaam, the embassy partnered with the National Museum of Tanzania to renovate the public memo- rial space for the victims of the embassy bombing. The embassy dedicated this new memorial on Aug. 7 with an interfaith ceremony. Chargé d’Affaires Inmi Patterson and Home Affairs Minister Kangi Lugola placed a wreath at the memorial wall, while guests placed white roses at the base of the wall. To view a video of the USDC event, go to http:// bit.ly/USDC_Anniversary. To read the recollections of survivors published in The Foreign Service Journal , go to www.afsa.org/reflections-us- embassy-bombings-kenya- and-tanzania. The USDC continues to collect artifacts for its perma- nent collection. To donate an item, please email Associate Curator Kathryn Speckart at speckartkg@state.gov. ADST continues to collect stories from survivors, which can be sent to oralhistory@adst.org, or call (702) 302-6290 for more information. n Ambassadors Pru Bushnell, Barbara Stephenson and John Lange at the USDC event. Guests place white roses at the base of the memorial in Dar es Salaam. U.S.DEPARTMENTOFSTATE U.S.EMBASSYDARESSALAAM