The Foreign Service Journal, November 2012

80 NOVEMBER 2012 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL strain diplomats. As a political officer in Jerusalem, with the sensitive assignment of working with the Palestinian leader- ship, he tried to get into the West Bank even when violence flared between Palestinians and Israelis. As Ghaith al-Omari, a former top adviser to the Palestinian Authority who dealt with Amb. Stevens during peace negotiations, told the Washington Post : “We were on opposite sides in a way. During a meeting, he was very proper and professional. Having a coffee after the meeting, he was very friendly and asked a lot of questions. You ended up with a diplomat who had texture.” “He understood so much about the Middle East,” Austin Tichenor, a high school classmate and lifelong friend, told the Post . “The only small solace is that he died the same way he lived,” he added—in the thick of things. “I was honored to know Ambassador Chris Stevens,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in her remarks at Andrews Air Force Base on Sept. 14. “I want to thank his parents and siblings for sharing Chris with us and with our country. What a wonderful gift you gave us. Over his distinguished career in the Foreign Service, Chris won friends for the United States in far-flung places.” “One of the very finest officers of his generation in the Foreign Service” is how Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns described Christopher Stevens on Sept. 12. “I last saw Chris on a visit to Libya about six weeks ago, shortly after his arrival as ambassador, and I remember thinking on the plane ride home that his was the kind of courage and talent and leadership that would inspire another generation of American diplomats,” Burns told the Washington Post . “We will miss him deeply, but long remember his example.” Mr. Stevens maintained a daily regi- men of running even in Libya, jogging through goat farms, olive groves and vineyards. He played tennis, was a Los Angeles Lakers fan and enjoyed playing the saxophone. He was a member of AFSA and DACOR. His father, Jan S. Stevens, is a lawyer. His mother, Mary Commandy, a cellist with the Marin Symphony Orchestra from 1976 to 2004, is a Chinook Indian, and Stevens and his siblings are direct descendants of Chinook Chief Com- comly. The Stevenses divorced in 1975, and both remarried. Christopher Stevens is survived by his father, Jan Stevens; his mother and stepfather, Mary and Robert Comman- day of Piedmont, Calif.; a sister, Anne; a brother, Thomas; and a stepsister, Hilary. The family has created a Web site, Remembering Chris Stevens (www. rememberingchrisstevens.com) an d established a fund in his name to support the work of building bridges between the people of the United States and the Middle East, the endeavour to which he dedicated his life. n Sean Patrick Smith , 34, a State Department information management officer and 10-year veteran of the For- eign Service, was in Libya on a tempo- rary assignment when he was killed. A native of San Diego, Calif., Mr. Smith enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1995 at the age of 17. He served for six years as a ground radio maintenance specialist, including a deployment to Oman, before leaving the Air Force in 2002 as a staff sergeant. He joined the Foreign Service that year as an informa- tion management specialist. Hailing Sean Smith as “one of our best,” Secretary of State Clinton praised his service to the country in previous postings to Brussels, Baghdad, Pretoria, Montreal and The Hague. “He enrolled in correspondence courses at Penn State and had high hopes for the future,” Clinton continued in her remarks at Andrews Air Force Base. Referring to the many grieving fam- ily members, friends, and colleagues Smith leaves behind, Clinton added: “And that’s just in this world. Because online in the virtual worlds that Sean helped create, he is also being mourned by countless competitors, collaborators and gamers who shared his passion.” Mr. Smith was well known as a computer expert and an active member of the online gaming community. In particular, he was an avid participant in EVE Online, the intergalactic multi- player game of space combat, diplomacy and political intrigue where he was known as “Vile Rat”—a smart but tough diplomat and spy who worked on behalf of a major alliance called Goonswarm. Online gamers were among the first to learn of his death. Mr. Smith, who had been online with fellow gamer and Goonswarm director Alex Gianturco shortly before the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate errupted, signed off temporarily with this fateful message: “...assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.” It had happened before. “In Baghdad, the same kind of thing happened— incoming sirens, he’d vanish, we’d freak out and he’d come back ok after a bit,” Gianturco recalled later. But, “this time he said ‘F---’ and ‘Gunfire,’ then discon- nected and never returned.” That night Gianturco, known in the EVE world as The Mittani, posted this: “My people, I have grievous news. Vile Rat has been confirmed to be KIA in