The Foreign Service Journal, November 2018

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2018 25 The international challenges the Department of State confronts are relentless; yet helping to overcome these obstacles makes for an immensely satisfying career. Couriers arrive in China in 1973. U.S.DEPARTMENTOFSTATE/DIPLOMATICSECURITYSERVICE rier missions. These pouches contained sensitive and critical material and equipment necessary to conduct foreign policy around the globe, and 51 of the missions were specifically coor- dinated to support the president and the Secretary of State. In the past few years, diplomatic couriers have provided logistics support for milestones such as the reopening of the U.S. embassy in Havana, the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi, and even sporting events like the Summer and Win- ter Olympics. The Diplomatic Courier Service has also delivered almost 700 pouches to support various security augmentation teams temporarily assigned to overseas missions under the highest threat of political violence or terrorism. These missions were critical to protecting lives and facilitating the conduct of foreign policy in the most arduous environ- ments. Critical Missions After the Paris attacks on Nov. 13, 2015, a Diplomatic Courier Service team worked late into the evening and over the weekend to transport critical shipments to France. This entailed driving to Paris with a diplomatic note from the U.S. consulate general in Frankfurt to ensure a successful crossing because French borders had been sealed. Just a week later, terrorists attacked a hotel in Bamako, Mali, killing 20 people. Once again, diplomatic couriers went into action, formulating and executing a plan to support ship- ments to a remote U.S. mission that is difficult to service even during normal times. Such events highlight the close working relationship between the different directorates of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security that has been critical over the past several years to ensuring the safety and security of the department’s overseas personnel. In July 2016, I personally staffed a critical mission to Nairobi in support of protective teams dispatched to Embassy Juba during civil unrest. I was on the tarmac in Kenya 36 hours later, delivering critical equipment to teams as they boarded charter flights to South Sudan. Such an urgent mission is indicative of the swift global response the Diplomatic Courier Service is capable of making and showcases how essential our role is in protecting the department’s personnel. In the turbulent year following my mission, our Frankfurt office completed 27 missions to Embassy Juba alone, delivering 18,706 kilograms of critical equipment. As logistics experts, our personnel have developed a wealth of professional knowledge on quickly delivering material to remote and high-threat posts around the globe. A diplomatic courier (in hat) with an officer from Embassy Paris in Paris in 1957. U.S.DEPARTMENTOFSTATE/DIPLOMATICSECURITYSERVICE