The Foreign Service Journal, November 2018

26 NOVEMBER 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Constant travel is inherently dangerous, and the six diplomatic couriers who perished in the line of duty during the past century have all died in plane crashes. Secretary of State John Kerry’s record-breaking travel of more than 1.3 million miles during four years posed major logistical challenges, but our team always delivered his secure communications gear to post three days prior to each visit. This perfect record included his final trip to Davos, in January 2017, for which a diplomatic courier had to purchase 400 euros worth of tire chains at the base of the Alps to ensure the equipment reached the icy resort on schedule. Less than a month later, in February 2017, a courier team supported Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s first overseas meet- ings in Bonn. More recently, even before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took his oath of office and immediately embarked on overseas travel, diplomatic couriers were in the air, paving the way for his first overseas trips to Brussels, Riyadh, Jerusalem and Amman. A Satisfying Career The international challenges the Department of State con- fronts are relentless; yet helping to overcome these obstacles makes for an immensely satisfying career. Our team’s persistent focus on bolstering the classified pipeline from the Department of State to Embassy Beijing, and our consulates in Shenyang, Shanghai, Chengdu and Guangzhou, has played a critical role in strengthening national security and diplomatic engagement. Due to constantly changing restrictions on shipments to China, the Diplomatic Courier Service has utilized various delivery methods, ranging from trains to a 3,200-mile overland bus route. More recently, in 2015, we conducted the first diplo- matic courier mission to China via ferry from South Korea. At the same time, other members of the Diplomatic Courier Service team were performing indispensable work during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Couriers delivered diplomatic pouches to Conakry, Freetown and Monrovia via Department of Defense “humanitarian corridor” flights from Dakar after Couriers handle a pouch going from Abidjan to Monrovia in 2017. U.S.DEPARTMENTOFSTATE/DIPLOMATICSECURITYSERVICE all commercial airlines canceled service due to the epidemic. These high-profile missions included the delivery of critical equipment to support the secure deployment of public health experts from the Centers for Disease Control throughout the Ebola-stricken countries. More recently, because of the Russian expulsion of American diplomats in 2018, a diplomatic courier traveled to St. Peters- burg to facilitate rapid closure of the consulate. The courier was put straight to work by the department’s Bureau of Information Resource Management, as personnel departed ahead of the Russian-imposed deadline. The courier assisted in pouching critical classified material, then traveled to Moscow with other staff on an overland mission as the consulate doors were closed. The Bureau of Diplomatic Security and Moscow’s deputy chief of mission praised his invaluable assistance in removing classi- fied material from St. Petersburg during a traumatic time. After spending a quarter-century in the Diplomatic Cou- rier Service, I still believe it is not only one of the best jobs in the U.S. government, but perhaps in the entire world. Even a flight I recently took from Birmingham back to Frankfurt while squashed into the jump seat of a small cargo plane, to escort Secretary Pompeo’s classified communications equipment, reminded me what an adventure this job continues to be. What other line of work offers this gift of global travel and living abroad while serving one’s country? Looking back, I wouldn’t trade my time in the Diplomatic Courier Service for any other career. n