The Foreign Service Journal, November 2021

48 NOVEMBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL American Exodus from Nasser’s Nile: The Untold Saga of the American Embassy Evacuation from Egypt During the 1967 “Six-Day War” WilliamM. Childs Jr., Palmetto Publishing, 2021, $12.99/paperback, e-book available, 110 pages. In June 1967, when the Six-Day War, orThird Arab-Israeli War, erupted, the author was a 10-year-old Foreign Service kid living with his family in a suburb of Cairo. He recalls vividly the day his father, career FSOWilliamChilds, waved him, his sister andmother off on the last TWA flight to Athens with other dependents. Childs Sr. would stay to help close down the embassy and ensure the safe departure of embassy staff. The Cold War was going strong, and as Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser’s nationalism led him to challenge Israel, the U.S. government was not about to directly intervene, risking confrontation with the Soviet Union. So American diplomats had to rely on Egyptian police and sympathizers to complete the evacuation, traveling by train and bus at night. One American died in the process. Childs Sr. recorded a detailed account of the evacuation, but thenmothballed it for unknown reasons. Fifty-four years later, his son decided to resurrect that story to honor his father and share a unique slice of diplomatic history with a wider audience. The inclusion of maps, photographs and factual historical context makes this an informative and engrossing read. WilliamChilds Jr. is a retired business executive whose 30-year career in the medical device industry included international living assignments covering Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. He lives with his wife on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. From Afar: One Man’s Human-Powered Adventure from the Lowest Point on the African Continent to the Summit of Its Highest Mountain Kyle Henning, independently published, 2021, $17.99/paperback, e-book available, 253 pages. In January 2011, Kyle Henning left the shores of Lake Assal in Djibouti on a mission. For 68 days, he traveled by bicycle and on foot to connect the lowest point on the African con- tinent to the summit of its highest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. His route followed the Great Rift Valley from the Afar Depression through the Horn of Africa. Traveling alone after finishing his Peace Corps service in Ethiopia, Henning faced the physical demands of cycling through four countries, growing uncertainty as the Arab Spring gripped the continent, and the effects of his own post-traumatic stress. As Henning explains in his prologue: “I wanted to discover my personal limits as I abandoned the safety nets of the service programs that definedmy young adulthood, venturing out through unfamiliar countries with onlymy physical strength andmental grit. I hoped tomimicmy heroes who had cycled the world and climbed its highest mountains. Likemany of them, I aspired to do something that I wasn’t sure I was capable of doing, simply to see if I could.” KyleHenning is on his second Foreign Service assignment, as a vice consul inBogotá; his first postingwas Addis Ababa, where hewas aPeaceCorps volunteer. Inhis spare time, he is an amateur adventure enthusiast, musician andwriter. Nothing Is Impossible: America’s Reconciliation with Vietnam Ted Osius, Rutgers University Press, 2021, $29.95/hardcover, e-book available, 356 pages. While in Vietnam for his first tour as a political officer (1996-1998), Ted Osius encountered a local proverb that stuck with him long afterward: “When you go on a journey, you come back with wisdom.” This memoir confirms that throughout his Foreign Service career, Osius traveled both widely and wisely. Just 16 years later, he returned to Vietnam as U.S. ambassador in 2014. Had he merely recounted his eventful three-year tenure in this book, it would be well worth reading. But as the foreword by former Secretary of State John Kerry declares, Nothing Is Impossible has a broader message; it tells an inspiring story of how international diplomacy can create a better world. Osius concludes his memoir by observing: “My time in Vietnam had come full circle. Together withmy colleagues in Hanoi, we had shown respect for Vietnam’s history, language andmythology. We had pushed to the limit the possibilities for chronicling the truths of the ‘AmericanWar.’ Together withmy embassy team and the people and leaders of Vietnam, we had progressed further down the road toward reconciliation.”