The Foreign Service Journal, November 2022

20 NOVEMBER 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL ment, the Office of the Legal Adviser, and USAID’s Office of Administrative Management Services. The group has pledged to listen to women’s concerns and propose solu- tions that will improve access to health care services for employees and family members serving abroad. However, no drafters of the letters have been invited to join the group. Foreign Service Mourns Traffic Fatalities T he Foreign Service community mourns the loss of three of its members in late summer when active- duty officers Shawn O’Donnell and Sarah Langenkamp and recently retired FSO Timothy Fingarson were killed in traffic- related accidents in the Washington, D.C., area. O’Donnell, who joined the Foreign Service in 2019, was cycling to the State Department on July 20 when she was hit by a truck at the corner of 21st and I streets Northwest. She had recently celebrated her 40th birthday and was preparing for her next assignment in Istanbul. According to The GW Hatchet , the intersection where the crash took place has been the site of multiple calls for repairs and safety improvements as far back as 2018. A new traffic signal—which locals believe could have prevented the crash—was completed and functional on July 29, about a week after O’Donnell was struck. In response to a growing number of similar accidents, on Sept. 20 the D.C. Council voted in favor of the Safer Inter- sections Act , which would ban right turns at all red lights in the district by 2025. Fingarson, a 66-year-old Foreign Service retiree who returned to work with the State Department as an independent contractor, had survived riots in Yemen, dodged explosives in Iraq, and narrowly escaped from the U.S. embassy in Turkey before a suicide bombing nine years ago, according to The Washington Post . On Aug. 3, while crossing Virginia Avenue NW, he was struck and killed by a driver who had just exited the 23rd Street underpass. Langenkamp, a 42-year-old FSO who had recently returned from Kyiv, was killed on Aug. 25 when a flatbed truck struck her on River Road in Bethesda, Md. The accident took place when the truck driver turned right across the bike lane to enter a parking lot. A GoFundMe page started by her husband, Foreign Service Officer Dan Langenkamp, kicked off a campaign to improve road safety conditions that has already raised more than $275,000 to help organizations working on bike safety. The FSJ will share more about the lives of these diplomats in the January- February issue’s In Memory section. n This edition of Talking Points was compiled by Julia Wohlers. The group also asked that all overseas health units maintain accurate and up- to-date lists of local health care providers, including OB/GYN services, and that rape kits be stocked, and provided when needed, at every post, in accordance with Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) guidelines. The letter cited specific examples of health unit failure to adhere to FAM guid- ance in both areas. The issue has drawn the engagement of Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and the State Department’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, all urging further action and reform. USAID has since convened two related working groups, led by Deputy Administrator for Management and Resources Paloma Adams-Allen, to deter- mine how to better support FSOs. And most recently, in mid-September, the State Department announced the cre- ation of the interagency Women’s Health Working Group, chaired by Ambassa- dor (ret.) Carol Perez and comprising representatives from the Office of the Under Secretary for Management, MED, the Bureau of Global Talent Manage- Site of the Month: https://burnbag.buzzsprout.com The appearance of a particular site or podcast is for information only and does not constitute an endorsement. S elf-described as “the hottest national security and foreign policy podcast,”The Burn Bag features conver- sations with leading policy practitioners and thinkers. In each weekly episode, co-hosts A’ndre Gonawela and Ryan Rosenthal open a topical “burn bag” to consider new devel- opments and ongoing challenges with these experts. In one recent episode, Rosenthal sits down with J.R. Seeger, former Alpha Team leader, to discuss the CIA’s 2001 entry into Afghanistan. Other episodes cover democratic decline in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a comparison of the legacies of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, and an interview with Paul Massaro of the U.S. Helsinki Com- mission on kleptocracy and America’s anticorruption efforts at home and abroad.