The Foreign Service Journal, December 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2022 35 Dille sought department support to retainmore man- agement staff than the few designated to remain. Similarly, in early August, leadership insisted that the staff of Embassy Air—the air wing under the manage- ment section that included 15 aircraft andmore than 100 support staff—leave post, claiming the Department of Defense could evacuate the embassy with its assets instead. With the support of the assistant chief of mis- sion, Dr. Dille pushed back, aware that this teamwas best equipped to airlift embassy personnel to Kabul Airport, and gained a delay to Aug. 15. Coincidently, this was the same day Mission Kabul evacuated; Embassy Air airliftedmost of the embassy’s 2,000 diplomatic staff members to the airport in just 21 hours as Taliban fight- ers entered Kabul. Without them, DoDwould have had to operate in a Taliban-controlled city. Through his principled stands on a number of issues, Dr. Dille always sought to protect people. In reflecting on his time in Kabul, he tells the Journal he is proud to have secured the support of the front office for his proposed vaccination policy. “I believe the State Department has an obligation to provide our locally employed staff and their families withmedical care in the midst of a health crisis,” he says. Benjamin Dille currently serves as State Department chair at the Marine Corps War College, where he teaches diplomacy and statecraft to officers in the master’s program. Before this, he com- pleted a short tour as chargé d’affaires in Ashgabat after six months as deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires in Kolonia. Previously, Dr. Dille was executive director of the Bureau of African Affairs. He has run embassy administrative platforms in Astana, Prague, andMinsk, and handled transitions during his year of service in Iraq. Since joining the Foreign Service in 1991, Dr. Dille has also served inManagua, Shanghai, Mexico City, Caracas, Khartoum, and Freetown. He holds a Ph.D. in international and comparative law from the London School of Economics, an LL.M. fromExeter University (U.K.), a J.D. from the University of Minnesota, and a B.A. in history and international relations fromMacalester College. Prior to the Foreign Service, he worked as a lawyer and state legislative admin- istrator in his home state of Minnesota. For his role in supporting the largest civilian evacuation in U.S. history, Dr. Dille shared in the State Department’s Award for Heroism, and shares the American Academy of Diplomacy’s 2021 Walter and Leonore Annenberg Award for Excellence in Diplo- macy with all those who worked in Kabul. Benjamin Dille in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, where he served as chargé d’affaires in 2019. time, Dr. Dille convinced the front office to adopt his interpreta- tion—counter to department policy, but a life-and-deathmatter in Kabul—of Equal Employment Opportunity Committee rulings allowing employers to limit activities of unvaccinated staff. Despite institutional opposition to his efforts, Dr. Dille did this legally with a voluntary programof access for those providing proof of vaccina- tion. The White House soon extended the policy governmentwide, and pressure on the department convinced it to require contractor vaccinations by August. Concerned that preparations for the imminent military depar- ture were not being taken seriously by many colleagues in the embassy, in February 2021 Dr. Dille suggested advising Americans to take their valuables with themwhen traveling to the U.S. on leave. Leadership initially balked, fearing this might cause panic, but agreed to the notice, with careful wording. After finding that overall embassy staffing numbers were not decreasing following April’s ordered departure (OD), he unsuc- cessfully argued that many embassy offices could work remotely from the U.S.; but department leadership continued arguing for exceptions allowing select offices to bring staff in. This led tomore Americans at post in late July than before the OD. At the same time, leadership insisted that management staff be slashed, while Dr. Dille unsuccessfully argued that more manage- ment staff were needed to support evacuation, embassy closure, and operations at Kabul Airport. Days before the evacuation, Dr.