A poster at my college's sports forum recently posted this, from his brother in Nairobi. It paints an interesting (and completely different) picture from the refusal of certain FSOs to deploy overseas in general and Iraq, in particular.

http://www.cyclonefanatic.com/forum/...e-officer.html

My brother who is a Foreign Service Officer ("FSO") received this letter from another FSO in Chad:

Dear friends
I am sending you this email to let you know that I am fine. We were evacuated on Sunday afternoon and taken to the French military base. Early this morning at 3:00 AM US military base in Germany sent a military plane to come to bring us to Yaounde. We evacuated dependents and children on Friday before the start of the war. They left at 4:00 in the morning and the war started around 9:00. The DOD dispatched 10 navy Seals from Baghdad who arrived just on time. We were all divided into 2 groups. One group with the Ambassador was at the embassy, and the other group was on the US housing compound. We were all put in one room, and the 11 of us were right on the floor. We could hear the fight. One tank stopped right under our wall, and each time it fired, the room vibrated. We could hear bullets flying as well as the rocket propelled grenades. The Seals were on the top of the biggest building on the compound, and they had authorization to open fire if anyone came onto the compound. The fight lasted until 5 PM when everything got quite for the evening prayer. Then it started again till 9:00PM. On Saturday, It started over again. When they moved toward the President Palace, the looting started. We were hearing from the local guards who stayed at our separated residence how one after the other they had to abandon each post because the house was invaded by looters.

After several hours, I heard what I was fearing the most. My guard called to report that " This is the guard over at your residence. They broke through the gate, and they broke the front door." He said that he is going to wait to see if they will leave something that he could bring back to the compound. After 40 minutes, he came back on the radio to announce" Sir, if you are hearing this, I am sorry. They took absolutely everything". After that I told him to come join us on the compound.

Yes, I lost absolutely everything. Everything. And I am not the only one. We all lost everything except our life. God was looking over us. Two houses on the compound got hit by strayed cannon fire. We were hearing those fire all day on Saturday and part of Sunday. When the rebels stopped the fight on Sunday to regroup, that's when the French troops came to the compound in armored trucks that looked like tanks and took us to their military base. The French sent a helicopter to the embassy to airlift our Ambassador, the marines and other who were at the embassy.

I went to Chad with over 2000 Lbs of goods, I left with one bag which contained one pants, 2 sock and 2 shirts. They even took all my figurines and all our Christmas decorations which we have been collecting for many years and were planning to pass them to the children.

Do I regret having gone to Chad? No, not at all. We were doing a very good job and were helping Chadian Children. We were constantly in schools talking to them and helping them whichever way we could. I really loved this job. There was nothing more gratifying to see than a mother cry because we donated school supplies to her child or a Catholic sister cry because we gave her a grant to help her help Chadian abused women. I loved it and will go back if I have the chance. The only thing I will do differently is that I will not spend the fortune I spent to prepare for my life in Chad.

Again we are all fine, and I thank you all for all your prayers. Thanks to those prayers, even though a missile went straight through the Ambassador's office while a group of them were in the office burning classified documents; the missile just went through and just pierced both walls and exploded outside. I cannot explain how that happened, but that was what happened.

Thank you and I love you all

This happens to 1 or 2 embassies every year although usually not so dramatic. The group that took over the city was Islamic thugs from the genecidal area of Sudan.

My brother is attached to the Nairobi embassy. He is married to another FSO who works in the Kinshasa embassy. Kinshasa has been evacuated something like 10 times in the last 15 years. More than any other embassy.