The American Foreign Service Association maintains a
memorial at the west end of the diplomatic lobby, the C Street entrance to the U.S. Department
of State in Washington , D.C.
The first name on the memorial is that of Revolutionary War patriot
William Palfrey, lost at sea in 1780 on his way to France to serve as consul-general,
by unanimous appointment of the Second Continental Congress, of which John
Hancock was president. The American
Foreign Service at that time consisted mainly of John Jay, Benjamin Franklin,
Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams.
AFSA currently lists 244 names from deaths in 64 foreign
countries and at sea. Assassinations,
embassy bombings, yellow fever, cholera have claimed lives of Foreign Service
personnel, those who work at embassies, consulates, and missions worldwide,
some locations lovely and/or exotic, some not.
Earliest victim of violence appears to have been Harris E.
Fudger, murdered in Bogata ,
Colombia Kentucky . President was John Quincy Adams, Secretary of
State for the previous President (James Monroe) and son of the second President
of the United States
(John Adams).
Many Foreign Service civilians died in Vietnam , along with 58,000+
military. Secretaries of State included
Dean Rusk, William Rogers, and Henry Kissinger, Presidents Lyndon Johnson and
Richard Nixon.
The suicide bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut , Lebanon
U.S. Foreign Service Officer David Foy was specifically
targeted in an attack on the consulate compound in Karachi , Pakistan
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