Part 4: An innocent wrong turn leads to a life-changing disaster

Or, making the best of a dumb mistake

Last time, I introduced readers to my Foreign Service posting in Riga, Latvia—the last job abroad in my nearly 15 years at the U.S. Department of State. Many of you enjoyed that, I hope. If you are squeamish, you may find this next account alarming, and for that I apologize in advance. It is a highly personal and somewhat painful story to recount, even three decades later.

Until you have been mugged—and I pray you never are—you cannot comprehend the overwhelming depth and breadth of trauma it visits upon your life. If you are merely robbed—and that is bad enough—it is insulting and frightening. If you are physically assaulted, as I was, that carries its own special consequences. In Riga, luckily, I was not shot, or stabbed—just beaten, badly, with brass knuckles—and ending up having two separate surgeries to rebuild the left side of my face. But it very nearly broke something much harder to repair: my spirit—and it led, inexorably, to the end of my career in the Foreign Service.

I have rarely talked at length about the specifics of that mugging in a Riga park. Those who served at the U.S. embassy with me saw the immediate aftermath; some of them sympathized, some of them screamed at me, “You idiot! What were you doing there?” They were right, of course. Muggings were common at night; I was not the first, nor sadly, the last victim. And a few others said I asked for it by walking alone at night. I thanked the comforters and shook my head at the rest, some of whom were right—I was stupid, yes—but a few were just being spiteful, not helpful.

For those who have never been to Riga, there is a long, narrow public park between the Old Town of Vecriga and what was the U.S. embassy in the newer downtown in 1992—maybe a block wide, perhaps a little more, with a small bridge across a brook in the center. As you enter it from Old Town, you can actually see the lights of the parallel street, and the embassy, and the hotel behind it, where I lived. The park was not as well lit as it could have been; to skirt it, you had to walk 4 or 5 blocks around the park, along streets that are marginally better lit, if far busier with pedestrians and passing traffic. It was after midnight, just a week after Midsummer’s Eve—the sun had barely gone down—and I had been in this same park on many nights with other friends, an easy shortcut. Tonight, for the first time, I was alone.

I was walking back from a social evening at the Old Town apartment of embassy colleagues—the Peace Corps doctors—and I was tired. I did not want to walk another five blocks when one block was so much shorter. So yes, I was complacent. I should have spent the night on their living room sofa. I made it as far as the bridge when I was jumped—one group of five or more thugs took turns punching and kicking me, the other group of similar size stood guard a few yards away. They did not speak much—nothing in English, anyway. I was forced to my knees, and felt what seemed to be the barrel of a gun at my temple. I was yelling my bloody head off, and they were determined to shut me up. I am not a small guy but had no chance against them—making noise, even if it killed me, was my only weapon.

“Your life flashes in front of your eyes,” I had always heard, when you think you are about to die. It is true. I saw things I had long forgotten, like a fast-forward documentary. I could only think of my teenaged daughter and wife and mother and sister back in the States, who would never know why I died. I said a prayer and prepared to have my head blown off.

And waited. And nothing happened. I opened my eyes, and I was alone. The shoulder bag I had been carrying—with a satellite telephone, as I was the “duty officer” that night—was gone. So was my wallet, which held maybe 300 Latvian rubles, no U.S. currency—and my diplomatic ID card. I assumed they got what they wanted—and did not hang around once they realized I was a foreign diplomat. I jumped up and took off running to the front door of the Embassy, and the night guard, frightened to death, finally let me in. I don’t think he recognized me at first.

So he called for help. They came. The rest is not a blur—I remember every excruciating detail—but I won’t burden you with all of it. The police interviewed me; they blamed Lithuanian thugs. Go figure. I ended up going to Helsinki a few days later for treatment—the Latvian doctor I saw recommended it, and as it turned out, I did need emergency facial reconstruction. The Finnish health care system was definitely superior to Latvia’s, maybe even to the U.S. system, in this case—and within a few weeks, I was almost back to normal physically. My cheekbone was now held together with a fine titanium chain; a second surgery would be needed to remove it.

But I would never be quite the same person inside. I was having flashbacks. Nightmares. I tried to work, but was irritable, grumpy, did not sleep well. After surgery, I briefly saw a psychiatrist in Finland who helped some, but the truth is that PTSD is not just for war victims or soldiers, and it changes you in ways you cannot fathom. You don’t get over PTSD, you get through it—if you are lucky—but you will always struggle with the aftermath. You never go back to being the same person. Thirty years later, I still have a low startle reflex. A new stateside psychiatrist and a short stint of Prozac gradually got me through much of the worst of it. But it was still a long time before I could even drive in unfamiliar areas at night by myself—could hardly even walk out my door alone—without checking over my shoulder, jumping at slight noises.

I did my best to mend myself at first but realized, after four or five months of recuperation—some in Finland, some in Riga, some stateside—that I was just not yet fit for full duty, especially completing the grueling task still ahead of me: supervising the contractors rebuilding our embassy. So I had myself medically evacuated to D.C.— “wack-evacked” is the clinical term—where I spent the next five years stuck “in grade,” considering my future, in various jobs, with strong evaluations, including a year of intensive Russian language training.

Truth is, a Foreign Service Officer is only as good as three things: his last EER, her “corridor reputation,” and the next posting abroad. I found I simply could not go back overseas, at least to anything less than a post that felt safe, even though my generous old boss—a kind-hearted political appointee, by the way—in Singapore offered me my old job back, no questions asked, when he heard about what happened. (I should have taken him up on it. I was recommended for promotion after leaving Singapore—just missed the cutoff that year.) Weeks later, I was still recovering from my second follow-up surgery, which turned out to be far more complicated than the first (now repairing a broken zygomatic arch, complete with a neurological emergency midstream), when I was offered a cushy short-term tour in Martinique, where the consulate general was being closed and the residence was being sold.

No real work, in the Caribbean. A paid vacation. Imagine … But I did not yet feel comfortable traveling, so I declined and waited, instead, for language training to begin. Easily the most rigorous year of my life—like undergoing brain surgery without an anesthetic …

After spending two years as a language-designated watch officer in the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, and just before spending my last 18 months in the International Organizations bureau, in mid-1996, I had been cleared to return to overseas duty. I first accepted, then turned down the overseas job I should simply have taken, in Chisinau, Moldova—another post-Soviet republic—working as admin section chief for a wonderful ambassador, a man I knew well, who would have listened to my input and acted on it. But I still did not feel ready—for travel, yes, just not for life overseas. I was officially dead in the water if I did not do go.

So a year later, I walked away from it all. I look back on that career now and miss it, a bit, but have also come to realize that I was just ill-suited to it from the outset. Smart enough intellectually, but too easygoing, too impractical, and not tough-minded enough—in the practical sense, I mean. And neither ambitious enough nor mean enough, by a country yard. And worse, I was an admin officer in a world ruled jealously by political officers who often thought they deserved servants, not equals. Challenge that dysfunctional world view, and reap the whirlwind. Get one truly bad evaluation in your record—mine was a “career killer,” said one shocked colleague who read my EER—and sooner or later, it will come back to haunt you, despite every good thing everyone else ever says.

I never wanted publicity, or anybody’s pity; I simply wanted to keep doing my job. Yes, I did talk to others about it—and in retrospect, I should have “grieved” that petty, vindictive, and almost completely inaccurate evaluation. I could have fought it, even though it meant publicity and public shame, but it went against my very nature. I chose not to hire a lawyer, tho’ it might have righted the wrong and salvaged my career. I guess I naively trusted the system to self-correct; and of course, it did not. It could not. For it was not that flexible, or that wise, and in the end, it was simply not designed to be just—or fair.

* * * * * *

The Foreign Service promotion system carries a “poison pill” provision. Every year, a certain percentage of FSOs had to be “low-ranked”—for “selection out” of the Service: culling the ranks of the “weakest” candidates. By 1997, I was cleared for duty, but had declined to serve overseas—and for five years, had technically served in inter-functional positions, out of my administrative “cone,” or specialty—when my name appeared on that list, to my horror. Despite excellent current evaluations, I had just one year to alter the situation—presumably by grabbing the next administrative officer opening, regardless of where it was—and hoping that I could “redeem” myself with one more good evaluation before the next board met, unlikely at best. A second subsequent “low ranking” meant automatic separation from the Service.

A Hobbesian choice. I was technically not allowed to contest the low ranking, nor could I find an open position in a country I felt safe in transferring to. Even though appealing to the Department’s top management was a long shot—I had once met Madeleine Albright personally, when she was U.N. ambassador, and had a brief, lively conversation with her; I wondered if the new Secretary of State might remember me, and how she might react to my implicit plea for help—I quickly reconsidered that rash move. So my formal resignation letter to her simply cited unspecified “personal reasons.”

Part of me now understood, however vaguely, that the final part of my healing process could only begin once I left that rather unforgiving environment. Even if I somehow survived, I had come about as far along in it as I could hope to. Some folks would always remember me, with dismissive pity, as that “unfortunate” man—damaged goods—or worse, a chained-up, barking dog, forever alienating the neighbors. So rather than wait to be shown the door—the final, diabolical insult to my dignity—I took what I saw as the only honorable course left: I resigned, with my head held high. Finally free to stay home, and write, and go back to school.

Twenty-five years after leaving, I would like to think the Foreign Service was poorer for my departure—their loss, not mine—but the truth is, I was never comfortable in that closed world, always a poor fit for me. From what I hear, very little has changed since my day. The system is still unfair, nasty EERs are still being written, and I doubt very much whether that will ever change. Those who have thrived within the system will continue averting their eyes to the occasional injustice—and the difficulty of rectifying it. For admitting the system is flawed risks, at least little, discrediting the validity of your own promotion.

Today I have few regrets about leaving. I served my country honestly, patriotically, and proudly with every breath I took. I worked hard, and even had fun for most of my 15 years, and made many good friends. I never begrudged or envied anyone else’s promotion, and I did try to help others along whenever I could—however much my help was worth. I went many places I would never have gone—learned two new languages I would never have taken the time to master—and would not trade anything I learned along the way for the brass ring, even for those last promotions I earned and deserved, but never got.

If I made mistakes—which I surely did, not just the wrong turn in Riga that altered my life and sealed my fate—I did at least try to learn from them, and grow into a better officer. At the very least, I began to thrive elsewhere after enduring a long nightmare. I wrote many books, went back to graduate school, finished my Ph.D., taught in college. Along the way, I found my spirit again.

I refused to let my painful experience in Riga, and those disspirited years afterward, define me. Those events remained a part of me, yes—they will always be a small part—but it was about to become part of the past. By leaving the Foreign Service, I started down the path of becoming a more complete, far better person than I think I ever would have been inside. It took a while, but I made my peace with that past by letting go of it and setting my sights, instead, squarely on the future.

Next time: The forgotten state of Franklin—and those who seek to remember it