The ASAP stuff goes by air. The furniture and photocopiers take the cheaper, slower ground and sea route. Frankfurt is by far the busiest hub—bigger even than Washington—thanks to its proximity to the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. Recent examples include courier assistance during the sudden evacuation of a consulate in St.
Petersburg, Russia, last year when Russian officials expelled the diplomats, and intense embassy activity after an Al Qaeda-led mass shooting at a hotel in Bamako, the capital of Mali, in I also visited Bamako with the couriers on this trip, dipping in and out in a single day via aircraft since overland routes there aren't ideal.
Diplomatic Security Service agents will occasionally accompany couriers along high-threat routes, though mostly in active conflict zones. Couriers work grueling schedules. They might spend weeks at sea, aboard cargo ships. Couriers told me of spending nights in the rain atop of a pile of pouches following a missed connection, and of being thwarted by a coup in progress in Africa.
Six have died in airplane crashes, including a Gulf Air crash in Bahrain in , after which US Navy Seals recovered the pouches from the submerged wreckage. In , when his cargo plane crashed during takeoff from Brussels, courier Andy Perez helped the crew off the — which split in half —then found and secured his pouches. It earned him a Heroism Award from the State Department. Though trucks are queued up on both sides of the Senegal River, ready to wait hours for their turn to cross from Senegal to Mauritania, we get through in just an hour, including the minute crossing and paperwork on both sides.
You start to appreciate the little pleasures, the repeat performances from so many trips along the same route. Another courier, whom the State Department asked not be named for security reasons, says the work offers experiences few travelers can claim.
For a government agency, the DCS has an extraordinary success rate. The service did once manage to lose a baby grand piano along the Orient Express in Evidently, the courier—David K E Bruce, later a renowned diplomat—slept beneath it on a railway platform in Bulgaria and woke to find the piano was gone.
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Although the Foreign Service requires retirement at 65, applicants at least 59 years of age can be considered for positions as well. While couriers may be the ones actively traveling the globe, there is still a strong support structure to make sure that missions go according to plan.
When imagining the life of a diplomatic courier, it is easy to become wrapped up in the romantic fantasy of the job: globetrotting, intrigue, suspense, and black limousines all come to mind. Director Angell even has a poster from the thriller of the same name hanging on the wall in his office. And while the job can certainly have exciting moments, it is far different than the Hollywood image that shares its name.
In an ever expanding world, more and more sensitive material needs to be securely delivered, meaning the Courier Service must constantly innovate in order to stay on schedule. Travel for the modern courier has seen some of the biggest changes in the past few years. Armed with up to four diplomatic passports, missions can happen at a rapid-fire pace, with couriers crossing multiple borders each day. In the past, the almost exclusive use of commercial flights and the jokes about reaching a million frequent flyer miles in a year was the keystone for document transport.
Now however, methods like cargo planes, which allow a courier constant access to their material, have become more prevalent. Security has also come to the forefront of change for the Courier Service.
And with more and more reports of hacking and cyber attacks, the relatively low risk of hand delivered information has greatly increased the workload for couriers. Angell noted that after the Edward Snowden incident, they started utilizing a courier system much more frequently. The days of multi-day trips and the possibility of sightseeing after a mission are dwindling as well.
In high-risk areas such as Pakistan, couriers are now making flights from Bangkok to Karachi and Islamabad and back in a single day. With top-secret exchanges on the tarmac, the risk for any security issues can be minimized. The rise of the Arab Spring was a particularly complicated scenario for the Diplomatic Courier Service. But in a time period of upheaval and violent tensions, it was even more crucial to ensure that the proper information was delivered to American resources in the area.
Director Angell recounted the story of [courier] Shane Morris, who had to reroute classified material through Italy and the UAE when airports and other routes were shut down. More recently with the Houthi takeover of Yemeni airports, the diplomatic couriers have to come up with creative options to still accomplish their deliveries.
The recent Ebola outbreak in western Africa proved difficult to successfully disseminating important U. Speaking highly of the creative solution to the epidemic, Director Angell explained that with a hub in Dakar, Senegal which had not been classified as Ebola-stricken , couriers were able to arrange military flights in order to deliver their diplomatic pouches. Even with such precautions, the couriers involved still underwent a day quarantine before going back to their main hub.
Despite some harrowing obstacles that can prove challenging for the Diplomatic Courier Service, there are still many missions that provide a unique opportunity to explore less tumultuous parts the world.
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