Thelma Drake Wrongly Challenges Glenn Nye’s Heroism

In today’s Daily Press story on 2nd Congressional District race between Rep. Thelma Drake (R) and Glenn Nye (D), Drake raised questions about accounts of Nye’s heroics while working at the U.S. Embassy in Macedonia:

Drake wondered aloud how a “a very junior member of the State Department” was so instrumental in the rescues and said that so far, her staff had been unable to find news clips or State Department officials to verify the story Nye used on the campaign trail and in commercials.

Thelma may want to consider firing some members of her staff, but in the meantime they can suspend their search.  On July 18, 2002, the Virginia Pilot profile on Glenn Nye said (empahsis added):

And thanks to the contacts he’d forged with the Macedonian people and authorities living in the northern part of the country near Kosovo, where some of the fiercest fighting raged, Nye was responsible for evacuating 26 Americans during the height of the crisis.

He also secured the release of an American held by an armed insurgent group. For those efforts, he was awarded a “Superior Honor Award” from the European Bureau of the Department of State. He also got a meritorious honor award from the U.S. embassy in Skopje for his contacts and analysis of the ethnic Albanian political community.

I hope this clears things up for Thelma Drake.

Full article below:

COURAGE UNDER FIRE. WHEN TENSIONS ESCALATED IN MACEDONIA LAST YEAR,; NORFOLK’S GLENN NYE WAS FRONT AND CENTER

The Virginia Pilot

July 18, 2002

Last summer, Glenn Nye watched as the world he knew came crashing down.

Protestors stormed the city nightly. They smashed windows at a fast-food restaurant. They burned vehicles and attacked the German and British embassies.

Then, on July 24, the angry crowd turned its attention on the U.S. Embassy in Macedonia’s capital city of Skopje, where Nye worked as a U.S. State Department consular. About 50 ethnic Albanian protesters stoned the building, smashing vehicles and destroying property.

“We were all pretty nervous,” admitted Nye, a 27-year-old Norfolk native who had worked at the embassy for about a year before the fighting between warring factions in Macedonia began. “Emotions had taken over and the environment was fairly hostile for Americans.”Although frightening, no one at the embassy was hurt. Still, after the stoning, the U.S. State Department closed the embassy and issued a warning, advising Americans against traveling in the war-torn county and those citizens already there to exercise caution and, “if appropriate,” depart. The Pentagon put U.S. army troops on alert at the airport in Skopje.

Nye, who was trained in the Albanian language, stayed behind to assist Americans caught in the turmoil. He was one of only about a dozen in the state department who did.

And thanks to the contacts he’d forged with the Macedonian people and authorities living in the northern part of the country near Kosovo, where some of the fiercest fighting raged, Nye was responsible for evacuating 26 Americans during the height of the crisis.

He also secured the release of an American held by an armed insurgent group. For those efforts, he was awarded a “Superior Honor Award” from the European Bureau of the Department of State. He also got a meritorious honor award from the U.S. embassy in Skopje for his contacts and analysis of the ethnic Albanian political community.

In Norfolk recently to talk to student groups about his work, Nye reflected on those days and the country where he’s lived for the last two years.

His talk was part of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Hometown Diplomats Program. Powell has asked all state department employees to talk to civic organizations, schools, government offices and others during their time home about their work to “put a face on foreign policy” and to make Americans aware of the effects of their work worldwide.

Nye, who graduated from Norfolk Academy, returned to Norfolk to visit his mother and sister.

As a foreign service officer, Nye’s primary job is to represent the United States abroad. As a consular officer, he provides protection and care for those Americans living in foreign countries.

“There’s a real lack of information at home among the public about what the rank and file diplomats in foreign service do on a day-by-day basis,” Nye said. “Part of our job is to brief the state department and help keep high-level diplomats informed about what’s happening. More low-level negotiations, we do ourselves with instructions from the state department. We’re basically the staff for ambassadors and the secretary of state.”

Nye joined the foreign service after graduating from Georgetown University with a degree in international relations. Although he originally had aspirations in politics, he decided on his chosen career because it allows him to travel to places more unusual and challenging than the normal tourist does.

He also wanted to serve his country. In Macedonia, he got a chance to do just that.

“The first year I lived in Macedonia, it was very pleasant,” recalled the young diplomat, who lived outside the embassy grounds among the local community. “Macedonia is a small country and the people are very hospitable and warm and generally pro-American.

“It took a lot of footwork to establish a relationship with people, but when the crisis began, luckily, I knew people in the villages where those Americans were stuck,” he added. “They were critical to helping me find where the people were and how to get them out.”

The experience changed him forever, he said.

“The memory of the faces of the people I helped escape from the fighting,” he said, “is something I’ll never forget. It made all my work worthwhile.”

Although the crisis in Macedonia had cooled by Sept 11, life has hardly returned to normal there. Emotions are still high, but the various factions are now willing to talk their differences out, Nye said.

But the young diplomat won’t be around to see how things play out. In August, after an earned vacation back in the United States and one month of training, he’s on to his next assignment: Singapore. For the next two years, he’ll serve as the embassy’s economics officer.

“It will be a completely different experience than in Macedonia,” he notes. “Singapore is very stable, and the economy is extraordinarily good. They have a much larger American community there, but they need much more help from us.”

As for Macedonia, he feels good about the timing of his leaving.

“The last few months has seen a lot of improvement for Macedonia,” he said. “I feel comfortable leaving now rather than I would have earlier. I’m happy about my next post and tackling the job ahead.”