List of USAID personnel who died while serving abroad

Over 100 personnel and contractors of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are listed as having died while serving abroad, with the majority of incidents occurring during the Vietnam War - where over 50 USAID personnel died in Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Causes of death include assassinations, bombings, ambushes, accidents, and suicides.

The "Memorial Wall" honors as "fallen national heroes" 99 nominated USAID officers killed in the line of duty. It was previously located in the lobby of the Ronald Reagan Building, and was reportedly removed by DOGE employees and subsequently misplaced.^[1][2]

The roles of those killed vary widely — public safety advisors working under the Office of Public Safety (OPS), agricultural experts, and health officers among them. The OPS has been quantitatively classified as the most dangerous occupation within USAID: the task of a "Public Safety Advisor" was to train police forces around the world, because at the time, security was considered part of the trivariate of D's: "Diplomacy, Development, and Defense."^[3][4] The majority of these public safety officers were former high-ranking police officers in the United States. The Office of Public Safety was shuttered in 1973 after much controversy.

Several USAID personnel died in POW and concentration camps, such as Gustav Crane Hertz,^[5] and Thomas W. Ragsdale.^[6] Joseph W. Grainger was kept in a cave for five months, managed to escape, was captured a week later and was summarily executed.^[7]

Two JROTC Marines salute a memorial to USAID officers killed in Sudan. Several executed by a military tribunal, two killed in a drive-by-shooting, one killed in a traffic collision.

Two pilots for Air America, John L. Oyer and Justin B. Mahoney, are listed as having been contracted by USAID while transporting a passenger whose name is still redacted by the CIA.^[8][9] However, Jack J. Wells, a public safety advisor, was also noted as having been on board the aircraft being piloted by Oyer and Mahoney when it was shot down.^[10][11] Air America was often used to transport building materials, food, medical aid and equipment, and many other supplies needed for development operations in Southeast Asia. Many pilots and aircraft owned by Air America were permanently assigned to USAID.^[12] Air America was also used for refugee resettlements, especially the evacuation of Hmong people from dangerous areas.^[12]

Not all USAID personnel killed were Americans. Rodrigo Santa Anna, for example, was a Filipino tasked with teaching English as a second language in a rural village in South Vietnam, where he was teaching a class of approximately 35 individuals. Members of the Viet Cong launched a Blitzkrieg-style attack on the village, and Santa Anna was captured. He is reported as having shouted "I'm not an American!" before being shot in the head.^[13][11]

In contrast, only one USAID person, Ragei Said Abdelfattah, is currently listed as having been killed in Afghanistan.^[14] Similarly, only one USAID employee, Stephen Scott Everhart, is currently listed as having been killed in Iraq.^[15]

Another fallen USAID employee, Nancy Ferebee Lewis, died after exposure to a toxic pesticide that was not approved for use in a domestic environment was sprayed in her embassy-owned apartment, launching an entire movement within the federal government to more closely monitor the dangers of pesticides used in domestic environments.^[16][11]

The company Louis Berger Group, contracting for USAID in Afghanistan, lost over 200 personnel in Afghanistan prior to the year 2010.^[17]

List

USAID Fallen Officers
Image	Name	Job title	Place of death	Cause of death	Date of death	Ref.
1950
	Walter Stanley Eltringham	Coal Mining Engineer assigned to the Coal Mining Section of the Economic Cooperation Administration, tasked with increasing coal production on the Korean Peninsula	Ba Chang Ri, North Korea	Died of overexposure in a concentration camp after a week of forced march by his captors. When he realized that he might be dying, he began donating his food to others and staying longer on fire watch duty so that others could sleep. He became so weak that others had to carry him, until he died to pneumonia.	November 17, 1950	[18][19][20]
1953
	Ralph Brownlee Swain	Entomologist assigned to the Point IV Program in Nicaragua	South of Mexico City, Mexico	Shot and killed by highwaymen after refusing to pay. His wife and children were in the vehicle and were also killed.	October 2, 1953	[21]
1955
	Everette Dixie Reese	Director, USAID photo service	Binh Xuyen, Vietnam	Plane shot down while taking photographs	April 29, 1955	[22]
	Anita Huovar Carroll	Top-Level AID diplomat	Sistan and Baluchestan, Iran	They were on the way to inspect a refugee camp on the road to Chahbahar, when they were ambushed by an 18-man posse, the "Dadshah gang," run by a notorious gangster and revolutionary fighter named Dadshah who belonged to the Sistan and Baluchestan insurgency. The party exhausted all of the ammunition in their own weapons before they were killed. Their bodies were found dead in the desert near the road. The Iranian government suspected that the gang wanted to sell Anita into slavery. Dadshah's younger brother, Ahmed Shah, admitted the group had committed the killings.	March 24, 1957	[23][24][25][26]
	Kevin Mario Carroll	Foreign Service Officer, Director of the Point IV Program in Iran
	Brewster Anderson Wilson	Development Specialist for the Near East Foundation and AID Officer
	Mohsen Shams	Iranian Deputy Assistant to Brewster Wilson
	Herand Khachikian	Iranian driver and deputy assistant AID officer
1960
	Dolph Brabham Owens	Public Safety Advisor for the MSUG, assigned to train South Vietnamese police forces	Saigon, South Vietnam	Ambushed by Viet Cong machine-gunner	November 5, 1960	[27]
1962
	Clyde Franklin Summers	Civil engineer for E.V. Lane Corporation, overseeing airport construction project	Saigon, South Vietnam	Ambushed by Viet Cong. A man without a uniform held his hand up, motioning for Clyde's vehicle to stop. Clyde told his driver to keep going, and the soldiers opened fire.	January 7, 1962	[28]
	Sydney B. Jacques	Program Inspector in the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for USAID	Nepal	Killed when a flight from Kathmandu to New Delhi crashed near Tulachan Duri, Nepal.	August 1, 1962	[22]
	Oscar Curtis Holder
	Unknown	Contractor assigned to USAID Public Safety Department	Vietnam		?	[29]
1964
	John Alfred Nuhn	Deputy assistant director for finance for USAID in Bangkok	Bangkok,Thailand	Died due to injuries sustained in a car collision in Bangkok, Thailand	October 23, 1964	[30]
	W.L. Jacobsen		Vietnam		?	[31]
1965
	Gustav Crane Hertz	Chief Public Administrator for USAID mission in Vietnam	Vietnam	Disappeared on the afternoon of February 2, 1962. His death was publicly announced as an execution by the Viet Cong in June 1967, however his actual cause of death was malaria.	After February 2, 1965	[5]
	Joseph W. Grainger	Agricultural specialist		Kidnapped en route to a sugar cane agricultural experimental station in August 1964. Kept chained up in a cave for five months. Escaped from a POW Camp in 1965. Found and executed a week later.	March 17, 1965	[32][7]
	John B. Cone	Irrigation and sewage specialist, working for Hydrotechnic Corporation, a contracting company installing sewage systems in Vietnam	Saigon, South Vietnam	Ambushed at roadblock by Viet Cong soldiers dressed in the uniform of the South Vietnamese military	April 19, 1965	[33]
	Rodrigo Santa Anna	Teacher of English as a Second Language, Philippine national originally from Manilla	Phước Long province, South Vietnam	Shot during hostile fire during a blitzkrieg-style Viet Cong attack on the village he was living in	May 11, 1965	[34][35]
	Jack Edwin Ryan	Director of the USAID Department of Public Safety in Saigon, responsible for all US-Sponsored Police Officer training programs in Vietnam	Saigon, South Vietnam	Murdered in triple homicide by an Advisor under his command, at the center of many CIA conspiracy theories about General Westmoreland. While there has never been any direct evidence that Ryan was ever employed by the CIA, some historians suggest that he was a CIA officer under the official cover of the USAID.	July 23, 1965	[29][36]
	Jerry Allen Rose	Specialist on Contract for USAID	Vietnam	Plane sabotaged, crashed	September 15, 1965	[31]
	Justin Gerard Mahoney	FSO and Air America pilot transporting [classified] passenger	Bau Trai Air Strip, South Vietnam	Charter plane shot down by small arms fire while attempting to land C-45 flight #W9574Z	September 27, 1965	[31][34][37][38][39]
	John Lerdo "Jack" Oyer
	Jack J. Wells	Public Safety Advisor, assigned to training South Vietnamese police forces
	Peter Morse Hunting	Assigned to International Voluntary Services and USAID	Vietnam	Ambushed by Viet Cong. Body recovered in 1973.	November 12, 1965	[40][41]
1966
	William D. Smith III	Flight Control Officer	Vietnam	Mid-air collision with helicopter after participating in airstrike	July 23, 1966	[22]
	Norman Lewis Clowers	Public Safety Advisor, assigned to train South Vietnamese police forces	Nha Trang, South Vietnam	Ambushed at roadblock by Viet Cong while driving alone after delivering a jeep load of timber and concrete to a house in South Vietnam	July, 1966	[42][29]
1967
	Don Myron Sjostrom	Refugee Operations Officer transferred from the Peace Corps	Na Khang, Laos	Shot and killed while escorting refugees to safety	January 6, 1967	[42]
	Robert LaFollette	Higher Education Advisor, Saigon Office	Vietnam	Plane crashed into mountain during storm, no survivors	March 21, 1967	[43]
	Frederick Dudley "Rick" Cheydleur	FSO assigned to International Voluntary Services as a village development worker responsible for rice and seed production	Phakkania, Savannakhet Province, Laos	Killed when Pathet Lao soldiers machine-gunned him while he slept in his quarters. He was a lifelong Quaker who had joined IVS to avoid fighting in Vietnam.	March 25, 1967	[31] [44]
	Robert Kenneth Franzblau	Foreign Service Officer	Vietnam	Shot while evacuating refugees	June 7, 1967	[22]
	James Alexander Wallwork	Accountant at the US Embassy in Cairo	Alexandria, Egypt	Contracted peritonitis after being evacuated with his family from the Embassy in Cairo, died in the hospital in Alexandria	June 13, 1967	[31] [45]
	Francis J. Savage	Provincial Representative	Hue City, Vietnam	Survivor of the 1965 Saigon bombing, died two years later from complications related to wounds sustained in the explosion	July 13, 1967	[46]
	Marilyn Lourdes Allan	Hospital nurse assigned to United States Public Health Service contracting with USAID	Nha Trang, South Vietnam	Murdered by her boyfriend, U.S. Army Captain Larry Peters after a sexual attack, who committed suicide after the shooting. She is memorialized on the Vietnam Veterans memorial at the New York State Capitol, under the designation: "Also".	August 16, 1967	[47]
	Dwight Hall Owen Jr.	Assistant to the USAID Provincial Representative for Community Development	Thanh Liêm, South Vietnam	Died from small arms fire trying to save a Revolutionary Vietnamese development chief from an ambush	August 30, 1967	[22][48]
	Kenneth Lyons "Ken" Cox	Public Safety Advisor, training South Vietnamese police officers	Saigon, South Vietnam	Suicide by gunshot	September 6, 1967	[29][49][50]
	Donald Vern Freeman	US Army Captain on loan to USAID	Vietnam	Shot during Hostile Fire	October 3, 1967	[51]
	Carroll Hugh Pender Sr.	Hospital Administration Specialist, retired US Army CSM		Killed by landmine while working on a hospital detail.	December 27, 1967	[52]
	[31]
	NAME NOT GIVEN	Public Safety Advisor		Suicide	?	[29]
1968
	Frederick John Abramson	Deputy Province Advisor	Vinh Long, South Vietnam	Shot during Viet Cong Ambush	January 6, 1968	[22]
	David Lane Gitelson	Foreign Service Officer, assigned to International Voluntary Services	Hue Doc, Angiang, Mekong River Delta, South Vietnam	Captured and shot by Viet Cong	January 26, 1968	[31]
	Kermit Joseph Krause	Assistant Supply Advisor	Hue City, South Vietnam	Killed in the Tet Offensive	January 30, 1968	[22]
	John Thomas McCarthy	Public Safety Officer	Nha Trang, Vietnam
	Thomas M. Gompertz	Foreign Service officer and Assistant USAID Representative	Hue City, South Vietnam	Shot and killed during the Tet Offensive at the Massacre at Huế	January 31, 1968	[53][54]
	Jeffrey Steven Lundstedt	Foreign Service Officer
	Steven D. Miller	Foreign Service Officer assigned to the US Information Service
	Robert Walker Hubbard	Civilian Advisor, former Marine Corps Captain		Shot and killed making possible the safe escape of his companions during a Viet Cong attack on Hue City while returning fire on the enemy	February 4, 1968	[22]
	Robert Roy Little	Foreign Service Officer at U.S. Embassy in Saigon, assigned to CORDS	Saigon, South Vietnam	Captured by a North Vietnamese team and summarily executed	February 7, 1968	[55]
	Hugh Ingram Calkins Lobit	Foreign Service Officer, transferred from INR Economic Section	Vĩnh Long, South Vietnam	Shot and killed by sniper while escorting U.S. News correspondent	February 9, 1968,	[22]
	Albert Alexander Farkas	Public Safety Advisor, assigned to train South Vietnamese police forces	Saigon, South Vietnam	Shot by sniper, died later in the hospital from a blood clot	February 14, 1968	[29][31][56]
	Robert Wilson Brown Jr.	US Marine Corps Captain on loan to USAID	South Vietnam	Shot by hostile fire	February 26, 1968	[22]
	Richard Andrew Schenk	Foreign Service Officer	Quang Ngai, South Vietnam	Killed in landmine explosion	March 2, 1968
	Michael Murphy	Public Safety Advisor, assigned to training South Vietnamese police forces	Vietnam	Ambushed by Viet Cong, killed by a missile	June 14, 1968	[57]
	Harold Ormal Sealock	Director of Education and Culture	Savannakhet, Laos	Killed in an Air America C46 plane crash while it was attempting takeoff. Several Air America employees were also killed. Between 20 and 40 people in total were killed.	November 25, 1968	[31][58][59][60]
	Donald Seiso Kobayashi	Water resources specialist with a degree in Agriculture
	Donald J Parenteau	Civilian US Navy employee assigned to USAID
1969
	George B. Gaines	Civilian Logistics Officer	Vietnam	Died from shrapnel and gunfire, found dead with bullet wounds in the back	February 23, 1969	[22][34]
	Chandler Edwards	Foreign Service Officer, assigned to International Voluntary Services	Ban Soukhouma,Champassak Province, Laos	Rocket attack	May 5, 1969	[31][34]
	Arthur Stillman		Ban Thouei, Bolikhamsai province, Laos		August 5, 1969	[61][34][31]
	Dennis L. Mummert
	Mary Breen Ratterman	Physician from the University of Louisville working on a contract for the American Medical Association and USAID	Saigon, South Vietnam	Died in a fall from a balcony	October 2, 1969	[62]
	Robert D. Handy		Vietnam	Ambushed by Viet Cong	1969	[31][34]
	Thomas W. Ragsdale	Civilian Agricultural Specialist, P.A.S.A.		Captured during the Tet Offensive, died of dysentery along the Ho Chi Minh trail in a POW camp, his body was later found in shallow grave		[22][63]
	David Bush					[31]
1970
	Dan A. Mitrione	Chief Public Safety Adviser at the American Embassy in Uruguay, trained locals in counterinsurgency tactics	Uruguay	Kidnapped, tortured, and killed by Tupamaros rebels after failure of Uruguayan government to meet demands	August 10, 1970	[64][22]
	Joseph B. Smith	Assistant Area Development Officer	Vietnam	Killed in landmine explosion	August 30, 1970	[22]
	James A. Hyde					[31]
1972
	Eugene F. Sullivan	Private Enterprise Officer	Asmara, Eritrea	Contracted malaria, died in the hospital	January 21, 1972	[22]
	John Paul Vann	Senior level USAID officer on loan to CORDS, the first U.S. civilian to command U.S. regular troops in combat	North Vietnam	Died in a helicopter crash	June 9, 1972
	Luther A. McLendon	US Marine Corps Captain on loan to USAID	Vietnam	Aboard a plane that exploded on the ground	December 1, 1972
	Bruce O. Bailey	Social Welfare Advisor	Kenya	Plane crash en route to a refugee camp
	Edward G. Hines	Foreign Service Officer	Vietnam	Plane crash	1972	[65][31]
	Rudolph Kaiser	Senior USAID Advisor for Go Cong Province	Mekong Delta, Vietnam	Ambushed by Viet Cong		[22]
	Charles O'Brien	Director of USAID Department of Public Safety	Saigon, South Vietnam	Unknown "tragic death" during the closure of the department and the exfiltration of personnel		[29]
1975
	Thomas Olmsted	USAID Chief of Mission in Cambodia	Cambodia	Pancreatitis	February 12, 1975	[22]
1976
	Garnett Allan Simmerly	USAID Chief of Mission in the Philippines	Somewhere in the Philippines	Phil-Air plane "PIPER NAVAJO" vanished in a tropical storm, carrying American, Japanese, and German government officials en route to inspect the Bicol River basin project in Naga City.	September 13, 1976	[31][66]
1981
	Richard Aitken	Foreign Service Officer	Sudan	Automobile accident	1981	[31][22]
	Thomas R. Blaka		Lebanon			[31]
1983
	William R. McIntyre	Deputy Director of Mission	Beirut, Lebanon	Killed in the explosion of the 1983 US embassy bombing in Beirut	April 18, 1983	[67]
	Albert N. Votaw	Public Housing Advisor				[68]
1984
	Charles Floyd Hegna	Program Inspector in the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for USAID	Mashhad, Iran	Killed by gunmen during the incidents of Kuwait Airways Flight 221, shot and body dumped on the tarmac	December, 1984	[69]
	William R. Stanford
1987
	Frank L. Fairchild Jr.	Education Program Development Officer for Pakistan	Mexico	Murdered by unknown assassin while on vacation to Central America, body found floating in the ocean	1987	[31][70]
1989
	Gladys Gilbert	Special Projects Officer, Refugee Office	Gambela, Ethiopia	Died aboard a small twin-engine plane that slammed into a mountainside en route to an Ethiopian refugee camp	August 7, 1989	[71][72]
	Thomas Jeffrey Worrick	Deputy Director of Mission, established refugee program
	Roberta Radford Worrick	Emergency Food Program Monitor
	Debebe Agonafer	Agricultural Economist
	Robert B. Hebb	Program Inspector in the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for USAID	Cerro de Hula, Honduras	Died in the plane crash of TAN-SAHSA Flight 414	October 22, 1989	[73][22]
	Rolando Barahona		Honduras		1989	[31]
1990
	Richard Finely	Acting USAID Comptroller	Baguio, Philippines	Died when the roof of the Nevada Hotel collapsed in the 1990 Luzon earthquake	July 16, 1990	[74]
	Lisa Isidro	Foreign Service Officer
	Lino De La Cruz
	Ed Plata
	Susan Doria
1992
	Dominic Morris	Foreign Service Officer	Juba, Sudan	Executed by a military tribunal during the Second Sudanese Civil War	September 1992	[75][76][77]
	Baudoin Tally
	Andrew Tombe
	Chaplain Lake
1993
	Nancy Ferebee Lewis	Executive Assistant	Cairo, Egypt	Died after her Embassy apartment was sprayed with a highly toxic pesticide not approved for residential use	December 25, 1993	[78]
2002
	Laurence M. Foley	Supervisory Executive Officer	Amman, Jordan	Killed by gunmen with terror connections outside his home	October 28, 2002	[22]
2005
		Afghan aid worker employed by Chemonics International	Helmand Province, Afghanistan	Ambushed and shot to death	May 18, 2005	[79][80]
			Zabul Province, Afghanistan	Ambushed and shot while driving to Kabul with the body of one of five men killed in the previous attack	May 19, 2005	[81][79]
2006
	Margaret Ruth Alexander	Deputy Director for USAID in Nepal	Ghunsa, Taplejung, Nepal	Killed in the Shree Air Mil Mi-8 helicopter crash. 24 people were killed overall. This team was traveling to implement the transfer of the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area to the management of local indigenous groups.	September 23, 2006	[82][83][84][85]
	Bijnan Acharya	Program Development Specialist
	Matt Preece	Recently hired, transferred from WWF
		Afghan aid worker assigned to USAID	Daraeem district, Badakhshan province, Afghanistan	Killed by remote controlled improvised explosive device while crossing a bridge in the district	May 30, 2006	[86]
2008
	John Michael Granville	Senior Level Diplomat	Khartoum, Sudan	Assassinated in a drive-by shooting while driving home from a New Year's party at the British Embassy	January 1, 2008	[87]
	Abdel Rahman Abbas	Original member of the Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) for Darfur
2010
	Dale J. Gredler	Financial Management Specialist and NEP Contract Officer	Over the Atlantic Ocean	Died of heart attack while on transatlantic flight	January 27, 2010	[88]
	Hosai	Afghan aid worker for DAI Global contracting for USAID	Kandahar, Afghanistan	Killed while catching a motorized rickshaw by armed men on a motorcycle	April 13, 2010	[89]
		Contractor		Killed in a suicide bomber vehicle detonation attack on USAID compound	April 15, 2010	[89][90][91]
	Rouven Beinecke	Security specialist for Edinburgh International, a contracting company for DAI Global, on contract for USAID	Kunduz province, Afghanistan	Taliban attack on USAID compound	July 2, 2010	[92][93][94][95]
	Shaun Sexton
	NAME NOT GIVEN
	Linda Norgrove	Aid worker for DAI Global on contract for USAID	Dewagal valley, Kunar province, Afghanistan	Killed by her captors while special operations forces attempted a rescue	October 8, 2010	[96][97]
2011
	Stephen Scott Everhart	Professor and associate dean in the School of Business at The American University in Cairo on consultation for USAID at University of Baghdad	Baghdad, Iraq	Killed in an attack on an American convoy before a series of explosions were set off around the city	June 23, 2011	[15][98]
2012
	Ragei Said Abdelfattah	Foreign Service Officer	Eastern Konar Province, Afghanistan	Victim of a suicide bombing	August 8, 2012	[46][99][100]
2013
	Antoinette Beaumont Tomasek	Community Health Specialist, focusing on water, sanitation and education	Port-au-Prince, Haiti	Traffic collision	June 26, 2013	[101]
	Michael Cameron Dempsey	Head of the provincial reconstruction team in Nangarhar	Afghanistan	Committed suicide by hanging himself in a hotel-room shower	August 11, 2013	[102][103][104]
2016
	Xulhaz Mannan	Well-known gay rights activist who worked for the Office of Democracy and Governance at the Bangladesh Mission	Dhaka, Bangladesh	Hacked to death alongside another gay rights activist named Tanay Majumder in his own apartment by Islamic fundamentalist extremists who gained entry by posing as couriers	April 25, 2016	[105][106]
2018
	Mark A. Mitchell	Foreign Service Officer	Georgia	Traffic collision with hit-and-run driver	May 6, 2018	[107]
2021
	Tresja Denysenko	Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) responding to the Haiti earthquake	Miami, Florida	Collapsed suddenly on deployment to Haiti, rushed to Florida where she died in the hospital	August 19, 2021	[108]
2023
	Hani Jnena	Contracting AID worker	Gaza City, Gaza Strip, Palestine	Killed in an Israeli airstrike alongside his wife and two children	November 25, 2023	[109]
2024
	Jacob Toukhy (Yakov Touhi)	Paramedic and senior embassy aide	Jaffa, Israel	Shot during a traffic dispute by an off-duty Israeli police officer	April 12, 2024	[110][111]