Last night I went to a panel on evacuations put on for foreign service spouses. There are two types of evactuations for State Dept. peps: authorized (you’re allowed to go) and ordered (you have to go). In ordered evacs, there are embassy employees considered vital who must stay behind.
So here’s the kicker: if there is an ordered evac and M is considered an “essential” person, then I have to leave and she has to stay. To stay I would have to turn in my diplomatic passport and I would no longer be under the diplomatic cloud (as it were); meaning if it then came down to a Vietnam-style airlift from the courtyard of the embassy, M would then get out first and I would either be in line or on my own.
Once we have kids this won’t be an issue anymore, I will of course want to get them out of any such situation. But call me old fashioned, but until that time, I would have a really hard time leaving my wife in harm’s way while I’m taken away from it. Let’s just pray that that never happens.