It was why, during the attack on the capital, Jenkins slept on the floor of his office and washed his clothes in the sink while day and night he worked his contacts to keep the Ambassador briefed on news from the front, or from upcountry. Paradiso observes that local staff who serve “the interests of the United States with distinction over many years do so out of concern for their colleagues and passion for principle.” Paradiso writes of Jenkins’s extraordinary dedication during the period from May to August 2003 when rebel troops shelled the city and killed at least 1,000 civilians: Jenkins Vangehn also worked closely with Foreign Service Officer Dante Paradiso, who was a junior officer at the Embassy Monrovia at the time chronicled some of Jenkins’ experiences as a locally engaged staff member at the Embassy during the final months of the civil war in his 2016 non-fiction work The Embassy: A Story of War and Diplomacy.
At a recent public affairs program, journalist Sebastian Junger, who reported from Liberia during the civil war, recalled the dark days of 2003 and expressed his gratitude for the Embassy’s efforts, to include Jenkins’s behind-the-scenes work, to ensure Junger could safely depart Liberia when threats were made on his life. Ambassador John Blaney, and also helping American citizens during the heaviest periods of conflict. Known for his exceptional modesty, many in the Embassy today are unaware of the crucial role Jenkins played in sustaining Embassy operations, providing information to the then U.S. It fell on Jenkins to conduct the political and economic reporting, facilitate travel for visitors, maintain lines of communication with warring factions and negotiators, and even assist in the eventual evacuation of the Embassy. Throughout the Liberian civil war, the Embassy faced severe staffing gaps Jenkins often served as the de facto political officer during long gaps without an American in the section. foreign policy and goals in Liberia and West Africa. He has supported not only the POL/ECON section, but also successive Ambassadors and Deputy Chiefs of Mission, the Defense Attaché Office, the Regional Security Office, and the Public Affairs Office, and in doing so, advanced U.S. Embassy in Monrovia, Jenkins has provided critical, constant and indeed heroic service. Meritoriously, in 2010, Jenkins was promoted to the POL/ECON section’s senior political specialist.
Liberia 2003 senseless war by competing warring factions must have disappeared but history will remain kind to an unsung hero like Jenkins Vangehn who started his career with the State Department as a political and economic assistant in January 2001 at the height of Liberia’s second civil war, which lasted from April 1999 through August 2003. But his late dad’s unwarranted death did not create in him a sense of grudge but remorse – never to see the reoccurrence of the brutal killing of any Liberian owing to the actions and inactions of ethnic generalization or stereotyping. Such is the harsh reality of many Liberians – mainly from rural Liberian households. Jenkins Vangehn, the eldest of four children, had to rise to the occasion by buttressing the efforts of his mother who was largely involved in petty trading.
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