Still, Tom Smedinghoff said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune, "we're just in total shock."
Smedinghoff, 25, who grew up in the Chicago suburb of River Forest, Ill., was delivering books for schoolchildren in Afghanistan's Zabol province on Saturday when she was killed, along with four other Americans. The vehicle they were riding in was attacked by a suicide car bomber, officials said. She was the first U.S. diplomat killed since the attacks last fall on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and was among six Americans killed in two attacks in Afghanistan the same day.
Another of those attacks prompted a North Atlantic Treaty Organization airstrike on Taliban militants that also killed 11 Afghan civilians, at least 10 of them children, according to Afghan authorities.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who said he had met Smedinghoff during a recent trip to Afghanistan, spoke movingly about her Sunday at a news conference in Istanbul, Turkey. "I think that in this tragedy, there is a stark contrast for all of the world to see between two very different sets of values," he said.
"On the one hand, you have Anne, a selfless, idealistic young woman who woke up yesterday morning and set out to bring textbooks to schoolchildren, to bring them knowledge, children she had never met, to help them to be able to build a future. And Anne and those with her were attacked by Taliban terrorists who woke up that day not with a mission to educate or to help, but with a mission to destroy."
Tom Smedinghoff said his daughter had been in Afghanistan since July and was working with the local population to improve opportunities for women and to assist schools and businesses.
"She really felt she was making a difference," he said.
Smedinghoff said his daughter went into the Foreign Service directly after graduation from Johns Hopkins University. Her first post was in Venezuela, and she eventually volunteered to go to Afghanistan. He said she loved her work there.
"She was living in a compound that was heavily fortified and she was always trying to get out and do things for the population," he said.
Smedinghoff's family used to chide her about her job as a diplomat in Afghanistan, asking why she didn't get posted to someplace more comfortable, like London or Paris.
"She said, 'What would I do in London or Paris? It would be so boring,'" her father recalled in an interview with the Associated Press.
Anne Smedinghoff was to finish her Afghanistan assignment in July. Already fluent in Spanish, she was reportedly planning to learn Arabic in preparation for assignments in the Middle East.
Her family issued a statement about her, which said, in part: "The world lost a truly beautiful soul today. Our daughter, Anne, a U.S. Foreign Service officer, died in the service of her country.... We are consoled knowing that she was doing what she loved, and that she was serving her country by helping to make a positive difference in the world. She was such a wonderful woman — strong, intelligent, independent and loving. Annie, you left us too soon.
"http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-diplomat-20130408,0,224323.story?track=lat-email-topofthetimes
Smedinghoff, 25, who grew up in the Chicago suburb of River Forest, Ill., was delivering books for schoolchildren in Afghanistan's Zabol province on Saturday when she was killed, along with four other Americans. The vehicle they were riding in was attacked by a suicide car bomber, officials said. She was the first U.S. diplomat killed since the attacks last fall on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and was among six Americans killed in two attacks in Afghanistan the same day.
Another of those attacks prompted a North Atlantic Treaty Organization airstrike on Taliban militants that also killed 11 Afghan civilians, at least 10 of them children, according to Afghan authorities.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who said he had met Smedinghoff during a recent trip to Afghanistan, spoke movingly about her Sunday at a news conference in Istanbul, Turkey. "I think that in this tragedy, there is a stark contrast for all of the world to see between two very different sets of values," he said.
"On the one hand, you have Anne, a selfless, idealistic young woman who woke up yesterday morning and set out to bring textbooks to schoolchildren, to bring them knowledge, children she had never met, to help them to be able to build a future. And Anne and those with her were attacked by Taliban terrorists who woke up that day not with a mission to educate or to help, but with a mission to destroy."
Tom Smedinghoff said his daughter had been in Afghanistan since July and was working with the local population to improve opportunities for women and to assist schools and businesses.
"She really felt she was making a difference," he said.
Smedinghoff said his daughter went into the Foreign Service directly after graduation from Johns Hopkins University. Her first post was in Venezuela, and she eventually volunteered to go to Afghanistan. He said she loved her work there.
"She was living in a compound that was heavily fortified and she was always trying to get out and do things for the population," he said.
Smedinghoff's family used to chide her about her job as a diplomat in Afghanistan, asking why she didn't get posted to someplace more comfortable, like London or Paris.
"She said, 'What would I do in London or Paris? It would be so boring,'" her father recalled in an interview with the Associated Press.
Anne Smedinghoff was to finish her Afghanistan assignment in July. Already fluent in Spanish, she was reportedly planning to learn Arabic in preparation for assignments in the Middle East.
Her family issued a statement about her, which said, in part: "The world lost a truly beautiful soul today. Our daughter, Anne, a U.S. Foreign Service officer, died in the service of her country.... We are consoled knowing that she was doing what she loved, and that she was serving her country by helping to make a positive difference in the world. She was such a wonderful woman — strong, intelligent, independent and loving. Annie, you left us too soon.
"http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-diplomat-20130408,0,224323.story?track=lat-email-topofthetimes
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