Attack Victim Shared His Fears in Messages
By LESLIE KAUFMAN and CHRISTINE HAUSER
Published: September 12, 2012
Sean Smith, an Air Force veteran working on temporary assignment as an information management officer in Libya, was one of the four Americans killed Tuesday in the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi.
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Mr. Smith joined the Foreign Service a decade ago and before going to Libya, he had served in Baghdad; Pretoria, South Africa; Montreal; and most recently The Hague, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement.
During downtime, Mr. Smith was an avid player of an online multiplayer game called Eve Online, in which hundreds of thousands of participants across the globe took on roles like pirates or diplomats in a science fiction setting. Mr. Smith’s online name was “vile rat.”
Alex Gianturco, an Eve Online player and a friend of Mr. Smith’s, said on his blog on Wednesday that he had been chatting online with Mr. Smith before the attack, and Mr. Smith indicated that he knew he was in some danger.
He wrote as protesters gathered outside: “Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.”
Mr. Smith was so well known that fellow players elected him to a group that confers with CCP, the company that designed the game, about improvements. He was widely known for using his diplomacy skills to moderate online conflicts.
Mr. Gianturco said that players had become used to Mr. Smith leaving play during perilous moments abroad, only to return to his online adventures when things calmed in the real world.
“In Baghdad the same kind of thing happened — incoming sirens, he’d vanish, we’d freak out and he’d come back O.K. after a bit,” Mr. Gianturco said.
But on Tuesday, Mr. Smith’s final message was “gunfire,” Mr. Gianturco said. Then he disconnected and never returned.
Survivors include Mr. Smith’s wife, Heather, and two children.
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