A decade after Benghazi, honoring four American heroes who paid the ultimate price

OPINION:

This month, the CIA and State Department will honor and remember four American heroes — Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and two CIA officers, former Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty — who were killed during the firefight with terrorists at the U.S. diplomatic compound and CIA annex in Benghazi 10 years ago during the night of Sept. 11-12, 2012. 

Stevens, Smith, Woods, and Doherty, along with their CIA, State Department, and US military colleagues, were bravely serving our nation from behind enemy lines. The Libyan revolution, which began in February of that year and resulted in the death of dictator Moammar al-Gadhafi in October 2011, shaped their mission, with the situation on the ground increasingly tense and chaotic. Stevens was leading the U.S. diplomatic mission, engaging with emerging Libyan tribal and political leaders. The CIA was tracking the al-Qaeda-allied Ansar al Sharia and other terror groups operating in the Benghazi region. 

Serving at the time as chief of the CIA’s Near East Division, I did not have the honor of personally meeting these four supremely dedicated public servants. But I came to know their extraordinary legacies during memorial ceremonies and from a number of the CIA officers who deployed with them and survived the Benghazi terrorist attack, including one who received medical treatment for serious wounds.

Sean Smith enlisted in the Air Force at age 17, served as a ground radio maintenance specialist, and later deployed to Baghdad with the State Department. Responsible for securely managing sensitive communications, Smith was a technology whiz who had already served 10 years with the State Department. Only 33 years old, he traveled to Benghazi with Amb. Stevens because of his critical contribution to the mission. Smith left behind a wife and two young children. 

CIA officers considered Amb. Stevens, who served in Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo and Riyadh, as one of his generation’s foremost substantive experts on the Middle East and North Africa. He returned to Tripoli as ambassador in May 2012 after having served a previous tour there from 2007 to 2009 in the No. 2 post as deputy chief of mission. My CIA colleagues admired Stevens for his exceptional cross-cultural awareness and how he took on the most challenging assignments with an unwavering moral and ethical compass. One of his greatest strengths was his ability to forge trusted relationships with both his U.S. government colleagues and foreign interlocutors.  

Tyrone Woods was a highly decorated Navy Seal who served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan before joining the CIA in 2010 as a contract protective officer and trained paramedic. He was known for having a low-key demeanor and the “hands of a healer as well as the arm of a soldier.”   He was 41 years old and left behind a wife and three children.  

Glen Doherty was also a highly decorated Navy Seal and medical corpsman, who served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan before transitioning to the CIA contract protective service. He was an avid outdoorsman, who enjoyed skiing and surfing. And like Woods, he was a selfless and courageous teammate, always ready to help even in the most trying of circumstances. Glen Doherty was 42 years old when he was killed.

After sunset on Sept. 11, 2012, Ansar al-Sharia militants attacked the U.S. compound in Benghazi, on a day when Stevens and Smith were visiting the consulate. Heeding calls for immediate help, Tyrone Woods and his CIA comrades drove through dangerous territory controlled by Libyan tribes to the State Department compound. They tried valiantly to locate Stevens in the consulate building, which the terrorists had set on fire. But outgunned and outmanned while facing large arms fire and heavy smoke from the fire, the CIA team was forced to evacuate the remaining 30 Americans and return to the CIA Base. 

At approximately 4:00 am terrorists attacked the CIA base of operations. Joining a handful of CIA paramilitary officers, Woods and Doherty fearlessly defended the base from the roughly 100 terrorists firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, and launching mortar rounds. Doherty and Woods died from a mortar round.  

The CIA chief of station in Tripoli had presciently secured an agreement with a local commercial airline, which provided the transport for a CIA rescue team to Benghazi. And it was a brave CIA paramilitary linguist, who negotiated with the local tribes to retrieve the slain ambassador’s body.  

We learned many lessons from Benghazi about keeping our teams safe and taking the fight to the enemy. But today let us remember the fallen and appreciate those still serving, who carry on the mission, which honors their memory.  

• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. Follow him on Twitter @DanielHoffmanDC.