“Eating on the floor of a house under the ground! The food was an interesting barley paste, covered with very hot tomato soup. Another adventure in Libya. How are you? C”
How aptly four short sentences capture the ethos of a man, as these do of the late Chris Stevens in a Sept. 4 email. Chris, or as he liked to sometimes sign off, Krees, mischievously echoing the mispronunciation of his name by Persian and Arabic speakers, was the diplomatic equivalent of Indiana Jones. Changing posts from Syria to Israel to Libya, he was always riding the political storms.
He would call all of these sentences so far “over-the-top.” Chris, as Secretary Clinton put it, is an American hero. His earthliness places him not among those larger-than-life kind of heroes, but among the humble, quiet ones—a dervish hero. At a dinner party, Chris was usually the guest who lent an ear than one who was eager to speak.
The Daily Beast, September 13, 2012