Within the last ten months, two young American women were killed in Afghanistan. Both were trying to help make Afghanistan a better place for women and children. Anne Smedinghoff, an initiate of the Kappa Alpha Theta chapter at Johns Hopkins University, was killed in April 6, 2013 by a suicide car bomber. Pi Beta Phi member Lexie Kamerman was killed on January 18, 2014 in a Taliban attack on a popular Lebanese restaurant.
Smedinghoff joined the U.S. Foreign Service after graduating from Hopkins. She was first assigned to Venezuela and she volunteered for the Afganistan assignment. She was delivering textbooks to school children when she was killed. The Taliban took responsibility for the bombing. She was 25 years old and grew up in River Forest, Illinois, in suburban Chicago.
Anne Smedinghoff
Kamerman was 27-years-old. She, too, was from Chicago. She was a 2008 graduate of Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and she earned a Master’s degree from the University of Arizona. In June, 2013, she began working in Afghanistan. She was serving as a student development specialist at the American University of Afghanistan. Her goal was to help women take their place in Afghan society.
Lexie Kamerman
The Lexie L. Kamerman Scholarship Fund has been established at Knox College (http://ow.ly/sO7IF). The Anne Smedinghoff Memorial Fund has been established at Johns Hopkins University to help studentsin need who wish to study abroad (http://krieger.jhu.edu/giving).
My heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of these two wonderful, bright, talented young women. I am so very sorry for your loss.
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2014.
