Ohio University alumnus Tony Deibler, a senior special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Diplomatic Service, is believed to be the only State Department employee ever to receive two Valor Awards. Deibler, BGS ’75, was commended for separate acts of bravery, the first in Sarajevo in 1995 and the other in Monrovia, Liberia, in 1996.
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| Secretary of State Madeleine Albright honored Deibler at a State Department ceremony. |
“To the very best of our knowledge, this is the first time it’s ever happened at the State Department,” Andy Lai ne, a public affairs officer with the bureau, says of Deibler’s accomplishment. The bureau provides security at U.S. embassies around the world and protects certain U.S. officials and foreign diplomats visiting the States.
In the Sarajevo incident, Deibler — then a team leader with the Mobile Security Division assigned to the American Embassy — saved the life of a Bosnian woman hit by a Serbian sniper’s bullet. As the sniper peppered the area with bullets, Deibler pulled his lightly armored Chevy Bla zer between the woman and the gunman. Deibler found that the bullet had entered and exited the woman’s upper thigh, severing a main artery.
As he calmed the woman, who spoke no English, he applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and used a strobe light to attract the attention of British soldiers in a heavy armored vehicle. A second sniper joined the first, trying to prevent the rescue, yet Deibler and the British soldiers were able to place the woman on a stretcher and transport her to a French f ield hospital. Deibler stayed with the woman until doctors began treatment.
While stationed at the U.S. embassy in Monrovia, Deibler helped journalists from ABC, Reuters and several foreign news services escape a hotel cut off by the gunfire of rival factions. As Deibler accompanied the journalists to the embassy about 300 yards away, bullets ricocheted off the pavement and nearby buildings. When a sniper took aim at a fellow security officer, Deibler sighted the sniper in his weapon’s scope, causing the gunman to hold his fire.
Since joining the Bureau of Diplomatic Security in 1976, Deibler has been stationed in Beirut, Lebanon; Turkey; The Sudan; Pakistan; Kuwait; Washington, D.C.; and at the Vatican. Since July, he has been the regional security officer at the U.S. Embassy in Doha, Qatar, in the Middle East. His wife, son and daughter are with him there.
— Mary Alice Casey
