SSGT Hobson Silver Pen Award

SSGT Kenneth Hobson,II

Army Staff Sgt. Kenneth R. Hobson II was killed in the terrorist bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. At 10:36 a.m. local time, terrorists driving a truck detonated a large bomb in the rear parking area outside the embassy. Minutes later at 10:39 a.m., another bomb exploded 450 miles away outside the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The near simultaneous blasts, which killed roughly 300 people and injured more than 4,000, were the most significant acts of anti-U.S. terrorism since the Khobar Towers bombing two years earlier. The force of the two blasts rendered both embassies unusable and damaged or destroyed adjacent buildings.
DIAA takes pride in sponsoring the tri-annual SSG Hobson Silver Pen Award to the graduate of the Attaché́ Staff Training Class in the Joint Military Attache School's (JMAS) Attache Support Training Program (ASTP) who submits the best operations plan, as selected by the JMAS facility.
The ASTP class trains Operations Coordinators and Operations NCOs to work in Defense Attache offices in U.S. embassies around the world. These personnel are critical to the success of the mission of the Defense Attache System (DAS). In the field, they are responsible for providing all the administrative, planning and materiel support necessary for the Defense Attaches to do their job. Because they often spend an entire career in the DAS they bring continuity and long term expertise to their jobs that allows them to be important advisors to the Defense Attaches who often spend only one tour in the DAS. DIAA takes special pride in being able to recognize these outstanding individuals.
DIAA presents the awardee a silver pen and a DIAA coin.
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