Sean Smith, a Foreign Service Information Management Officer assigned to the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya played EVE Online, the politically interesting computer game, as a member of the so-called Goonswarm, and on Tuesday he answered the director of his gaming guild with this:
“Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.” The consulate was under siege, and within hours, a mob would attack, killing Smith along with three others, including the U.S. ambassador.
In his professional and personal life, Smith was a husband and father of two, and a 10-year veteran of the Foreign Service who had served in Baghdad, Pretoria, Montreal and The Hague. But when gaming with EVE Online guild Goonswarm, he was a popular figure known as “Vile Rat,” and alternately as “Vilerat” while volunteering as a moderator at the internet community Something Awful. Smith’s death was confirmed on Wednesday morning by the State Department and reported widely in the news media.
A Marine FAST team is on its way.