I won’t get into the irrationality of politics or the strange rage against federal employees that has been whipped up by the press recently, but I do find a particular item on the latest budget to be quite mystifying. It is a call to cut the pay of foreign service members serving abroad — more specifically, only junior or mid-level foreign service members serving abroad — and it has definitely touched a nerve, since so many other institutions (CIA, Civil Service, USAID, etc) have not been touched. In fact, there is so much misconception out there (I read a comment on a Washington Post article where the man was angry about ‘our’ diplomats cruising around in Cadillacs with diplomatic plates…um, those aren’t ‘our’ diplomats, those are diplomats from OTHER countries who are here. U.S. diplomats are simply called ‘citizens’ when they are in the U.S.) it really is stunning. Here is a great letter from Four Globetrotters, a blog about a family in the foreign service, and this story moved me to tears:
When a member of Congress and her staff were abandoned during this unrest at a downtown hotel by their Government of Togo hosts, I was the only American besides my then-husband, the Regional Security Officer, who could drive an armored vehicle. The Ambassador dispatched me, and I drove through barricades and crowds to reach her and her staff and transport them safely to the Embassy. My husband couldn’t go because he was off responding to a distress call from one of our Embassy families. Their house was being invaded.
The mother and two children were holed up in the safehaven while a frenzied group of thugs destroyed their home and personal belongings and worked to break into the safehaven where they were hiding. All of us at the Embassy listened as the frantic calls for help came in over the radio, the children crying in the background. My colleague wept as he heard his wife and children, helpless. My husband knew he had to try and help, even though it would come at great personal danger. He arrived at the house, unarmed due to a policy that did not permit him to carry his service weapon, and engaged at least two dozen thugs. Relying on his training as a former marine, he quickly disarmed one person and used that weapon to disperse the remaining looters. There is no doubt in my mind that had it not been for his intervention, the wife would have been raped or worse, and there is no telling what would have happened to the two children. I waited, bordering on hysteria, by the radio to hear that my husband was okay and that our three children would not be left without a father. He rightfully received the State Department’s Heroism Award for his actions on that day.
There are so many movies and stories about firemen and soldiers and Marines who are heroes that few people realize that the State Department’s job is not to have tea and crumpets with foreign dignitaries but to protect Americans living, working or traveling overseas. I did not even realize myself the lengths a U.S. Embassy will go to protect U.S. citizens living abroad until my friend joined the foreign service. Now I know that, when my friend L., living in South America, doesn’t answer the phone for two weeks, I can call the embassy and they will send someone to her apartment to check that she’s okay. In fact, one of the 13 dimensions looked for in a foreign service officer in order to qualify is composure in stressful situations. My example was helping my colleagues locate their children and leave safely in Washington DC during 9/11. There are many former military and others who join the foreign service because the mission is similar; to protect the U.S. And sometimes the pen IS mightier than the sword.
I don’t know if I will become an FSO or not — that’s still in the cards — but I certainly would like people to know about what the job entails, and maybe even about why I picked it. There are many ways to serve one’s country; this is one of them.
