The Foreign Service Journal, November 2003

because he felt it did not represent his interests as a specialist, but not completely. Some representation is better than none and AFSA has done well by the Foreign Service in general. But in those cases where AFSA has advocated the interests of specialists, it has done so primarily for DS and OMS specialists, seldom for the rest and certainly not those of us in the GSO, HRO and FMO categories — the eligibility for USAA insurance being an exception. My question is, why must the Foreign Service have two classes of employees? Why not just hire employees to do jobs? Get rid of the exam process, and stick with interviews and oral assessments. The CIA operates that way as I under- stand it (to the extent that any of us know anything about that organiza- tion), which seems to work well. There will always be distinctions in the Foreign Service between those considered “substantive” (POL and ECON) and those who do real things (CONS and ADMIN). But if we were all one general category of employees —Foreign Service —per- haps moving between functions would be easier, promotions would be fairer, the FS would profit because it could easily take advantage of the skills and experience of its employees, and there would be fewer “class dis- tinctions.” Kenneth R. Yeager Executive/Contracting Officer Regional Procurement Support Office American Consulate General Frankfurt Singing AFSA’s Praises I just wanted to take this opportu- nity to sing AFSA’s praises for the September FSJ , dedicated to Foreign Service specialists. I was very pleased to see this much-needed and 8 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 3 L E T T E R S