The Foreign Service Journal, January 2008

counterparts, advantages granted to us by Congress because we serve in difficult and dangerous places. To take the prestige and financial bene- fits of a Foreign Service career and then shirk the most difficult task we have faced in a generation reflects poorly on us all. But the department has responsi- bilities as well, both to stand up for us with the press and to take care of us after we have served. Many of us have put our lives and those of our family in danger in the service of our country. To allow the media to paint us with a yellow brush does a great injustice to us, our families and our corps. The department also has a responsibility to care for the medical and psychological needs of our brothers and sisters who take on these most difficult assignments. And that care should be given freely, at no cost in financial or career terms. Good leaders understand that this is a give/give relationship. We give our best, sometimes all we have, and the leader gives us the support earned. Joe Cole IMO Embassy Paramaribo Strike Two It’s reprehensible that most of us found out from the Washington Post that directed assignments were in the works. The DG took full responsibil- ity for this at the town hall meeting, yet most of us found out two weeks later, again from the Post , that there would be no directed assignments. I cannot understand why the media are learning about these things before the people who are affected. Will [ Washington Post reporter] Karen DeYoung start getting our assignment cables before we do? Elizabeth Corwin FSO Washington, D.C. J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 17 L E T T E R S