The Foreign Service Journal, February 2006

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 45 ozens of Foreign Service retirees responded to the AFSANET solici- tation the Journal sent out last November asking for insight and information on their experiences with retirement. In fact, the response was so great — and so varied and interesting — that we have presented it in two installments, the first in our January issue and the second in the pages that follow. — Susan B. Maitra, Senior Editor When Is Retirement Not Retirement? A True Story In 1998, I got the call from the director general that every senior officer dreads. “Jim,” he said, “you missed promotion to minister-counselor by three places. I’m sorry, but that means that by this time next year, you will be retired from the Service.” As a career Foreign Service officer, and someone who had never even considered life after the Service, this news came as a tremendous blow. At first, I didn’t really know what I would do, and the idea of a future outside of the Service was certainly not appealing. Visions of Felix Bloch bagging groceries in North Carolina, and friends of mine who had already retired but had not quite found their niche came to mind. On the other hand, there were also plenty of stories of colleagues who had done quite well after the Service, so I was not entirely down-hearted. Nor should I have been. As it happened, fate lent a hand. As I was coming to the end of my final tour as DCM in Kiev, the conflict in Kosovo erupted. I was called back to Washington early and given a Limited Career Extension to help set up the Kosovo Implementation Office, which estab- lished our mission in Pristina and dealt with many of the region’s most pressing postwar political and economic issues. In 2000, just as the office was well established and I was trying to figure out what to do next, I was “traded” to the Office of the Special Adviser for the New Independent States. That enabled me to use the remainder of my LCE to fulfill the position of “utility infielder” for the countries of the former Soviet Union, filling in senior overseas vacancies until suitable replacements could be found. In this manner, I filled in as chargé d’affaires inMinsk, and then twice as act- ing consul general in Vladivostok. My LCE ran out, but then a strange thing happened: it seemed the Service wanted me back, after all. I was recalled to serve a final year as consul general in Vladivostok. After that, I worked for a few months as a senior adviser to the ambassador in Moscow, and then for a short time as acting consul general in Yekaterinburg. Then, just when it looked like things really were over, I was recalled again to serve as political counselor in Moscow. By the time I had finally retired for the second time in 2004, my second career as an FSO had turned out to be even more interesting and fulfilling than my first. As I returned home to San Clemente, Calif., I couldn’t have been happier, or more clueless about where life would take me next. The months rolled by, and slowly I became con- vinced that maybe I really had retired for good. Once again, I was wrong. One day in March 2005, I was relaxing on the beach L IFE AFTER THE FS: M ORE R ETIREES S PEAK U P R ETIREES SHARE STORIES AND ADVICE ABOUT RETIREMENT FROM THE F OREIGN S ERVICE . D