The Foreign Service Journal, February 2010

50 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 0 an opportunity to mentor new po- tential officers (www.citizendiplo mats.com ). Citizen Diplomats was my way of bringing the bucket back up to the well and giving something back to the Service that sent me around the globe to work with some fascinating people and afforded me the oppor- tunity to represent my country for two decades. To all those contemplating re- tirement, I say, “Don’t let the sound of your footsteps drown out the sound of your dreams.” There is a rich and full life out there. Stephan Helgesen Tijeras, N.M. B UILDING B RIDGES OF U NDERSTANDING When news of the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan reached me, I’d spent about 16 years as a USIA Foreign Service officer. The last time I’d seen my friend Daniel had been in 1987, when I’d taken a long weekend off fromUSIA’s jun- ior officer training to drive up to the Berkshires with an- other friend to visit him. We had been a close bunch during our Stanford undergraduate days together. Back then, Danny was starting his journalism career at the North Adams Transcript , while I was starting my diplo- matic career as director of the binational center in Guatemala. In 2002, I had just been promoted to FS-1 and was getting ready to work as a public affairs officer in Latin America that summer. Staying to reach the magic 20-year threshold would have greatly boosted my retirement ben- efits. But when I heard the terrible news, I did not hesi- tate: within six months I’d resigned and started working with Danny’s family to establish the Daniel Pearl Foun- dation, serving as its first executive director. While I was deeply troubled by the unintended diminution of USIA’s priorities, expertise and capabilities within the State Department after the 1999 merger, I re- ally enjoyed engaging the people of the world, not just their governments, and believed this work was vital to our national interest and our national security. During my years of serving abroad I had seen citizen voices and non-state actors becomingmore im- portant —not less— in unexpected positive and negative ways. I had spent most of my career on the cul- tural affairs side, so I knew firsthand the power of people-to-people diplomacy in different types of con- flict, ranging from trade disputes with Mexico to historical distrust around the Aegean Sea. Soon after his death, Danny’s family and friends came together to set up a foundation in his name to reach out in friendship to the world through his passions of jour- nalism and music. The Daniel Pearl Foundation would honor him by defying al-Qaida’s intent to divide through fear. What more important statement could there be about the strength, purpose and character of our nation than that of an American family countering an enemy by reaching out globally to join humanity? I have been honored to spend the past eight years in the nonprofit sector, working with families who have lost loved ones to terrorism yet choose to respond by building people-to-people bridges of understanding. I have worked with a group of 9/11 families to establish a network of peo- ple and organizations building schools in Afghanistan, wel- coming foreign students into their homes, providing professional exchange opportunities for international jour- nalists, engaging in interfaith dialogue and more. I am currently a senior adviser to the Peter C. Alder- man Foundation, named for a 25-year-old killed on Sept. 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center while attending a conference. (In addition, I recently began a contractor job with State.) In his honor, Peter’s family began the foundation to heal the emotional wounds of victims of ter- rorism, war and mass violence by training doctors and es- tablishing mental health clinics in post-conflict countries. Peter C. Alderman clinics treat those suffering from trau- matic depression and post-traumatic stress disorder with culturally appropriate, evidence-based therapy in Cam- bodia, Uganda, Haiti and Rwanda. The Superior Honor Award medals I received from the State Department sit in their velvet-lined boxes at the F O C U S The Superior Honor Award medals I received from the State Department sit in their velvet lined boxes at the bottom of my drawer. They don’t mean much outside the Service.