The Foreign Service Journal, March 2006

I think a “draft” is a terrible idea. I know we all signed on for “worldwide availability,” but [where] should still remain a choice, especially if it is a family issue or if an officer has also volun- teered for other kinds of hardship tours. If I or my husband were directed to an Iraq assignment I would think seriously about resign- ing my commission. Entry-level FSO u This is, after all, the U.S. government’s number-one foreign policy issue, so the director general should ulti- mately tell all those who’ve been identified by senior State Department leadership that they’re needed. If they can’t or won’t go, they should be thinking about a Civil Service rather than a Foreign Service career. Mid-level FSO u This is probably inevitable. It may not be all bad, either. There are far too many people running around this Service who’ve spent their entire careers in Milan, Paris, Budapest, with a ”hardship” tour in Cape Town, etc. … I was the ”cowboy” of my A-100 class and have enjoyed my time in the hotspots, but even I’m feeling a little tired. An FSO who has served in Iraq u Forget it; nothing in the State Department literature said I could be forced to serve in a war zone. Directing somebody to go there is simply the wrong thing to do, especially if they have a family which could be affected. We are not the military! AFSA should fight this tooth and nail. Mid-level FSO u I would probably resign rather than take a directed assignment to Iraq. I served in [two difficult and dan- gerous posts]. Between the two, I have heard and felt terrorist bombings five times in the past three years. I would serve in Afghanistan, a dangerous but worth- while cause. I consider myself extraordinarily brave, as are most of my FS colleagues. However, I am not stu- pid. And I feel strongly that serving in Iraq would be just that, stupid. Mid-level FSO I would resign if they forced me to go — I believe that if the conditions there were present anywhere else in the world, the embassy would have been on ordered departure and then evacuated and closed down long ago. I support service in hardship posts. … We’ve all signed on the line saying we’re worldwide available — but I believe that forcing service in Iraq is frivolously unsafe and it is irresponsible to put that many lives in such severe danger. I definitely value my life more than I do our policy in Iraq, so I would resign if forced to go. Entry-level FSO u [Directed assignments] would obviously have a negative effect on morale, especially if the depart- ment doesn’t make more of an effort to justify why so many positions are needed there. Mid-level FSO who has served in Iraq u I don’t think the department should send a lot of people to Iraq who don’t want to be there. They sim- ply wouldn’t be effective working in that environ- ment. Senior-level FSO who has served in Iraq u I do not believe that the department would be suc- cessful with directed assignments to Iraq. If all the employees had to deal with was poor conditions, they might grudgingly accept such an assignment. However, Iraq is a unique situation. The people that go there not only need to be competent, but they need to have the proper mindset to work in this envi- ronment. I would not be surprised if many people would rather resign than accept this duty. A Diplomatic Security agent who has served in Iraq u Perhaps a realistic evaluation of the number of per- sonnel required and the ability of the Foreign Service to support that level would be a better question. Employee who has served in the Iraq Support Unit in Amman n F O C U S M A R C H 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 49 I would quit before going to Iraq involuntarily, and I suspect there are many others who feel the same way.