The Foreign Service Journal, March 2009

N othing concentrates the mind like getting an assignment to an unaccompanied post. A friend who served in Baghdad several years ago told me that she was happy to deploy with only three months’ ad- vance notice (“less time to worry”). I, on the other hand, was glad to have my assignment confirmed a full year in advance. I am set to transfer to Basra, Iraq, in June. My first priority was to take care of my family, which will remain behind in our Arlington, Va., house. I certainly do not doubt my wife’s ability to man- age our home, our two young daugh- ters and loyal dog during my yearlong absence. Over the years, Barbara has been in the Foreign Service and the Civil Service, and has worked as a fam- ily member in embassy Part-Time, In- termittent, Temporary positions. So she knows her way around the bureau- cracy and is plenty resilient. But why leave her with, for exam- ple, a 25-year-old cooling system that could give up the ghost any day (most likely in mid-August)? So I resolved to do as much as I could to get our house into shape before I departed. I recently learned another reason behind my maintenance impulse: Ac- cording to the Myers-Briggs gurus, my type (INTJ) responds to stress by seeking to impose order on the world. CNN also played a key role in fix- ing up our house. Soon after I volun- teered for Iraq, the fact that the AFSA president had taken that step was re- ported in the media. When the net- work called asking to do a story about the impact on my family, I enthusiasti- cally accepted. A zillion stories have been done in recent years about uni- formed military families left behind, so I thought it was high time that the Foreign Service got some recognition. A team came out to our house one Monday morning (after, as you might imagine, my wife and I spent the en- tire weekend cleaning up the place). The producer walked into our World War II–era Colonial and said, “Let’s film a family scene in the kitchen.” But as soon as he saw that postage- stamp-sized room, he immediately said, “Well, how about if we film in the dining room?” Given that accurate assessment of the limitations of our old kitchen, my wife and I resolved to plunge ahead on the major remodeling job that we had talked about ever since we bought our house 10 years earlier. If you have ever dealt with a contractor on a major remodeling, then you know that it is a very involved process that takes your mind off all your other concerns for months on end. Our renovation is now complete, so I am starting to focus on other aspects of preparing for my upcoming unac- companied tour. I have signed up for the pre-deployment training available to me — including the 3.5 hours (yes, hours) of Arabic-language training that is apparently deemed sufficient to lead a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq. Because I have always made time for my family, there is no need for me to radically increase the amount of at- tention that I show them. But I am very much aware that every day counts. Brief R&R visits aside, I am going to miss one year of my marriage, one year of my daughters’ grade- school education and a significant per- centage of my dog’s lifespan (he, unfortunately, will have no idea why, one day, I stop coming home). Of course, I will be with my family in spirit and intend to call and e-mail frequently. But it will not be the same as being there. My family understands and accepts the reasons why I have volunteered for this major dislocation in our intertwined lives. I just hope that the personal cost is balanced by my being able to do some good where I am headed. I also hope that more Americans come to recognize the sacrifices being made by today’s Foreign Service fam- ilies in this new era of widespread un- accompanied tours. Toward that end, maybe CNN could return next win- ter to interview my family while I am gone. If so, our kitchen will be ready. John K. Naland, an FSO since 1986, is president of the American Foreign Service Association. I am very much aware that every day counts. 76 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 9 R EFLECTIONS Precious Time B Y J OHN K. N ALAND