The Foreign Service Journal, March 2017

46 MARCH 2017 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL an understanding of Afghan etiquette in business and personal relationships, and recognizing the importance of his relation- ship with this person, he visited his contact in the hospital and brought him the requisite fruit basket, which further solidi- fied their relationship. These efforts proved beneficial in many subsequent interactions, specifically when Poulsen leveraged his relationship to avoid a hasty, unanticipated effort on the part of the Afghan government to deport U.S. government person- nel. Poulsen’s personal approach to diplomacy and many of his accomplishments reflect traditional Danish qualities, but his work ethic and ambition are all-American. Sometimes the examples set forth by one’s parents are as sig- nificant as personal experience. Kapoukakis credits his parents’ determination and resourcefulness with showing him that he could overcome anything with a positive mindset, hard work and tenacity. “I grew up with living, breathing examples of two people who didn’t take no for an answer; two people who came to the United States with nothing, made something of them- selves and became contributors to the society that gave them the opportunity to succeed,” he says. “That taught me a lot about how to approach and overcome challenges.” For Kapoukakis, the prevailing mindset while facing adversity growing up was “we’ll figure it out.” He’s carried those lessons with him through his two decades of public service. Many of us aspire to be polyglots, yet struggle to pass the For- eign Service Institute’s language exams. But for many DS agents, understanding multiple languages is the norm. In addition to English, Special Agent Hornik-Tran speaks six languages: fluent Vietnamese, good Chinese and decent Slovak, as well as French, Portuguese and Tagalog. Likewise, Teji Thiara, the child of Indian immigrants, grew up speaking Eng- lish and her parents’ native tongue, Punjabi. She later picked up Hindi while attending boarding school in India. As the child of farmers in northern California, Thiara grew up hearing and speaking Spanish. Add a few overseas tours, and she solidi- fied her Spanish and also picked up a little Czech. Themistocles (Themi) Karavites played a cru- cial role in security operations for the U.S. Olympic team at the 2004 Athens Olympics. As an assistant regional security officer in Athens, he served as one of four regional security coordinators and the protective detail lead for all U.S. delegations. He is frequently selected to serve on Greek protective details because of his language abilities. This language ability, combined with his Greek heritage and cultural expertise, paid unexpected dividends during his tour in Belgrade, where Kara- vites discovered that several of the RSO’s primary police contacts had previously served in Greece and also spoke Greek. Because of the Serbian Special Agent Tony Hornik-Tran proudly serves his country as a member of the protective detail on a Secretary of State trip. COURTESYOFTONYHORNIK-TRAN Special Agent Christian Poulsen (second from right) stands with BG Sadat and his staff after a joint trip assessing Afghan Public Protection Force regional training centers throughout Afghanistan. COURTESYOFCHRISTIANPOULSEN