The Foreign Service Journal, April 2012

Esprit de Corps I had to laugh out loud when I read Carol Urban’s letter in the January FSJ commenting on Jon P. Dorschner’s November 2011 Speaking Out column (“Why the Foreign Service Should Be More Like the Army”). In it, she al- leges that Mr. Dorschner failed to cite any specific examples of the lack of es- prit de corps and lack of concern for subordinates he says is prevalent with- in the Foreign Service. However, I thought he hit the nail on the head. SinceMs. Urban requests examples, allow me to offer one from my time at the International Security Assistance Force regional command in Afghan- istan. The deputy commander was an American colonel who would walk through the offices, common areas and dining hall, picking people at random with whom to sit down and talk. It didn’t matter whether they were in uniform or not — he just wanted to ask how they were doing, let them know their work was important, ex- press his appreciation for what they were doing for the mission, and thank them for their dedication to duty and country. By contrast, in the small State De- partment office where I worked, there was absolutely no communication, ca- maraderie or the slightest bit of appre- ciation for the contribution that each employee made to the mission. I could cite many other examples, but I feel confident that most of my Foreign Service colleagues see the truth of Mr. Dorschner’s assessment. Too bad Ms. Urban does not. Daniel Reagan Regional Information Systems Security Officer Embassy Beijing FS Code of Conduct Thanks for the great and timely col- umn by AFSA President Susan John- son, “Essential Ingredients for a Professional Career Foreign Service,” in the February Journal . I couldn’t agree with her more. We have operated far too long on assumptions of devotion to duty and adherence to proper codes of ethics; but speaking as someone who has chaired several promotion panels, I’ve seen that far too many of our col- leagues fail at both. That’s not because they’re bad people, but because they don’t have a “Code of Conduct” to guide them as the military has. As a retired military officer and an about-to-retire Foreign Service officer, I’ve tried to instill something of the military code of ethics and behavior when I’ve been in charge of anyone or anything. Though AFSA is where it will have to start, Foreign Service members will need to get on board for the concept to gain traction. A good first step would probably be for AFSA to set up a panel, or (sorry for use of this word) commission, to start discussing and drafting a code of conduct and a guide to the general characteristics expected — demanded — of all Foreign Service personnel. I would be more than happy to work with AFSA to help get something like this going. Charles A. Ray Ambassador Embassy Harare A Bellwether for Technology While I find all of your articles, ed- itorials and assorted prose in each issue of the Foreign Service Journal to be consistently world-class and profes- sional, I was especially delighted to read the item in the January Cyber- notes section titled “Leading the Way on Cybersecurity.” I hope your read- ership appreciates the truly substantive importance of such outstanding tech- nical progress for U.S. diplomacy and development. The Information Resource Man- agement Bureau’s determination and diligence (in what I am sure is very close collaboration with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security) toward improv- ing systems security serve as a kind of 8 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 1 2 L ETTERS