The Foreign Service Journal, May 2022

32 MAY 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL A retired FSO ambassador offers insights and tips—the real deal—on working with the U.S. military after nearly a decade as a private contractor. BY LARRY BUT L ER Working with the U.S. Military Ambassador (ret.) Larry Butler served for 40 years with the State Department, starting in Finland and the People’s Republic of Bulgaria during the Cold War and finishing his career in the Greater Middle East with postings in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has a record of involvement in peacemaking, including working for President Bill Clinton at the White House for the Northern Ireland Good Friday Accords and with Richard Holbrooke in Belgrade for the Dayton Accords. A Balkans expert, he served in Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo and as U.S. ambassador to Macedonia (2002-2005). He retired from the Foreign Service in 2013 and now provides interagency opera- tional expertise to U.S. military organizations from his home bases in Maine and Virginia. S ince retiring from the Foreign Service, I spend three to four months a year on the road sup- porting U.S. military exercises and training events. Ignoring the advice in FSI’s superb Job Search Program to do something unrelated to my former career, I had already set up a part-time position with the State Department Inspector General and had an offer from a former colleague to be a role player and interagency expert for U.S. Army field exercises. I imagined that working episodically and visiting parts of the United States and the world I had never served in would scratch my travel itch and supplement my annuity. Two years of working on and off for State gave way to work- ing exclusively with the U.S. military. The colleague who first recruited me had set up a company to provide embassy role play- FOCUS ON LIFE AFTER THE FOREIGN SERVICE ers (e.g., chief of mission, public affairs, USAID, RSO) to prepare brigade combat teams headed for Iraq and Afghanistan. He knew that I had worked closely with the U.S. military; I had served at embassies dealing with armed conflict (Balkans) and on assign- ments as a foreign policy adviser (POLAD) to NATO and the U.S. military in Iraq and Germany. Why role players? Since the State Department rarely can spare an FSO for two to three weeks to support pre-deployment train- ing at the Army’s training centers (including those in Pennsyl- vania, Louisiana, California, Indiana and Germany), the busi- ness opportunity arose for defense contractors to supply those persons. It was a challenge (with mixed outcomes) to find people with real-world and relevant experience prepared to spend con- siderable periods of time away from home in austere, uncomfort- able locations (e.g., exposed to spider bites in Indiana, sweltering in Louisiana’s humidity, and frying while locked in the back of an armored vehicle in the Mojave). But I signed on. The Exercise Network A few weeks later, I found myself at Fort Irwin, California. There may be more remote locations in the United States, but this one’s in the top five. For two weeks I was the head of a small dip- lomatic mission in a fictitious country working with a real Army brigade commander charged with defeating an invading enemy force while interacting with us and local civilian leaders (also role players). Each of the three main Army combat training locations have 10 or more exercises annually, hence the challenge for the many defense contractors to have a bench deep enough to field an adjustable size range of diplomatic missions.