The Foreign Service Journal, June 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2015 57 AFSA NEWS adheres to the Fiscal Year 2016 post-sequester Budget Control Act discretionary spending cap. According to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, the resolution, while bringing the budget into balance in FY2024, would also reduce the overall international affairs budget by 16 percent and its base funding by 7 percent. (To see the FPC letter, please visit www.bit.ly/ FPCletter.) Meanwhile, the Senate passed its budget resolution (S.Con.Res. 11) on March 27, but not without a con- siderable joint effort by the Department of State’s Bureau of Legislative Affairs and the USGLC—of which AFSA is a member—to defeat a problematic amendment by Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.). Paul’s proposal, which sought to increase defense spending by $190 billion by cutting foreign assistance by 50 percent in addition to reducing several other domestic agency budgets, surprised even Washington insiders. Senators voting in favor of the defeated amendment included Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and David Vitter (R-La.). Now that both chambers have approved their respec- tive budget resolutions, they are engaged in conference committee negotiations to reconcile the two ver- sions. Once an agreement, also known as a conference report, is approved, each chamber’s appropriations committees will set the FY16 302(b) allocations for each of the 12 subcommittee appropriations bills, including the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill. AFSA Needs Your Support What we must do now is provide SFRC members with tangible support, particularly Chairman Corker, who has been an ally of the Foreign Service even before taking the reins of the committee. AFSA has launched several additional advocacy initiatives aimed at educat- ing members and staff about our issues and reminding them that you, your families and your communities are paying close attention to this process. We ask you to stay tuned for our calls to action and our regular AFSAnet updates on the budget, authorization and appropriations process. AFSA reminds active-duty Foreign Service employees that it is illegal to lobby Congress using official time or government resources including your .gov email account. Please make sure to read up on the Hatch Act (rules governing political activity by federal employ- ees) and the regulations in the Anti-Lobbying Act before acting. n —Javier Cuebas, Director of Advocacy COURTESYOFMICHAELHACKER On April 9, DACOR hosted a Vietnam post reunion at Bacon House. The reunion was open to all who had served in Viet- nam at any time. The crowd of more than 60 diplomatic veterans was a mix of those who had been in Vietnam during the war years and those who served after relations were restored. One attendee had served there as early as 1952. Following a welcome from DACOR member Bruce Kinsey, Scott Kofmehl, the State Department’s Vietnam desk officer, gave a brief update on current relations between the United States and Vietnam. Much younger than most of the attend- ees, he expressed awe to be in the company of so many Vietnam hands, and recognized the historic role many of them played at the time. DACOR Executive Director Susan Cimburek called the event a great success. “The strong bonds that united the attendees were evident and there was a great sense of camaraderie,” she said. “We often think of Vietnam as such a defining point for those who served there militarily,” Cimburek added. “The reunion shows that those who served there diplomatically had equally profound experiences.” —Debra Blome, Associate Editor DACORHostsVietnamHands Rufus Phillips (left), Michael Hacker (center) and Anton “Tony” Cistaro (right) were among those who attended DACOR’s Vietnam post reunion. Phillips served in Vietnam from 1954 to 1968 in a number of capacities: as a U.S. Army officer, CIA case officer, USAID official and consultant to the Department of State (he wrote “Counterinsurgency in Vietnam: Lessons for Today” for the April 2015 FSJ ). USAID FSOs Hacker and Cistaro met in the summer of 1967, when Cistaro recruited Hacker to serve with CORDS (Civil Operations and Rural Development Support) in Vietnam. The reunion at DACOR was the first time the men had seen each other in 45 years.