THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JUNE 2025 25 e VOA in Transylvania The narrow road high in Transylvania cut across a wide upland valley, mountains far in the distance. No fences, no houses, no people except for a lone figure up ahead. A peasant in a sheepskin cloak slogging along the deserted road under an endless gray sky. Hearing us approach, he turned and held up his hand. In mid-1980s Romania, public transportation was scarce, gasoline rationed if available at all. Horses pulled wagons, and people walked. If you had a car, you gave people rides. So we stopped. Gratefully, the man got in and greeted us. “You’re foreigners,” he said, on hearing us reply. Then he froze a second before turning to me, smiling widely. “I know who you are! I hear you on Vocea Americii!” e One Federal Employee Giving Back For a few years as a child in Florida, I received reducedprice school lunch. Without that money from the Department of Education, I would have gone to school hungry. My parents were both working full time—as a nurse and construction/ factory worker—but it wasn’t enough to feed and house our family of four. Yet there are calls to dismantle the Department of Education and cut benefits to hungry kids. My parents divorced when I was in middle school, and my mom moved in with a succession of boyfriends. I’ll never forget the time we left one of those boyfriend’s houses late at night after he threatened my mom and sister, and we sat at a picnic table in a public park while mom tried to figure out what to do. I watched my younger sister cry in fear and promise she’d be good as she held on tightly to her dog. We found somewhere to stay that night, but I don’t remember us having a dog after that. We moved into Section 8 housing—voucher housing subsidized by Housing and Urban Development—as we worked to get our lives back together. In high school, I waited tables and saved my tips. I studied hard and received a full scholarship to a local university through the Florida Bright Futures program, given to the top 10 percent of graduating seniors in the state. Many of my friends planned to study abroad, but that wasn’t an option for me financially—until my professors found out why I wasn’t going and helped me apply for a study abroad scholarship. That scholarship, the Critical Needs Language scholarship from the federal government, paid for me to spend a year overseas learning a language the U.S. government deemed essential. In return, I promised to work for the U.S. government once I graduated. Thanks to the U.S. government, I had been fed. I had been safely housed. I had been educated. I did not come from privilege, but the government and my own hard work had helped me reach for better opportunities, and you can bet I was going to take them. After graduation, I moved to D.C. and looked for a government job to repay the debt I owed—not out of obligation, but out of gratitude. I found a position with a nonprofit organization where the projects were largely funded by USAID. The pay wasn’t great—barely above poverty—but I believed in the mission, and now I was on the giving end of U.S. government money. I understood that by helping people improve their lives, we help the United States: People overseas who receive food, shelter, medicine, and improved government services from the United States are more likely to have a positive view of our country, buy U.S. products, and support U.S. policies. They want to work with us and be our partners because we were there for them in a time of need, just like the social safety net was there for my family when we needed it. Some people claim USAID projects are a waste of money, that the organization is full of fraud. As someone who has spent hours reviewing receipts for $3 taxi expenses, and discussing $2 differences between the receipts presented and the bank statement of the local organization running the program, I can assure you that every penny is carefully accounted for. After three years at the nonprofit, I got my dream job with the U.S. government. I can still remember the feeling of awe that came over me as I recited the oath of office, which is framed on my desk: I solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully execute the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God. Over the past 12 years, I have issued passports to U.S. citizen babies born overseas; prevented people with suspected terrorist ties from receiving a visa to the United States; sat with an elderly woman who lost her husband on what was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime to celebrate their retirement, and then called their children to inform them of their father’s death. I have helped arrange emergency travel for a refugee to join
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