The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2019

8 JULY-AUGUST 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL or this, my 40th and final column as your AFSA president, I sought and received support from the AFSA Governing Board to include a message fromAFSA’s incoming president, Ambassador Eric Rubin. This gives me a chance to pass the baton to AFSA’s terrific new leadership team, right up front, in the opening pages of the FSJ . I am deeply honored that Ambas- sador Rubin plans to continue with the priorities set by the Governing Board that I led for four years. I am so pleased that he chose to show this commitment by adopting “Strong Diplomacy” as the name of his slate. I am also honored that Ambassador Rubin asked me to officiate at the July 15 ceremony, swearing him in as AFSA’s new president. He will then, in turn, swear in the rest of the 2019-2021 Governing Board members. As I wrap up four years as AFSA presi- dent—and, as it turns out, simultaneously wrap up a nearly 34-year career as a For- eign Service officer (I will take up a new role beyond State in September)—I would like to conclude my service by returning to where I began, in my very first President’s Views column: recognizing the extraor- dinary demands that are made of the extraordi- nary people who answer the call to serve in the U.S. Foreign Service. I wrote in that first column about how within minutes of being sworn in with the Strong Diplo- macy board, we had the opportunity to welcome the 183rd A-100 class to AFSA headquarters. We felt such pride in our profession that day, and in the continu- ity of one generation to the next. I spoke to that group of new FSOs about what our pledge to worldwide availability means in practice. We commit to serve in remote corners of the globe, often in unsafe and unhealthy conditions, where good schools for our kids and jobs for our spouses are scarce, where duty and danger go hand in hand. We master diplomacy in large part through on-the-job training, moving to a different job, often a different continent, every two or three years, never able to fully settle into a job and a place we love, never able to get fully comfortable and put down roots. These demands, along with the rig- ors of our competitive up-or-out system, keep the corps strong but inevitably take a toll on individual members of the Foreign Service. The challenges of our service have grown during my time as AFSA president. Having just gone through Fair Share bid- ding myself, I understand and share the frustration many of you express with try- ing to find a career path that makes sense for you and your family while checking the boxes to comply with the new Human Resources Professional Development Program, announced in 2018, governing assignments today. The PDP requirement for at least two greater hardship tours further compli- cates bidding. And with so many Foreign Service positions pulled fromMoscow, Kabul, Baghdad, Erbil, Basra, Havana and Caracas during the past two years, many of you struggle to find an onward assign- ment overseas. During my presidency, AFSA pressed relentlessly for a concerted effort to restore the position base at our overseas missions. This is critical for rebalancing the system and restoring a career path so members of the Foreign Service can get the experience they need to develop into tomorrow’s leaders. And it would solve the immediate need to get a full Foreign Service team in the field to avoid losing ground to rising powers, such as China. We have found that these arguments resonate on Capitol Hill, where bipartisan support for keeping a full Foreign Service team on the field is remarkably strong. This bipartisan support fromCongress is one of the key achievements of my time as your president, and I encourage each of you to do your part to keep it strong, in part by telling your own story of delivering for the American people. AFSA also fought against the added requirements for service at greater hardship posts, arguing that this was a solution in search of a problem (the greater hardship posts were, prior to the PDP change, already filled with at-grade bidders) and that the dwindling number of greater hardship positions would make Ambassador Barbara Stephenson is the president of the American Foreign Service Association. Passing the Baton BY BARBARA STEPHENSON F PRESIDENT’S VIEWS