The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2023

8 JULY-AUGUST 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL A Fond but Cautionary Farewell BY ER I C RUB I N Ambassador Eric Rubin is the president of the American Foreign Service Association. PRESIDENT’S VIEWS T his is my last FSJ column as president of AFSA. In June, I reflected on the accomplish- ments of the past two AFSA boards and my hopes for future progress in the near term. Here, I’d like to share some thoughts about where we, the Foreign Service of the United States of America, find ourselves in 2023 and what needs to be done to restore morale and a sense of coherence and purpose to our work. Before I do that, however, I want to pause to say that these past four years, and the 34 years of my career that came before them, have given me an understanding of the real dedication that our colleagues demonstrate every day, often under the most unforgiving conditions. The level of sacrifice our colleagues and their families make is deeply impressive. In recent years, the challenges to our career and our lives in the Foreign Service have escalated, fromCOVID-19 to the CDC dog ban, from Anomalous Health Incidents (or Havana syndrome) to the evacuation of our embassies in multiple countries. So let me start out by saluting our active-duty and retired colleagues and all FS family members, as well as our dedicated Foreign Service National colleagues. You demonstrate the real meaning of service every day. The world is complicated and challenging, and the work that we do is more important than ever. But it is not easy. Despite the advances in transporta- tion and communications, I honestly think the logistics of Foreign Service life were easier when I joined in the mid-1980s. Morale Concerns Concerns about morale are not theoretical. From the Office of Person- nel Management’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey to the surveys that we, together with employee organizations, do ourselves, we know that morale is much worse than it was a decade ago and has not significantly improved in the past three years, even as we have made impor- tant progress on advancing DEIAmatters within the Foreign Service. Morale is directly linked to retention and attrition, and this includes fam- ily member morale as well. Too many families are making the collective decision that they cannot continue to endure the hardships, especially constant evacua- tions and drawdowns. Within the space of two years, we went from having more than 500 American family members in Kyiv and more than 300 in Moscow to nearly zero in both posts. The reasons are real and evi- dent, but the impact has been dramatic. Laws and regulations must be fol- lowed, of course. But the way they are implemented can make a dramatic differ- ence. I am reminded of the phrase coined by “Pogo” cartoonist Walt Kelly, “We have met the enemy, and he is us,” adapted from a famous statement by Commandant Oliver Perry during the War of 1812. AFSA has been publicly critical of the exces- sive number of political appointments to senior positions, but in the case of morale, retention, and attrition, it is all too often our career colleagues, Foreign Service and Civil Service alike, who make it hard to stay in the Service. Saying to a subordinate with a prob- lem, “I know this is not a good situation, but I am going to do my best to change it if it is unfair or at least help you within the parameters of the regs” is way better than saying, “Sorry, there is nothing to be done, so suck it up.” All of us have encountered both responses from supervisors in our careers, but I am afraid the latter may be more common than the former. Take Care of Each Other This bureaucratic tendency has come into stark relief since the start of the pandemic. Travel regulations that never anticipated a global health crisis were not flexible enough to accommodate real people in real situations. Last summer, many FS travelers with pets were forced to pay their own transfer travel costs to and from post because we do not have an exception to the Fly America Act that covers pet travel. This is a reflection of the challenges our people face in 2023. It is wrong, and AFSA is working to get an exemption from Congress. When I meet with new members of the Foreign Service from any of the