The Foreign Service Journal, September 2015

10 SEPTEMBER 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL from such contacts seem inescapable. First, appeals from leaders who seek our help and offer us friendship should be thoroughly vetted instead of being ignored or dismissed outright. The price for not having done so in terms of the potential avoidance of military involvement and its enormous cost in blood and treasure is a matter of record in the case of Vietnam. Second, a people’s struggle for inde- pendence from oppression, foreign or domestic, may be considered legitimate regardless of how closely the political philosophy of their leaders resembles our own. And finally, the enemy of a friend or ally (in this case, the French) may not prove to be our enemy unless having been forced into being one. Ironically, a half-century later we enjoy cordial relations with our erst- while foe and even find ourselves aligned with Vietnam in facing the expansionist aspirations of its historic enemy and increasingly assertive neigh- bor, China. Fred Kalhammer USAID SFSO, retired Sun City Center, Florida Paying MSIs The State Department’s attempt to avoid payment of 2013 and 2014 Merito- rious Step Increase financial awards is a public relations and staffing mistake. In response, AFSA filed an implementation dispute that is entering its final stages. I want to thank AFSA for fighting this fight. It is not just about the money. Rather, it is a fight on principle; the department should demonstrate that it stands by its employees and wants to hold onto them. While I am grateful to the department for my employment and for the myriad opportunities it continues to provide me professionally, I feel that in this case, it has come up short. In an economic environment where the public sector is fighting to retain employees of quality, simple measures such as financial incentives can help. Furthermore, reneging on a fundamen- tal agreement to pay out performance awards sends a message to all employ- ees, not just MSI recipients, that good work is not valued or rewarded. This is a message that the federal government can ill afford as unemploy- ment drops and private-sector hiring accelerates. State Department employees, like all employees, value recognition, respect and rewards for performance. However, over the past 30 years, federal employees have endured the screeds of politi- cians and media pundits vilifying us as inefficient, wasteful and undeserving of proper financial compensation. When public employees leave government employment tired and embittered, they are then criticized for walking through the “revolving door” of public and private employment. In my experience, morale has taken a severe hit due to these attacks, and our best employees are expressing their sentiments not only with their voices, but with their feet, moving to the private sector. The department should view the MSI financial award as a tool to maintain and motivate a cadre of high-performing employees working at the forefront of diplomacy where our country needs them most. I encourage my colleagues to stand in solidarity with AFSA in requesting that all MSI recipients from 2013 and 2014 promotion boards receive the financial awards they are due. Whether you received an MSI during these years or not, this serves as a test case that will affect all MSI recipients in years to come. Joshua Levin-Soler Foreign Service Special Agent, Diplomatic Security Service Kabul, Afghanistan IRM Promotions Attention fellow information technol- ogy managers, especially those of you (and your families) who have dedicated more than two decades to the Foreign Service and are still at the FS-2 rank. You may find State’s 2014 promo- tion statistics sad and depressing (see “By the Numbers” in the April edition of State magazine). You may get the impression that the State Department does not fully appreci- ate or value your sacrifices, dedication or the documented evidence that you are ready to serve at the next higher pay grade. In my opinion, based on the num- bers, you would be right. According to the 2014 promotion statistics, the average time in service for an information technology manager (ITM) to make FS-1 is 17.7 years. Feeling the pain yet? The average time in grade at FS-2 is 6.8 years. If these stats were a one-off, maybe even a two-off, we might accept that during that panel’s review the other employees simply told a better story. But, no, this is the reality for ITMs. Across the board, we FS-2 ITMs with more than 20 years of service and 10 years in grade have apparently failed to tell our own story and convince panels that we are ready for the next level. The good side of this is that the people we have mentored, trained and counseled are doing very well. In fact, you can now work for someone who was once a new hire working for you at their