The Foreign Service Journal, October 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2013 25 expect someone with my background and experience to be among the first to volunteer. I received quite a few e-mails from people telling me I had “gone soft,” “sold out” or was “neglecting my duty to my coun- try,” but I stood my ground, arguing that I was on the verge of burning out and that Iraq would still be there three or four years down the line. Luckily, things worked out, and I went to Lyon. I received a few “Are you bored yet?” e-mails in jest from friends, but the answer was always a resounding no. (Really, people, it’s France! How can you be bored in a country with that many varieties of cheese?) In fact, that assignment opened my eyes to a whole new (for me, anyway) form of diplomacy. We worked with the French on issues pertaining to countries around the world, many of them in the same troubled countries where I had served earlier. In the process, I learned a lot about diplomacy (and cheese), extended, got promoted, and stayed anyway because I was so happy. But when it came time to bid, I decided I was ready to go back to what I’d always seen as my true calling: the Arab world. How Many Other “Yemens” Are There? Feeling refreshed and reinvigorated, I headed to Yemen in 2007, serving as deputy chief of mission for more than three years. My time outside the world of armored cars and body- guards had been just what the doctor ordered, and I could once again feel my passion for adrenaline. I also discovered a new kind of staffing/recruitment chal- lenge. By now, the AIP incentive packages were so well-devel- oped that it was very difficult for those of us at other posts in the region to recruit staff. This was particularly true at the section-chief level, since by that point in one’s career most people have family members. Sanaa was an unaccompanied post, yet it was also a two- year assignment. If a mid-level Arabic speaker wanted to do a danger-pay post, he or she could choose one in Iraq (where he Why should someone be rewarded with a highly competitive three-year posting for merely serving in a conflict zone?