The Foreign Service Journal, October 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2015 17 macy. By the time I thought about converting to the Foreign Service, I was so senior (a GS-15) that conver- sion would have hurt my career. I’d be bounced back to entry level; so I never did it. (In contrast, FSOs can convert to Civil Service without sacrificing rank if they meet certain conditions. That needs to change, so that members of both services can move back and forth on an equal basis.) The Work of an FAO Is Never Done All the same, like many FAOs and FSOs, I led or participated in sensitive negotiations to control technology that could have been converted into weapons against the United States. I was also the first economic officer to visit Albania (before we had an embassy there), served with the Multinational Force of Observ- ers in Egypt and worked on counter- smuggling operations with the European Commission in Brussels. And I helped negotiate the Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunications, a treaty designed to save lives in disasters. In most of those assignments, I served alongside fellow civil servants and FSOs. However, the Tampere dele- gation was entirely Civil Service, as were my several missions to Sudan to talk to rebels and relief workers. My career at State was truly wonderful, but so are the careers of many other FAOs, all true foreign policy professionals who take courses at the Foreign Service Institute, in academia and other venues. Today’s diplomacy is nearly always developed by a team of Foreign Service and Civil Service professionals—law- yers in the Office of the Legal Adviser who focus on treaties; scientists in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs who help combat climate change; experts in the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration who provide relief for refugees; officers in the Bureau of Consular Affairs who protect Ameri- cans living overseas; and analysts in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research who provide critical insights into the world’s hotspots. Many State bureaus are run by deputy assistant secretaries who are Civil Service employees; some have even been assistant secretaries or ambassadors. Add to that the non- Foreign Service folks from the U.S. Agency for International Development and other federal agencies who are on embassy country teams. Every civil servant should be proud of our brand of diplomacy, a brand which deserves full expression in the new National Museum of American Diplomacy. Time to End Double Standards There was only one case where I felt my career was hindered by being a member of the Civil Service rather than the Foreign Service. In 2004, the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs accepted me for a tour of duty in Iraq. However, my supervisor felt it would be too compli- cated to hire a Civil Service replacement, and—despite my clear qualifications as ex-military and having done detached duty before—refused to let me go. That, too, needs to change. Such assignments should be easier to get. We need a personnel system that gives FAOs easier access to overseas assignments. We are often just as brave and educated as members of the Foreign Service, so why can’t foreign affairs offi- cers aspire to be ambassadors? My colleagues and I have also encountered prejudice over not being Take AFSA With You! Change your address online, visit us at www.afsa.org/address Or Send changes to: AFSAMembership Department 2101 E Street NW Washington DC 20037 Moving?