The Foreign Service Journal, October 2019

38 OCTOBER 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL When a tsunami devastated Sumatra in 2004, the United States Indonesia Society asked Sullivan to help rebuild the educational system that had been destroyed by the disaster. The result was the University of Syiah Kuala Laboratory School, a high school that admitted its first class in 2007. Born in China to American parents, Sullivan is also the author of Can Survive, La: Cottage Industries in High-Rise Singapore (1993) and a children’s book, The Philippines: Pacific Crossroads (1993). Reaching Across Borders: How We Became American Cultural Ambassadors and How You Can, Too Jeffrey Kealing, William Charles Press, 2019, $13/paperback, $5.99/Kindle, 240 pages. In this memoir, former FSO Jeffrey Kealing retraces the three decades he and his wife and fellow FSO, Shelly, spent working around the world to make a plea for forming a common connection with people of many nations as globalization draws them closer than ever before. Reaching Across Borders takes readers on adventures through Romania, Thailand and Japan. Witness the world through the eyes of a couple taking on a variety of interesting assignments whether it be serving as an election monitor in Bucharest, publishing for Japanese businesses or working in a community liaison office in Bangkok. All throughout their experiences they learned the particulars of various cultures, discovering how to bond and succeed no matter the context. The experience taught them the value of being cultural ambassadors for America. Motivated in part by growing hostil- ity toward globalization and the related political retrenchment today, the author harkens back to the immediate postwar institutions and sentiments that helped create a more connected world, and aims to show how cultural acuity and respect are becoming ever more necessary and fundamental to the human experience. Jeffrey Kealing has worked as a diplomat, a professor, reporter and editor. He holds a Ph.D. in international education from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Two Lifetimes As One: Ele and Me and the Foreign Service Irving Tragen, BookPatch, 2019, $36.95/hardcover, 763 pages. In this touching autobiography that covers decades of marriage and service abroad, Irving Tragen tells the story of a diplomat who could not have carried out his difficult assignments without the support of his loving wife, the late Eleanor “Ele” Dodson. Irving, who suffered severe hearing loss from the aftereffects of scarlet fever, recounts their odyssey from their first meeting and marriage in 1947 through a dozen assignments in the U.S. Foreign Service and the Organization of American States. Irving worked in all 33 Latin American and Caribbean coun- tries during a career that spanned nearly 60 years, with a focus on diplomacy, development and the fight against drug traffick- ing. In Two Lifetimes As One , Irving details those assignments, what he learned and how Ele made all the difference. Irving Tragen served as a Foreign Service officer for 35 years, including senior posts in Latin America and the Caribbean. He lives in retirement in San Diego, where he remains engaged in building friendship and understanding between the United States and Latin America. This book is part of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training’s Memoirs and Occasional Papers Series. Bridge Between Worlds: A Lebanese-Arab American Woman’s Journey Hala Lababidi Buck, Scarith/ New Academia Publishers, 2019, $32/paperback, 356 pages. A professional artist, integrative thera- pist and diplomatic spouse, Hala Laba- bidi Buck embarks on a voyage to her birth country to rediscover her roots in Lebanon, a nation that is itself a bridge between East and West. A personal story of searching for home and connecting with heritage, Bridge Between Worlds is a multi- faceted memoir of personal discovery and cultural exploration. Through poetry, storytelling and art therapy, the author canvasses the transient life that took her across numerous Arab countries. As she discovers what it means to be a multicultural