The Foreign Service Journal, November 2004

the U.S. Navy on a seagoing tug, the USS Alsea . The author reminisces about shipboard life and liberty in vari- ous ports, recalling his adventures as an 18-year-old novice when he first reported on board. The captain’s war diary, the ship’s log and the official report of a 1945 convoy that constituted the Alsea ’s first assignment, all available at the National Archives, helped jog the author’s memory of these events some 60 years after the fact. Allen C. Hansen retired from USIA in 1987 after serv- ing as an FSO for 32 years in nine countries. An earlier volume, The Hole in the Doughnut: Growing Up in Metuchen in a Time of Innocence (2001), recounts the author’s childhood. Hansen is the author of USIA: Public Diplomacy in the Computer Age (1989), and the autobio- graphical Nine Lives: A Foreign Service Odyssey (1999). He is also webmaster of an Internet site sponsored by the USIA Alumni Association and the Public Diplomacy Foundation, www.publicdiplomacy.org, an d currently resides in McLean, Va. Fleet Tug Sailor is on sale at the U.S. Naval Memorial in Washington, D.C.  F O C U S 48 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 4 Ordering through afsa.org Here’s how it works: 1. Go to the AFSA Web site, www.afsa.org . 2. Click on the Marketplace tab (second brown tab from the right). 3. Click on the “AFSA and Amazon Books” icon. 4. Click on “FS Authors” and then go directly to book listings by subject. 5. Shop away! Not only is this a thrifty, efficient way to do your holiday shopping, but AFSA receives a 5-percent commission from Amazon on every item (books, CDs, toys, etc.) ordered in this manner. Books selected from the AFSA Web site bookstore generate an even higher commission payment. And ordering through AFSA doesn’t cost you a cent. So bookmark the AFSA site, use the link and help your association — and yourself!