The Foreign Service Journal, November 2021

50 NOVEMBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL After graduating fromMiami University, she left home to live and work around the world. She is the wife of retired Foreign Service medical officer Stuart Scheer. Collected Tales of Love and Adventure Stephen Eisenbraun, independently published, 2020, $18.95/paperback, e-book available, 134 pages. Stephen E. Eisenbraun shares memorable and exciting moments from assignments in South Asia and Africa, including an Air Force mutiny in Bangladesh and the burning of the U.S. embassy in Pakistan. Yet he maintains a refreshing sense of perspective and humility about his role in those situations. A surprising number of the episodes covered in these short chapters take place in the United States (including three in South Dakota alone). But what mainly sets this volume apart from other FS memoirs is its emphasis on romance and, yes, sex. That said, family life also plays a large role in Collected Tales of Love and Adventure . Also noteworthy is the good writing. The author has a fine sense of prosody, and the narrative rolls along fluidly, with each chapter, or experience, written as a short story. Stephen E. Eisenbraun is a retired Foreign Service officer whose overseas assignments included Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sierra Leone (where he was deputy chief of mission) and Kenya (where he was principal officer/consul inMombasa). In retirement, Eisenbraun continues to work as a consultant to the Department of State as the editor in chief of the department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights. He is also a past member and chair of the Foreign Service Journal Editorial Board (1984-1988). More Collected Tales of Love and Adventure Stephen Eisenbraun, independently published, 2021, $18.95/paperback, 118 pages. In this follow-up volume, Stephen Eisenbraun shares impressions of Cal- cutta, Paris and Bangkok, among other overseas locales. But many of the chap- ters are set stateside, either in the Wash- ington, D.C., area or Iowa. Whatever the location, these stories are evocative and either wry or heartfelt. Bombs, Bullets, and the Tank at the Office: Protecting America on Diplomacy’s Front Lines Carol Stricker, independently published, 2020, $14.95/paperback, e-book available, 258 pages. What does a diplomat do? To answer that common question, Carol Stricker shares stories from her distinguished 25-year career with the U.S. Depart- ment of State. As a management officer in Angola, Canada, Georgia, Germany, Mali, Niger, Ukraine and Zimbabwe (and back in Washington, D.C.), she was often in harm’s way as she kept diplomatic missions running, and even ran an embassy herself as chargé d’affaires. She also helped facil- itate progress on such diverse issues as eliminating thousands of nuclear weapons in Ukraine and working to stop genocide in Burundi. This is a superb introduction to the U.S. Foreign Service. With verve and humor, Stricker recounts her adventures as a Foreign Service officer protecting America’s strategic interests and American citizens abroad. By showing the great variety of day- to-day work, she dispels the myth that diplomacy is all about cocktail parties and makes a solid case for keeping foreign affairs agencies well funded. Her memoir is a celebration of the high ideals, service and sacrifice of America’s diplomats, and she concludes with a call to action to all Americans to support and defend democracy and diplomacy, and to honor those diplomats who have died in service to their country. You can hear the author discuss her career and the value of diplomacy at https://bit.ly/Stricker-AFSA. Balm in Gilead: A Story from the War John L. Withers II, Lulu Publishing Services, 2019, $24.60/paperback, e-book available, 490 pages. In this unusual and compelling work, FSO John L. Withers II recounts his father’s stories of a defining World War II friendship with two young Jews, former Dachau inmates. In May 1945 an all-black U.S. Army truck company, including Lieutenant John L. Withers of Greensboro, North Carolina, rushed emergency supplies to an unknown German