The Foreign Service Journal, December 2022

50 DECEMBER 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL sity, improve Civil Service and Foreign Service relations, promote institutional reformof the assignment and promotion system, chal- lenge the growing number of political appointees in the depart- ment and as ambassadors, and balance overseas security with the needs of diplomacy tomanage risk effectively, among other issues. Honoring Foreign Service members who made the ultimate sacrifice, Ms. Johnson led with sincerity. In April 2013, she trav- eled to Chicago to attend the funeral of FSO Anne Smedinghoff, who was killed during a car bombing in Kabul, and ensured that Ms. Smedinghoff’s story was included in the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training’s exhibit, “History of U.S. Diplo- macy,” housed at the Foreign Service Institute. One month later, Ms. Johnson presided over the only AFSA Memorial Plaque ceremony to be attended by a vice president of the United States. At that event, then–Vice President Joe Biden added the names of Ms. Smedinghoff and seven other Foreign Service members killed in the line of duty to the memorial wall. Ms. Johnson was committed to building recognition for the professional history of the Foreign Service and AFSA. She com- missioned a book on the history of AFSA ( Voice of the Foreign Service by Harry Kopp, FS Books, 2015) and encouraged research into U.S. diplomats missing from the AFSAMemorial Plaque. She worked to improve conditions for FS members, including successful advocacy for the first two tranches of overseas compa- rability pay (OCP). Under her leadership, and thanks to the hard work of AFSA’s labor management team, AFSA also won back pay and retroactive bonuses for dozens of Diplomatic Security agents who had been denied them. In an initiative dear to the hearts of many in the Foreign Service, Ms. John- son advocated for greater State Depart- ment support for members with animal companions as part of their family. She launched a successful AFSA member email campaign calling on United Airlines to include FS members in the policies it offered those traveling on military orders. And in 2010, with a Civil Service colleague, she created the Facebook group “Foreign Affairs Friends of Animals Network” , which now has more than 2,000 members. To modernize AFSA as an organization, Ms. Johnson sharpened the roles of AFSA committees and established an ad hoc committee on professionalism and ethics in the Foreign Service. He hails from Ames, Iowa, where he is the proud owner of the only parade float bearing the AFSA logo. “Every home leave, my family and I enter a French Citroen 2CV that I brought back fromMadagascar as an AFSA float in my hometown’s Fourth of July parade,” Mr. Osweiler tells the Jour- nal . “We hand out the branded bumper stickers, lanyards, and bags that AFSA sends us. Next summer will be our third instance of this outreach. Rest assured that the town of Ames knows and appreciates AFSA’s work, too!” AFSA Achievement and Contributions to the Association Award Susan R. Johnson Defending Professional Diplomacy I n 2009, Susan R. Johnson made AFSA his- tory as the first woman elected president of the association. Under her leadership, spanning two terms of two years each, she tirelessly spoke out against threats to the Foreign Service as a profession and worked to modernize AFSA as an organization. Through public speeches, regular col- umns in The Foreign Service Journal , and op-eds for other media outlets, Ms. Johnson called for strengthening the professionalism of America’s diplomatic service and docu- mented the steady decline in Foreign Service assignments to senior policymaking posi- tions in the State Department over decades. She took on the hard issues, including the need to boost appropriations, advance diver- Susan Johnson. I learned early in my career how important AFSA is as an agent of advocacy, change, and equitable treatment. I have deeply appreciated the role of the association in ensuring that the Foreign Service takes care of those who bring it to life. —Jeff Osweiler