Tag Archives: foreign service officer

Stepping Out

The Pan American Boeing 747 taxied down a runway of the JFK airport around 9 p.m. on December 4, 1990, and lifted off. I watched the New York City metropolitan area spreading out in a vast sea of lights. It was the first international plane trip of my life. I was beginning my first assignment as a U.S. Foreign Service officer.

The takeoff began my trip to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with a change of planes in Frankfurt, Germany, then to Riyadh. In Riyadh, I was to change planes again for a final short flight to Saudi Arabia’s port city of Jeddah.

Looking back, I have to laugh at all the mistakes a hyped up newbie Foreign Service officer could make. I had packed my suitcase too full, and it was obvious, once I landed in New York City for consultations, that it wasn’t going to last out the trip.

Fortunately, a kind officer in the New York office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service took me to a luggage store for a better suitcase.

Of course, the new suitcase was possibly the reason I identified the wrong one when I, seriously jet lagged, changed planes in Riyadh. Eventually, the luggage was sent back to the right person in Riyadh, and mine returned to me in a day or so.

However, due to the fact that I had no luggage for my first evening in Jeddah, I had to attend a welcoming reception wearing the travel-stained outfit I’d worn for several days. I also developed a blister on my foot from walking around in my travel shoes.

My first assignment began a few weeks before the the start of the First Gulf War. It pitted Iraq against Saudi Arabia, with the United States and other allies supporting Saudi Arabia.

Due to new assignments and training, the former officer had been transferred to another job before I arrived, so I missed training with the one I was replacing. I fell into my visa services job with no overlap as the war began.

After daytime duties in the visa section (overflowing with foreign nationals seeking visas to leave the country now coveted by Saddam Hussein), I worked in the control room in the evenings. This operation was a command center overseeing American wartime activities, including supervising high level U.S. officials coming to confer with Saudi Arabian officials on the war efforts.

I not only survived but treasured that first foreign assignment as a time of comradery with fellow Americans seeking to serve our country in a time of crisis.

I had joined the Foreign Service with the hope of living in other countries and enjoying an exciting and meaningful vocation. I was not disappointed.

Story and Place and Growth

Most fiction series follow the story of a main character—perhaps through major life changes and/or some type of inner growth. The changes may happen even while the character is solving crimes or experiencing world changing events.

Mark Pacer, main character of the series I’ve chosen to write, changes through relationships and solving problems thrust at him. The countries where his job takes him also exert influence.

Mark is a U.S. Foreign Service officer. Another name for that profession is diplomat, but Mark doesn’t like to be called that. It doesn’t sound like who he is, an Appalachian boy, the first of his poor but proud Southern family to attend college.

They clash sometime, his profession and his upbringing. He is forever a non-belonger.

Nevertheless, he learns from experiences in each place his career takes him: Washington, D.C. for his training, then the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Egypt (so far).

Through the various cultures and the challenges in each, he explores himself and his country, his family and his inner yearnings.

The world, he begins to understand, is a huge mixture of peoples and cultures. His own upbringing may stand the test of the challenges, but he will be changed, no doubt about it.

Indeed, none of us today lives in a single culture. To understand the times is to understand how the computer/internet age has forever made impossible an understanding based only on one’s country of citizenship.

U.S. Ambassador to Panama Announces Resignation, and Politics Becomes Personal for Me

The U.S. ambassador to Panama, John Feeley, announced his resignation. He says he no longer can serve under President Donald Trump.

In his announcement, Feeley said, “As a junior foreign service officer, I signed an oath to serve faithfully the president and his administration in an apolitical fashion, even when I might not agree with certain policies. My instructors made clear that if I believed I could not do that, I would be honor bound to resign. That time has come.”

Feeley swore his oath on July 20, 1990, along with forty-four other members of the 52nd junior officer orientation class, including me.

For nine weeks, we had studied together the rudiments of what a Foreign Service Officer does—from leading staff to dealing with foreign governments, from writing to speaking.

We had gone on retreats together and been advised by our seasoned Foreign Service elders. We had met after classes for happy hours and sometimes played ball on the grassy slope below the Washington Monument.

We knew as we took that oath that we would never again all be in the same place together. On flag day, we had received our assignments to our first posts.

Though some would receive more specialized training, we would soon scatter to South America and Asia and points in between. The typical officer spends two-thirds of his or her career in foreign assignments.

John Feeley, a former Marine Corps helicopter pilot, was more experienced than most of us. Married and a father, he was the kind of person you would want on your side in a crisis, somebody you would trust to lead. We were not surprised as Feeley advanced through the ranks, finally becoming a career ambassador.

Now all that expertise is lost.