re: "State Dept Throws Sink + All Fixtures But One to Fire FSO-Non Grata, Peter Van Buren"

Domani Spero at Diplopundit ("an obsessive compulsive observer, diplomatic watcher, and opinionator") had a good summary of Peter Van Buren's situation (as of March 19th).

Money quote(s):

"Perhaps it is comforting to some to hear that the State Department will finally get to penalize Mr. Van Buren for linking to two non-secret cables on WikiLeaks. But we gotta ask -- whatever happened to the 2010 Diplomatic Security investigation on the leak of two secret 2009 Eikenberry cables to the NYT in 2010?

Or for that matter, is anyone investigating the leak of Ambassador Crocker's top-secret cable to Washington in January this year, warning that the persistence of enemy havens in Pakistan was placing the success of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan in jeopardy.

Somebody really should check out the status of these investigations and see if anyone has been prosecuted yet. The public may get the wrong impression that linking to non-secret cables in a blog is more dangerous than the actual leaks of secret and top secret materials to the newspaper of record."

There're leaks, and then there are leaks. Different spanks for different ranks. Sometimes a leak is unofficially official, or perhaps just when it's to the New York Times, well, that's just okay then.

"The comment that we often hear is that, he should have done the honorable thing and resigned from his job before writing this book or before skewering his employer in his blog.

And we understand that sentiment; for the bureaucracy to “function,” it must have order. For order to exist, employees must follow the line and not be going off every which way. If employees disagree with a policy, there is what they call the “Dissent Channel,” to register one’s disagreement with official policy. As an aside, AFSA even gives out awards for what it calls “constructive dissent.” We have it in good authority, by the way, that Mr. Van Buren has been nominated by more than one person for AFSA’s William R. Rivkin Award for midlevel officials. Let’s see if AFSA can find an excuse not to give out the award this year.

In any case, it is worth noting that the State Department is not obligated to share the dissent received with the American public, nor is it obligated to report what action it takes in response to such a dissent. If that fails, resignation from one’s job has been the accepted course of action, a norm drilled into the heads of our State Department folks."

Diplopundit has an entire post, dedicated to how the AFSA creative dissent awards turned out this year.

"While we understand what appears to be a prevailing collective desire that the employee who disagrees with policy leave in polite terms, we are wondering if the time has come to rethink that. Getting off the bus quietly is encouraged in that culture, and presumably from the perspective of the organization that’s the best course of action. It avoids controversy and the parties can pretend the separation is like a marriage that no longer works, etc — but is this necessarily good for the paying public? Should the employees ought to just be thankful they have a job and keep quiet? And for those who can’t keep quiet for whatever reason, must they give up their livelihood for pointing out the stinky elephant in the room?"

All good questions and ones going to the heart of the Foreign Service corporate culture.

"Instead of taking this case seriously as a good excuse to look inward and review the policy of reconstruction in war zones, and absent a change of direction, develop more effective metrics and accountability for these projects, the State Department took its fight to the messenger. And wasted time and resources there."

CAA hasn't read Brother Van Buren's book. CAA may never read his book. Not that it's an unworthy book, but.... while CAA's heart may feel that the work of PRTs and E-PRTs was/is good, worthy, and well-intended, CAA's mind has told him from the beginning of GW2 (Gulf War II) that the U.S. was never going to stay long enough, in either Iraq or Afghanistan, for nation-building (as such) to do much good in the long run.

So the money (and the lives) spent were going to go towards buying only temporary successes.

Now, there's a school of thought that posits things like good and evil, success and failure, if they're going to be measures or used as any sort of metric, must be matrixed against time or duration for them to have any sort of useful meaning.

So some temporary success, some lives improved (if only for a few years) are not things to be scoffed-at or disregarded; but they're going to be analyzed against dollars and cents they must include their duration as well.

"The State Department spends much money and effort to recruit and train the “best and the brightest” to represent America overseas, then proceeds to hammer and shape them into, I’m sorry to say, drones, who follow directions, not create waves and most importantly, whose stingers are without barbs."

CAA exists. Ponder that.

Diplopundit closes with a thoughtful question:

"I’m sure the State Department can argue that “enforcing” the rules, however selectively, is done to promote the proper functioning of the Service. But should the proper functioning of the Service trumps everything else? Whether you agree with Mr. Van Buren’s message or not, his method of delivery or not, his case has created a precedent. Throwing the sink and all fixtures at him would help ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. I suspect that would be good for the State Department. Order restored. Life goes on.

But are we, the American public better served?"

3/19

Leave Donations Requested

As noted by Steve at Dead Men Walking, AFSA's (and our) own Daniel Hirsch put the arm out to the American diploblogosphere to rally the (figurative) troops around one-of-our-own who needs-our-help.

The ever-knowledgable Domani Spero at Diplopundit shared a video and a link to the story at the new-to-the-diploblogosphere (but already in the Washington Post) Jennifer Santiago.

(And a tip-o'-the-blog-hat to Ms. Santiago for making lemonade out of lemons on behalf of your classmate.)

See also Cupcake Diplomacy, one of my must-read FS family web logs. As she put it:

"I have a friend at work named Hannah. She is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met and pretty much from day one I admired her ability to charm and disarm an entire room full of people without saying a word. She has an utterly infectious laugh, she is brilliant, and she is driven. She is also suffering from what is called a thymoma, a rare type
of tumor in her chest. In her case the tumor is rather large, which is
especially bad since she’s a pretty small person.

After 6 grueling weeks of chemotherapy, Hannah found out last week that the tumor did not respond to the chemo…it actually got bigger. In spite of the bad news from her doctor, she is still smiling, perky, and motivated to kick this thing to the curb.

Here’s where (some) of you folks come in. I know that a pretty large number of you are federal employees and luckily for Hannah, the federal government has a government-wide leave donation program. Today, I’m asking you all to please consider donating some leave to Hannah so she can get the surgery and treatment she needs without losing
pay. I know the summer holidays are coming up and many of you have plans for your leave, but I’m going to climb up on my soap box for a minute and appeal to your good conscience, your kindness, and your compassion. Please help my friend."

Her A-100 class, the 162nd, is digging deep into its Annual Leave pockets but, being junior officers, those pockets are pretty shallow so far.

Here's how to donate leave (swiped, without apologies, from Diplopundit):

State Department Employees:

Email, fax, or mail form DS-1862 (found via intranet) to the address found in the leave donation request announcement found here. [Note: you must be able to access DoS intranet for this link to work]

Employees of other federal agencies:

Fill out form OPM 630b and then have someone from your agency’s HR sign and date the bottom part of the form. You’ll need the name of the State Department contact in HR as well as some info about Hannah, but I’d rather not have that just floating around the internet so please email me at cupcakediplomacy AT gmail DOT com and I will get you the necessary info ASAP.

re: "Telling Our Stories "

Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") notes a recent Washington Post article you should read.

Money quote(s):

"This piece is exactly the kind of story the State Department and AFSA need to be getting out.

Our biggest problem, the reason we keep being the whipping boy for the budget cutters, is that we are no ones constituent. We are small and not well understood, so that makes us an easy target.

These kinds of stories help the American public get a better idea of the challenges we face."

We're small, elite (and perceived as elitist, which is even worse), deployed in dribs and drabs all over the world so we're out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind, not concentrated in any one congressional district, and we don't have big bases all around the country where we're stationed when we're not abroad.

When we're "home," 99% of the time that means we're in D.C., where we (deliberately) blend in with all the other government employees, riding the Metro to work and clogging the line at Starbucks.

"We have an awesome, exciting job that we are priviledged to get to do. We also have a frightening, challenging job that demands great personal sacrifice.

America needs to know."

It is an awesome job, often exciting and frequently meaningful.

I wouldn't trade it, and the chances its given me to "make a difference" for all the world, but.... it's still not fair to single us out for a 24% pay cut when we have the affrontery to actually deploy overseas to do our jobs.

Who else in government and military service does that?

re: "My Letter to Congress Regarding Overseas Comparability Pay"

Four Globetrotters ("The (most likely) incoherent ramblings of a sleep-deprived single mother living overseas with her trio of kiddos.") has written to her congressional representative.

Money quote(s):

"I used a template provided by AFSA here, via Life After Jerusalem and modified it to make it more personal. I urge all of you to take the time and write in. It's long, I know, but I hope that some staffer will take the time to read it. This isn't ill-will on the part of our leaders in Congress. I honestly believe there's no desire to "stick it to the Foreign Service." This is ignorance. This is a product of our own modesty, as Donna at E-Mails From The Embassy stated so eloquently. DOD and other government agencies don't hesitate to toot their own horns and share their life stories. It's time we do the same."

It's a truism within the U.S. Foreign Service that the Department of State is perhaps the only federal department in the executive branch without a domestic constituency. That is, aside from the domestic passport production centers, there aren't any huge contracts being let which employ registered voters back in any congressmen's home districts. Since there are only about 11,000 of us, FS generalists and specialists together, and our home towns (and voter registrations) are scattered across all 50 states, we don't pack much of an electoral punch.

At the working level, at my last post whenever I had a happy and appreciative American citizen bubbling over at the prompt, courteous, and thorough assistance or service he or she had received from our Consular Section, I'd give them a little speech.

I'd tell them that when people didn't like how they were treated or when they didn't get what they wanted (generally because what they wanted was, shall we say, extra-legal; remind me to tell you about my death-threats sometime), they'd often threaten to write their congressman. To which I'd always say it's the right and privilege of every American to write or call their congressional representative and encourage them to do so.

So when I got a happy or satisfied "customer," I'd politely suggest that if they were serious and really liked how they were treated, to think about maybe telling their congressman, because otherwise their congressman won't ever know about his constituents' experience with us and whether their tax dollars were being spent productively out in the far beyond of Country X.

And I'd make sure they had the correct spelling of whomever's name who'd helped them.

"I understand why we will not be receiving cost of living adjustments over the next two fiscal years. However, I am concerned by current legislative proposals that call for reversing a carefully considered bi-partisan plan to modernize the pay system of the Foreign Service that is in the process of being implemented. I have to assume that it is because our mission and our sacrifices are not sufficiently known to Americans, and even to our own representatives in Congress."

"I spent my first Christmas in the Foreign Service at the morgue identifying the body of an American citizen who had been killed in a home invasion. I spent another Christmas in the putrid morgues of a small sub-Saharan African country searching frantically for the wife and two children (ages 4 and 7) of an American citizen who had been aboard an aircraft that crashed upon take off. I loaded my children onto a plane bound for Sierra Leone --where my parents were stationed -- when the situation in Togo, my second post, devolved rapidly after the death of President Eyadema. We may actually be the only people ever to evacuate family to Sierra Leone.

When a member of Congress and her staff were abandoned during this unrest at a downtown hotel by their Government of Togo hosts, I was the only American besides my then-husband, the Regional Security Officer, who could drive an armored vehicle. The Ambassador dispatched me, and I drove through barricades and crowds to reach her and her staff and transport them safely to the Embassy. My husband couldn't go because he was off responding to a distress call from one of our Embassy families. Their house was being invaded.

The mother and two children were holed up in the safehaven while a frenzied group of thugs destroyed their home and personal belongings and worked to break into the safehaven where they were hiding. All of us at the Embassy listened as the frantic calls for help came in over the radio, the children crying in the background. My colleague wept as he heard his wife and children, helpless. My husband knew he had to try and help, even though it would come at great personal danger. He arrived at the house, unarmed due to a policy that did not permit him to carry his service weapon, and engaged at least two dozen thugs. Relying on his training as a former marine, he quickly disarmed one person and used that weapon to disperse the remaining looters. There is no doubt in my mind that had it not been for his intervention, the wife would have been raped or worse, and there is no telling what would have happened to the two children. I waited, bordering on hysteria, by the radio to hear that my husband was okay and that our three children would not be left without a father. He rightfully received the State Department's Heroism Award for his actions on that day.

I, like countless of my colleagues, have defended the United States and had close encounters with those who wanted to do us harm. I remember vividly the day I, a second-tour junior officer, gazed across the bullet proof consular window at a young Nigerian man who simply wanted to go the United States to "visit". I determined he did not meet the standards to qualify for a visa to the United States, and denied him. His name was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a.k.a the underwear bomber." (Typeface bolded by CAA.)

Every FSO has stories like this. Every single one. Four Globetrotter's are a little scarier than some because of her African postings as well as her evacuation from Tunisia, but they're pretty much of a piece with the rest of ours.

As I mentioned recently, this past month marked the year anniversary of a plane crash case I worked as a consular officer, where several American citizens were fatalities. One thing I didn't mention was that the pilot, also killed, was the father of a personal friend of mine. That was not the first time I visited that particular Third World morgue nor was it the last. As unfailingly kind and courteous as the morgue staff always was, I was never happy to be there. But I'd go again in a heartbeat if that's where my duty took me, and expect that it will, at some other post.

"At the height of the revolution, the streets were packed with rioters, soldiers and tanks. Every night for a week my children cowered in a corner listening to the shooting going on around us. There is no 911 over here. If people had chosen to attack our home we -- a single mom with three children -- would have been helpless. Our own armored security vehicles were unable to respond to distress calls. When I was finally able to drive to the Embassy for our evacuation flight, I was stopped at a military check point and had a rifle pointed at my head by an overly eager young soldier.

The Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990 was adopted as a way to reduce the government-wide disparity between the public and private sectors and is a basic component of salary for all civilian Federal employees, based on annual survey data collected by the Department of Labor. As a result of this law, every federal government employee working in the United States received “locality pay” as part of their salary. Until 2009, the only United States government civilian employees who did not receive this part of their salary were entry-level and mid-level Foreign Service personnel serving their country overseas. All others, including senior level State Department officers, and other agencies represented overseas, such as CIA officers under State Department cover, DOJ and DHS, have locality pay factored into their base salary.

Locality pay for Foreign Service personnel and other federal employees serving in Washington, D.C. is now approximately 25%. Under the law prior to 2009, Foreign Service personnel serving abroad sacrificed this part of their salaries and took large pay cuts to their base salaries. Those posted in Washington earned more money than colleagues posted in Pakistan, Yemen, and Beirut to name a few. As a result, because retirement packages are based upon base pay (including “locality pay”), Foreign Service officers representing their country abroad received smaller retirement packages than their colleagues who stayed in Washington. This was not sustainable and in 2009 a bi-partisan solution was found to correct this policy problem. Closing the pay gap is not a pay raise -- it is a correction of a 17- year-old unintended inequity in the worldwide Foreign Service pay schedule—an inequity that grew every year."

The business model that makes it financially ruinous for a diplomat to take overseas assignments pretty much screams out for correction, don't you think?

"Our oath is pretty similar to another oath I know you are familiar with:

"I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

Assignments overseas are increasingly challenging, difficult and in many instances, dangerous. There has been strong bipartisan recognition that it is time to invest in diplomacy and development. Penalizing Foreign Service employees -- specifically those of us at the junior and mid-level -- whose mission is to serve overseas to advance and protect our national interests by cutting our base pay undervalues the importance of our work, widens the gap between those of us serving in the United States and those of us facing hardships and sacrifices overseas and creates real disincentives to serving on the front lines of American diplomacy and development."

No whining, but to put it another way, why would you want to pay "inside-the-beltway" bureaucrats more than your diplomats taking tough posting abroad? Do you perhaps sense there's an insufficiency of inside-the-beltway bureaucrats in Washington?

(Which is not exactly how I see the political winds blowing this year.)

re: "Obama the Politics of Ambassadorial Appointments"

Charlie J. Brown at Undiplomatic ("dedicated to covering the intersection of foreign policy, global issues, U.S. politics, and pop culture") made a reasonable defense of the administration's ambassadorial appointments thus far.

Money quote(s):

"(S)ome of those appointed by the Obama Administration are foreign policy experts who have a long history of working on the countries and/or issues in question."

&

"The foreign service does an outstanding (and largely unheralded) job of representing U.S. interests overseas. Its members deserve not merely our respect but our admiration. That’s why the list of Obama ambassadorial picks includes a number of distinguished members of the foreign service.

The reality here is that AFSA, which represents the interests of the foreign service, is worried that the foreign service is not getting its traditional share of the pie. They said the same things eight years ago when Bush came to office and sixteen years ago when Clinton got elected. It’s a time-honored Washington ritual."

CBS - Foreign Service Group Opposes Rooney Pick

From my archive of press clippings:

CBS

Foreign Service Group Opposes Rooney Pick


Posted by Mark Knoller 1


March 17, 2009 1:48 PM

(AP)In light of today's announcement by President Obama that he's naming Steelers owner Dan Rooney to be US Ambassador to Ireland, I queried John Naland, President of the American Foreign Service Association about the practice.

AFSA is the professional association of the US Foreign Service and has 14,000 dues paying members.

Read the whole article here.

_____

(CBS) Mark Knoller is a CBS News White House correspondent. You can read more of his posts in Hotsheet here.

re: "Improving the PRT-Military Professional Relationship"

"A U.S. Army member of an Iraq Provincial Reconstruction
Team offers practical advice to Foreign Service colleagues."

CPT Sean P. Walsh has written an article in this month's Foreign Service Journal ("published monthly by the American Foreign Service Association") that you should take the time to read. He offers quite a few tips on how to operate successfully in a military-heavy environment.

Money quote(s):


"I can clearly see that the culture clash between members of the armed forces and State Department employees has a definite impact on the quality of work done by both organizations."

When we let that interfere with the mission, the mission suffers. As professionals (on both sides of the clash), we can't allow that to happen.

"First, let me say that I have the utmost respect for the Department of State, in general, and Foreign Service officrs in particular."

Very diplomatically said.

"I also know how hard it is to become an FSO. I once took a Foreign Service Written Exam practice test and did not do well (knowledge about American choreographers is apparently a prerequisite for success on the exam)."

And humor. As jabs go, this one is pretty painless, especially as it's grounded in truth, if an outdated one. I hope.

Having read CPT Walsh's article, I rather wished he hadn't been discouraged by the FSWE practice test. He could well have made, could still make, a fine FSO. Perhaps someone will take the time to encourage him to try the FSOT sometime.

"I won't try to downplay the fact that some military personnel view civilians as "weenies," as Shawn Dorman reported in her March 2007 Foreign Service Journal article ("Iraq PRTs: Pins on a Map")."

In military terms, most civilians ARE, in fact, "weenies." But thanks to the efforts of some of our PRT folks, that perception is hopefully weakening in certain quarters when it comes to FSOs.

"Foreign Service officers need to take the time to read up on military terms and acronyms before coming to Iraq or Afghanistan. The military's constant use of jargon makes it almost a language unto itself, and the fact that each unit seems to have its own slang and unofficial acronyms only complicates the situation."

Having myself crossed (more than once) across the State-military linguistic divide, I can't agree with this last point emphatically enough. Don't be afraid to ask what something means, the first time you hear an unfamiliar term. There is a surprising amount of acronym overlap (terms like "TDY" and such common throughout the federal government), but much of it will seem like so much noise UNLESS you ASK.

I've seen the same incomprehension going the other way as well, when military attachés attend Country Team meetings. We have to learn to not talk past each other.

"(J)ust as a physicist might not be able to follow everything a zoologist writes about, Foreign Service personnel are not trained to use the professional terms of the military (nor the other way around)."

We're supposed to be quick learners. Nowadays the Department takes considerable pains to ensure that FSOs have the proper foreign language training before taking an overseas assignment. Perhaps something could be done with regards to proper military language training. Raising the issue in the FSJ is a good first step in any case.

&

"I have seen firsthand the success that our two organizations can achieve together when our relationship and areas of responsibility are clearly defined, and hope that success will continue in the future."

I'm delighted that FSJ printed this article and hope it finds widespread readership within the Department. Kudos to CPT Walsh.

_____

Captain Sean P. Walsh deployed to Iraq from August 2007 to October 2008 as an infantry officer with the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment. After serving as a rifle platoon leader in the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad, Capt. Walsh was assigned as his battalion's civil-military plans officer and worked extensively with matters related to economic development, reconstruction and capacity-building in both Baghdad and Baqubah and supervised a Commander's Emergency Response Program budget of over $15 million. A 2005 graduate of the United States Military Academy, he is now a student at the Maneuver Captains' Career Course in Fort Knox, Ky., and is also a master's degree candidate at Virginia Tech.

NYT - Hiring Window Is Open at the Foreign Service

This article got a lot of attention recently.

From my archive of press clippings.

New York Times

Hiring Window Is Open at the Foreign Service

By EILENE ZIMMERMAN

Published: December 20, 2008

A RARE bright spot has appeared in a job landscape dominated by layoffs: the Foreign Service.

For the last several years, hiring in the United States Foreign Service was minimal because of a lack of Congressional funding. In addition, war has created an urgent need for diplomatic personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as officers have moved to these countries their previous jobs have remained unfilled.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"So, in the last several months — with a new president on the horizon and new funding from Congress — both the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development, or Usaid, are ramping back up.

A supplemental war funding bill, which became law in June, has provided money for Foreign Service hiring. And President-elect Barack Obama “has talked explicitly about the need to increase the Foreign Service and we hope he will make that a priority,” said John Naland, president of the American Foreign Service Association, the professional association and labor union representing career diplomats.

The State Department has asked for funding for 1,500 new positions for the current fiscal year. Of these, roughly 800 are Foreign Service and 700 civil service, said Luis Arreaga, director of recruitment, examination and employment at the department. Many of those positions are being filled because of attrition but about 160 are new. "We consider that a down payment,” said Mr. Arreaga."

It's definitely a good start. More than ten-percent of vacant positions, the one's determined to be least-critical (which is not the same a non-essential) aren't even being put on bid-lists because they know there simply aren't enough officers to fill them. It's human resources triage.

"Not everyone is cut out for Foreign Service work, which can be stressful and highly demanding. About two-thirds of a diplomat’s career is spent overseas; officers usually move every two to four years and can be exposed to dangers like disease and war. The State Department offers a suitability quiz for prospective applicants on its Web site."

It really isn't just a job, it's an adventure.

"Applying for a job with the State Department involves written and oral examinations. Those who pass the oral exam become conditional officers and receive a ranking score based on oral-exam performance and language skills. The higher the rank, the sooner they will be assigned.

Of the 12,000 to 15,000 people who register annually for the written exam, about 450 officers are hired, said Frank J. Coulter, management officer with the Foreign Service and a member of the State Department’s board of examiners."

There are several "hoops" or "hurdles" to be negotiated in the candidacy process: the "written" exam (which is now computer-based and not really written anymore); a "QEP" in which the qualifications of each individual who passes the "written" exam are reviewed; and an oral assessment, which combines several exercises involving hypothetical questions, role-playing, as well as a group exercises. The small percentage of candidates who make it that far undergo security background investigations, medical exams, and other administrative drills before being placed on "The Register."

"New Foreign Service officers at the State Department choose one of five career tracks: consular affairs, economic affairs, management affairs, political affairs or public diplomacy. No matter the track, all entry-level officers spend their first several years working in a consulate, interviewing applicants for United States visas and working with American citizens who need their help.

The State Department also hires Foreign Service specialists, who provide technical, security and administrative support overseas or in Washington. Specialists must pass an oral assessment but not a written exam, and start in a specialty like medicine, information technology or law enforcement, Mr. Coulter said. All newly hired officers and specialists are trained at the Foreign Service Institute in Washington.

Each of the first two postings overseas last two years; after that, it is generally a three-year posting in each country. One-year hardship postings — in a region too dangerous to allow an officer’s spouse and children to accompany him or her — are required at least twice in the course of a career. After two assignments, Foreign Service personnel can bid on postings — requesting particular countries or Washington — but everyone is expected to serve in a variety of assignments, Mr. Arreaga said."


"Usaid’s entry-level Foreign Service officers must have a master’s degree in an appropriate technical area, like economics, agriculture, public health or education. The average Usaid entry-level officer has four years of relevant experience; many come from the Peace Corps, but others have worked for nongovernmental organizations, in private industry or the military."

"THE base salary for entry-level Foreign Service officers ranges from about $40,000 to $72,000 annually, but compensation can increase depending on the danger level of the posting and on a region’s cost of living.

For Foreign Service specialists, the salary range is anywhere from about $26,500 to more than $100,000; for civil service employees at Usaid, the salary ranges from $16,500 to over $100,000. Overseas benefits include housing and private school for dependent children.

Many of those choosing Foreign Service work do so out of a dedication to public service and see it as not just a career, but also a way of life."

Old school types like me see becoming a diplomat as a profession which is also a vocation, like professional military officers or clergy. There's more to this than just what meetings you go to, what passes through your in-box, or how you spend your days between 8 and 5.

There's also that little matter of how U.S. foreign service officers are actually penalized financially when they take a foreign assignment, which boggles my business administration-educated mind.

&

"Correction: December 28, 2008 An article last Sunday about renewed hiring in the Foreign Service referred incompletely to one of five career tracks that new Foreign Service officers at the State Department can choose. It is public diplomacy — which involves working with the media and foreign audiences to promote understanding — not diplomacy."

If that's the only error in the original article, this piece stands as one of the most factually-correct and balls-on accurate articles I have ever seen to come out of the New York Times. Well done!