CENTURY OF SERVICE
100 years of diplomats making America safer, stronger, and more prosperous
Since the creation of the modern U.S. Foreign Service in 1924, diplomats have been making America safer, stronger, and more prosperous through their work around the world. Whether it is assisting American citizens in distress, building alliances to counter aggression, or opening markets for exports from our farms and factories, diplomats have delivered for the American people.
Thanks to support from the Una Chapman Cox Foundation, ADST is collecting and sharing firsthand accounts of how diplomats from the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Foreign Commercial Service, and the Foreign Agricultural Service have advanced the interests of our country over the past 100 years.
Click on a theme to read these stories.
We are adding more stories every week.
An evacuee from Freetown, Sierra Leone, is processed after arriving onboard the USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), on May 30, 1997, during Operation Noble Obelisk. Over 900 people from 40 different countries have been evacuated. – Defense.gov News Photo 970530-N-5572D-004.jpg
- Tom Boyatt: Hijacking and Hostages in Syria
- Arlene Render: Evacuating Rwanda in the Midst of Genocide
- Edmond Hull: The Achille Lauro Hijacking (coming soon)
- Ann Wright: Evacuating Sierra Leone as Rebels Entered the Capital (coming soon)
- Francis Terry McNamara: Escaping by Boat from Can Tho, Vietnam (coming soon)
- Harrison Lewis: Rescuing Stephen Thuransky from a Hungarian prison
Aurelia “Rea” Brazeal promotes American products at a trade fair in the early 1980s during her tour as trade officer in the economic section of U.S. Embassy Tokyo. Courtesy of Rea Brazeal
- Donald Gregg: Securing an Aircraft Deal in South Korea
- Karen Zens: Helping American Businesses Navigate Post-Soviet Russia
- Gilbert Robinson: Soviet Trade Fairs and an Exclusive Deal for Pepsi (coming soon)
- Rea Brazeal: Restraining Japan’s Auto Exports to Save American Jobs (coming soon)
Brian Levin, Perky Jerky “Chairman of the Herd”, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy celebrate the return of U.S. beef products to Japan in 2015. Photo by Evan Mangino. See https://is.gd/wcVT22
- Evan Mangino: Bringing American Beef Jerky Back to Japan (coming soon)
- Allan Mustard: Keeping India’s Khapra Beetles out of U.S. Food Supplies
- Garth Thorburn: Marking Coffee Sacks in Colombia to Prevent Quota Cheating (coming soon)
- Mattie Sharpless: Creating Menus of American Products in Europe’s Finest Restaurants (coming soon)
NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly gathers in Washington, DC, in July 2024. Wikimedia | CC 2.0
- Niles Bond: Saving American Code Books from the Japanese Special Police
- Theodore Achilles: Bringing Portugal into the NATO Treaty (coming soon)
- Janet Bogue: Eliminating Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Secret
- Robert Lochner: Giving Kennedy the line “Ich Bin Ein Berliner”
- Yvonne Thayer: Selling the Ecuadorian AG on Drug Interdiction
- Max Bishop: Warning of the Pearl Harbor attack
Participants learn to decontaminate medical equipment at Central Regional Training in Cape Coast, Ghana. USAID / Ghana’s Systems for Health Project.
- Jim Bever: Stopping the Spread of Ebola
- Suzanne Butcher: Negotiating to Close the Hole in the Ozone Layer (coming soon)
Photos of the disappeared collected by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Giselle Bordoy, WMAR, Creative Commons]
- Niles Bond: Helping Jewish Refugees in Havana (coming soon)
- Mort Dworken: Monitoring Rules of Engagement in Vietnam and Laos (coming soon)
- Ken Quinn: Ending the Terror of the Khmer Rouge (coming soon)
- “Tex” Harris: Documenting the “Disappeared” of Argentina
- Frank Young: How Operation Sea Angel Saved Bangladesh (coming soon)
- Richard H. Davis – Issuing the Visa that would Save a Jewish Girl
Sacrifices in the Foreign Service
The women and men of the Foreign Service routinely risk their lives for the sake of American security and prosperity as they represent the United States of America. These examples drawn from the past six decades on the American Foreign Service Association’s Memorial Plaque illustrate selfless service by diplomats on behalf of the American people.
- Anne Smedinghoff grew up in Illinois and volunteered to serve as a public affairs officer in Afghanistan for her second Foreign Service posting, conducting outreach on such issues as education and women’s rights. On April 6, 2013, Smedinghoff was delivering books to a school in Qalat when she and four other Americans were killed in a suicide bombing. She was 25 years old. Ambassador Jonathan Addleton offers a firsthand account on ADST’s website.
- Born and raised in California, J. Christopher Stevens served in the Peace Corps before joining the Foreign Service. He was named U.S. Ambassador to Libya after helping to unite opposition factions into a democratic government following the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi. Stevens and three other Americans were killed on September 11, 2012, when militants attacked the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi. Stevens was 52. Learn more in testimony by Gregory Hicks, Deputy Chief of Mission in Tripoli, in ADST’s collection.
- Julian Bartley Sr. grew up in Queens, New York, and, after more than two decades in the Foreign Service, became the first Black man to serve as U.S. Consul General in Kenya. Bartley was killed on August 7, 1998, when Al Qaeda bombed the American Embassy in Nairobi. He was 55. His 20-year-old son, who was interning at the embassy in hopes of following his father into the Foreign Service, and 211 others were also killed in the blast. Learn more on ADST’s website in two accounts of the Nairobi bombing.
Submit your own Century of Service Story!
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Submit your story of serving America to ADST at [email protected]. Kindly limit your narratives to approximately 600 words. Please include the following text in your email submission to give us permission to use your story:
By submitting the story that is attached/included in this email to [email protected], I, _____(your name)______, hereby give the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (“ADST”) permission to publish and disseminate it publicly or privately to advance ADST’s educational and training objectives. I and my designees remain free to use this story. I understand and agree that this email constitutes a valid electronic signature.