Differences Between Danger and Hardship posts

DiploLife has a good piece on understanding the difference between danger, hardship, etc. kinds of posts.

Hardship Posts

Diplopundit had a good piece yesterday on a piece I saw in FS Voice (see page 9) in the Foreign Service Journal the other day called "Thanks for Your Service...Now, Here's Your Pay Cut," about a family who got their hardship pay reduced in Beijing, because, among other things, their air quality had improved (!). This of course was after the FS spouse had lost the hearing in one ear because of a "mystery virus" that the medical care system there couldn't diagnose and treat properly and after her husband had developed respiratory problems.

[...] before FS critics jump up and down on this, and accuse FS folks of “whining,” again, I’d like to highlight a couple of significant health consequences of this specific hardship assignment for the Gormans:

“In October, my previously healthy husband developed severe breathing troubles. A lifelong runner, he began wheezing as he climbed the stairs; at night, it sounded like he was drowning in his sleep. He was initially diagnosed with reactive airway disease and then a severe sinus infection. After an inhaler, steroid and some four to five courses of antibiotics, his condition improved. But only after a trip to Hong Kong, where the air is cleaner, did his symptoms subside.

“[…] I caught a mysterious virus that caused me to go deaf in one ear. The doctors in Beijing weren’t equipped to handle the emergency, so I was medevaced to Hong Kong. There, doctors tried to restore my hearing, though warned that the odds were against me, given how much time had elapsed. Back home in the States, or at a post that was more medically advanced, I would have been able to get treatment at the ER within hours, improving my odds. Here, not so. I’m now permanently deaf in one ear. Then again, as a colleague pointed out, “I suppose that’s one of the reasons you get hardship pay over there.”

We pick hardship assignments (at least, I think most of us do) not to toughen our kids or to test if our spouses and partners love us enough to put up with the highs and lows of life overseas. We pick hardship assignments fully expecting, well, hardships, and the additional compensation of 5-35 percent over basic compensation to make up for those hardships. Why? Because like you and your neighbors, we are regular people with mortgage and bills to pay, kids to send to college, and retirements to plan for life after the Service. Perhaps the independently wealthy would not be too concerned with things like these, but there are not a whole lot of them in this Foreign Service.

We knock on wood, and we keep fingers crossed because we realized that picking a hardship assignment is always a roll of a dice. Dr. John Kellogg says that “health is wealth is a trite maxim, the truth of which everyone (only) appreciates best after having suffered a disease.” After contracting various illnesses and collecting worldwide available parasites, I think we all certainly learn to appreciate the "health is wealth" maxim but we also often bet that we’d come out at least even, with all our loved ones’ appendages and parts still working, as we survive another hardship assignment. Would anyone of us willingly go to a place if we know that we’re going to get permanent deafness in exchange for it? How much does an ear cost, that is, if you still have it but it's no longer functional? I don't think there is a "numerical weight" for this, most especially for the unemployed trailing partner.

You can read Diplopundit's entire piece here

Catching Up

Diplopundit rightly pointed out to me today that I had been silent for a few days. Blame the arrival of my new toy, my much anticipated laptop (I zapped the motherboard in my old one in December, and between waiting too months on the repair that ended up being impossible, the replacement that came with a bad motherboard, waiting to find that it could also not be fixed, and finally ordering and receiving my new one...I have been waiting 4 months. So I naturally wanted to load it up immediately).

So I am trying to do a bit of catching up, and Diplopundit has several pieces I want to call your attention to. This One, on State Magazine's "Post of the Month" series, is particularly interesting. I like the idea of a "Post Crisis of the Month" page. We all know the realities of our life, and that we don't live the cushy existence most outsiders think we do. And most of us think "Post of the Month" is a joke (we all laughed at one particular one, where the pictures were all from other places and the author's biggest selling point was how many places nearby were good to travel to). I think a "Post Crisis of the Month" would call attention to the hard work and risks people take to serve. Diplopundit, if you start the internet petition, I am in.

In the meantime, here is some of her post. You can read the entire post here.

Wanted: Post Crisis of the Month Page

The May issue of State Magazine contains an account of a two-day siege in February that Chad (N’Djamena) endured as rebels battled government forces in an attempt to topple President Idriss Deby Itno. In February 2, U.S. Embassy family members and non-essential personnel were evacuated by the military but the ambassador and essential embassy staff remained. ... You can read the entire piece here.

[...]

The "Post of the Month" has tarried beyond its welcome, to put it nicely. To continue to give it such prominence in this day and age is incongruent with the realities of our times. Consider the following facts: 1) unaccompanied posts have more than quadrupled in recent years, 2) it's only April and we already have xx number of posts evacuated. If you think something as harmless as the "Post of the Month" is trivial, you can think again after reading this piece from the Weekly Standard, whose author accused FS people of Living in a Dream World. I'm not advocating this change to make the writer happy and have him become the FS's BFF, mind you, but I do think that the change is necessary to reflect the current realities within the Service and in the world where we are living. If State starts soliciting contribution to the "Post Crisis of the Month" page, I can't imagine it running out of material anytime soon.

I went and took a look at that article, and it convinced me even more that Diplopundit it right. Here is a sample:

Here's a classic from the June 2004 State: The economic-commercial officer at the U.S. embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka, writes that "What's been billed as 'the best place in South Asia to live' is also the site of a brutal 20‑year war that's left approximately 64,000 dead." Still, "if Sri Lanka could settle its conflict peacefully, it could be a model for the region and the world."

Indeed. And if North Korea gave its people freedom and embraced democracy, it could be as successful as South Korea.

Certain diplomats evince a strange nostalgia: "Armenia was once considered the Silicon Valley of the Soviet Union, providing advanced avionics for Soviet aircraft and supercomputers," the public affairs officer in Yerevan explained in February 2005. Ah yes, things were great for the Armenians under Soviet rule. Housing for diplomats under communism? Less great.

Take Mongolia: "Until 2002, embassy staffers lived mainly in a Communist-era apartment block near the chancery affectionately known as 'Faulty Towers.' Today, almost all staff members live in Czech-designed townhouses or apartments in a modern, gated housing compound 15 minutes from the embassy," the political and public affairs officer wrote in a June 2007 feature. Diplomats there, we learn, can even enjoy pizza delivery.

[...]

Not all in State is fluff, though. The bearers of the American standard are vigilant for democratic progress. Like the crucified in Monty Python's Life of Brian, they are in a quest requiring that they always look on the bright side of life: In a February 2007 feature on Cambodia, the family member of a diplomat noted that "Cambodia is enjoying a measure of peace and stability it has not seen in more than a generation"--a low hurdle, if ever there was one. Yes, Cambodia is in the bottom tier of Freedom House rankings, but "criminal charges were dropped against some political opponents."

You can read Michael Rubin's entire piece here. And I ask you consider what this sort of perception means for us in a time when we are strapped for funding and personnel and when Americans accuse us of whining and being unpatriotic for publically protesting assignments to Iraq. I think it is high time we show Americans, even in our own in-house publication, what life is really like for us and that we are not nearly as out of touch as they think. And to let Americans continue to think so is only to our detriment.