U.S. Diplomats Complain As They Face Draft.

In a show of solidarity, members of the Foreign Service, more commonly known as the U.S. Diplomatic Corps, took their grievances to an open meeting convened by the U.S. State Department. The diplomats and their union are up in arms about the report that not enough representatives were dumb enough to volunteer for duty in Iraq and thus 48 of them will be drafted to go serve a year’s sentence, I mean tour of duty, in that country.

The diplomats, who are not happy with being forced to go to a war zone, confronted Foreign Service Director General Harry Thomas with their complaints and I find no fault with any of their fears. I just don’t see how they can complain is all.

The diplomats’ state they should not be forced to serve in Iraq’s green zone as the area is still filled with danger. That isn’t what their president says. The diplomats complain that they should not be forced to serve in a country that is too dangerous yet no one has ever given the option of skipping a tour in the country to National Guard units or their members.

National Guard men and women are being deployed in the red zones in Iraq. So if the green zones aren’t safe, what can one expect from a tour in a zone even this administration considers dangerous. I don’t recall a state department hearing to listen to their grievances, have you?

Looking at the U.S. Foreign Service website, it is obvious that anyone who decided to join the diplomatic core should have expectations of tough assignments. The job description category readily explains that 90% of a Foreign Service employee’s obligations will be overseas. It does not promise that all tours will be in Aruba, or Puerto Rico or Sweden during ski season. The most important information in the website is that this is a job, a vocation and as such they can quit any time they want just like any other employee of the government…well, except National Guard members of course.

I cringed when I heard the laments during the meeting from returning diplomatic mission employees who had been refused medical treatment for distress and emotional problems while stationed in Iraq. Perhaps they haven’t caught the U.S. news in recent months. Perhaps they didn’t read about our fighting men and women, coming home physically damaged, needing great repair and not getting the medical rehabilitation they need. If a soldier with arms or legs lost, or brain trauma, suffers indignation, red tape and failures to receive the proper rehabilitation, how can the diplomats expect to receive treatment for the mental repercussions if a bomb might have gone off only a few blocks away from where they were stationed?

I’m sorry I can understand all the concerns these men and women have right now but since they have been given the option of walking away whenever they want, I will not spend a moment empathizing for them. Not when so many of our citizen/soldiers are facing their second or third tours of duty in Iraq.

The men and women in our armed services are the best among us. They go and fight and spill their blood and die for us without demanding the right to question the politics or the correctness or the propriety of their nation’s decisions. They don’t ask for special considerations save the equipment needed to fulfill their missions. They don’t have a union and they don’t demand a hearing with their bosses to address their grievances.

The members of the diplomatic core have a choice. They can either serve the administration they have signed up to represent or they can quit and join the American middle class. They can walk away from their well paid jobs with free room and board and expense accounts and get a job in a factory or a Wal-Mart perhaps. They can even decide to take a second, part time job to help make ends meet. I hear the National Guard needs soldiers.