BEN, FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER, CONSULAR CAREER TRACK: Hi, I'm Ben and I'm a Consular Officer.
So, I work in the Office of Children's Issues in Overseas Citizen Services.
And, so what we do, is we work with parents
who've had their children abducted and we work to try to get their
children back from overseas when they've been taken
by the other parent back to another country
that that other parent might be from.
And, so we work with them to try and explain the remedies,
the different resources that might be available to them.
We work with the foreign government to try to find
where the child is and to use, in some cases,
we use a treaty arrangement to get the children back
and, then, in other cases, we work with our embassies
to try and find the children and get them back
to the United States, so the families can be reunited.
It's very hard, but at the end of the day
we're helping American citizens get their families back together
and to return those children back home
so that the procedures, the processes can be properly followed.
As more and more Americans travel overseas,
there's a full range of issues that we deal with
and, in my time as a Consular Officer, I've done everything from
document a new American citizen that was born to parents who were traveling abroad
to help families who had a loved one die while taking a vacation overseas.
I grew up in western North Carolina, just where the mountains start,
and I went to the University of North Carolina as a Morehead-Cain Scholar.
When I was there, I started studying journalism
and I thought that I wanted to be an international journalist,
but, as these things often times happen, I ran into a friend and said,
"Gosh, you should take the Foreign Service Exam,"
and, the next thing you know, I'm standing in Mexico
in a visa section, getting to meet hundreds
of new Mexican citizens every day as they get ready
to travel to the United States.
Now, I can't imagine any other life.
It's given just a tremendous amount of opportunities to my family and to me
to go and explore and be part of a global community
at the same time that we're serving our country.
I actually worked for an internet start-up company and it was a city guide.
I have to say, in those days, it was quite a shock to leave
an internet start-up and come to work for the State Department.
It was quite a change in mentality and, sort of, in formality.
But, because, you know, the thing about the internet
is it's all about connections and about connecting with people,
and what I love about consular work is the opportunity to meet new
and different people really every single day.
And, each visa interview, I try to think of it
as a chance to, in two minutes,
practice my trade of journalism where I have to try to learn
about that person's life so that I can make a decision
to let legitimate travelers come to the United States
but also to keep out people who may not mean well for the United States.
And so, I've had the opportunity to let grandmothers receive a visa
so that they can come and visit their newborn grandbaby
but at the same time, I've stopped drug traffickers and violent criminals
from coming to the United States through the visa interview process.
And then, on the other side, I get to meet American citizens
who've traveled all around the world and, many times, it's just,
they need a new passport but other times, they find themselves,
through no fault of their own, facing a real difficult situation
and I'm able to use the connections that I've made with
the government in that country, to help them find the right hospital
or the right lawyer or to explain the legal system to them
so that they can get back home to the United States.
So, on the 4th of July, in, I guess it would have been 2006,
we were in Nogales, Mexico,
which is just across the border from the United States,
but we did a 4th of July, we did a big jazz concert,
a New Orleans jazz concert on the main market square,
there in Nogales.
And, my little daughter was giving out Mardi Gras beads
and it was wonderful to see her connect with this little Mexican child
as she gave out those Mardi Gras beads and I thought,
"Even though this child has grown up, literally 100 yards away from the U.S. border,
this may be the closest interaction she's ever had with an American."
And really, my daughter was America to that little girl that day.
Unlike other countries,
we don't have a national religion, we don't have a national ethnicity,
the only thing that we all share is our obligation to the Constitution
and that's what makes us Americans
and that's what we are when we're overseas as diplomats.