MICHELLE, FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER, PUBLIC DIPLOMACY CAREER TRACK:
My name is Michelle and I'm public diplomacy career path,
and I'm currently working in the Bureau of Public Affairs.
MARY, FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER, POLITICAL CARRER TRACK:
And my name is Mary and I'm a political career track,
and I'm currently working on the Poland Desk.
I always knew that what I wanted to do with my life was public service.
I wanted to work in the government.
I didn't really wanna go into the military, in the army like my dad, so...
and I was interested in foreign affairs, interested in foreign policy.
I studied diplomatic history. Got a PhD in diplomatic history.
Realized I didn't wanna teach.
Still was interested in foreign affairs and diplomacy,
and applied for the... Foreign Service… took the Foreign Service exam and passed,
and thought that I would give this career a try and see how I liked it.
MICHELLE: She was going to blow the exam off
and I told her, "No, go ahead and do it."
MARY: It was a seven in the morning.
MICHELLE: And then she passed it.
And then she was going to be blow off the oral assessment,
and I said, "No, we'll go to D.C., we'll do the tourism thing, it'll be great."
And then she passed that too.
And then they gave her an offer to join and we're like,
“Well, OK, I guess I need to figure this out now.
She was living in Azerbaijan.
She was working with these really smart, fun people.
She was getting to really get to know another culture, another place, another language,
and that just seemed like that would be a really exciting way to spend your life.
And then, when we were there, we would go on trips,
whenever I would go to visit, we would go on trips to the upper reaches
of Azerbaijan and, who back in South Carolina where I'm from, has even heard of Azerbaijan?
And I have pictures of me and Mary in the mountains up in Gobistan.
MARY: Guba.
MICHELLE: Guba...Up in Guba.
And it just seemed like that would be...
it would be a lot of fun and really interesting,
and a way that we could both serve the country and still be together.
I am the one who wrangled Mary into this, and I'd love to get the opportunity
to talk to people about the work that we do and the experiences that we get
because it's just a lot of fun and, I feel like we do very important work
for the country, that our service is very valuable to the country,
and yet we're getting to have these experiences that most people can only dream about.
I grew up in a very small mill village in South Carolina.
My family are American Indians. Most of them have never left the country.
Most of them have never even had a passport, and when my grandmother
referred to trips overseas, she called them, “Once in a lifetime things.”
And I don't think about those as once in a lifetime things anymore.
When we were in Jerusalem... "We have a long weekend, let's go to Cairo."
And for so many people that is a once in a lifetime adventure,
and while we're going through Cairo, and only there for a long weekend,
we said, “Well, we missed this but we'll just come back.”
And, being in the Foreign Service, you know that it's realistic to talk that way.
One of the reasons why the Department has selected you to serve
is because they want to be able show the full spectrum of the United States
and what our population is like.
And that means having gay people and straight people,
and people of all colors and people of all ages.
It also means people with children and people with pets.
And if we all gave up the things about ourselves that made us different
and spoke to sort of what the fabric of America is,
then there's no reason for them bringing that diversity
into the Foreign Service to begin with.
And so, you have to sort of select what are the things that are important to you
that you need to take with you overseas to still be the person you are
and the representative of people like you back in the United States.
And for us, we don't have children but we have children with fur....
and that’s our choice.
MARY: ...feathers...
MICHELLE: ...and feathers...and so, that's...
that's the thing that we haven't given up.
For example, we had an opportunity to bid this year on Cairo,
they don't allow birds, we didn't bid on Cairo.
One of the things that I'm getting to do now is...
I'm the Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary in Public Affairs,
and there are a lot of times when he needs to bounce ideas
off of someone in terms of how we're gonna craft our message,
what we're gonna say to the public when he gets up on the podium
and starts talking to the reporters.
Particularly when he's dealing with issues concerning the Middle East,
I'll go in there and we'll just talk about ideas
and I'll be able to help him craft the best way
to get our message across to the reporters, and it's an area where I can then flip on the TV
and watch him do the daily press briefing and say,
"That was my sentence.
That was me helping him think through his process."
And I feel like that's an area where I get to make a difference.
MARY: When I think about
the more memorable experiences, they all center around helping.
And so, I guess, one of the most recent ones was...I'm on the Poland Desk...
I'm the Poland Desk Officer, and when the plane crashed,
the Polish President's plane crashed a month ago
and killed not just the President and the First Lady, but a lot of other really important people
in that government and a lot of people, a lot of the Polish people here
at the Polish Embassy, were deeply affected by this.
It was a really, really hard time for them and because I had that relationship
with them already and I was able to go there and I felt like I was actually able
to do something to help.
I mean, it was hard to put my finger exactly on what it was that I could do to help
but working here and working with our Embassy in Warsaw,
we could see that we were...we did matter and that this relationship did matter.
I am an American diplomat, I represent my country and my government,
and advance the interests of the people of the United States.
MICHELLE: Oh, I don't know how I can top that.
I went to the University of South Carolina, which is...it's a small school, it's...
who thought of going into the Foreign Service from University of South Carolina,
majoring in English.
And yet I did, and I have something to contribute.
And I think that most people who find they have any kind of interest
in serving the government, serving the country,
and experiencing the world, living overseas and living with other people,
will find that there is something that they can do within the Foreign Service.
There is within the five career tracks, some area that will be of interest to them
and probably that they've had experience in.
There probably is already something that they could contribute
to our mission here and overseas, and they just don't realize it yet
because they haven't been thinking along those lines.
They've been thinking, "Oh, if I didn't study in international studies
or in foreign service, then this isn't a career for me."
And it absolutely is.