Danny, Management Officer
My name is Danny and I’m in the management track.
The day that mattered the most to me was in December on my first assignment. There was attack on our consulate in Jeddah - and I was stationed at our embassy in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia and was sent to Jeddah right after the attack to kind of deal with the aftermath. We had lost five of our colleagues and I was sent down there as a management officer to deal with kind of rebuilding the infrastructure, kind of rebuilding our offices, refortifying our security, and overseeing kind of the morale and rebuilding the morale of an office that had lost, five of its employees
The lessons that I pulled away from it, which--one was just the extent to which American values and American people are respected around the world, even in a region kind of filled with anti-Americanism like the Middle East. It was incredible to see--you know, in my flight from Riyadh to Jeddah, to see how many people had come up to me knowing that I was coming from the embassy and giving their condolences and telling, telling me that this was no reflection on the American people and they loved our values.
The Foreign Service gives us a unique experience to be able to really change the world.
But I came into it with just a passion for learning about other cultures and a passion for my own culture, the American values and American system, and eager to share that with other people. And I think a lot of times, people sit on the sidelines and are frustrated with the way the world is going or the directions we’re going as a country or the different policies we have, and this career gives you the ability to make a real difference, and you can touch people’s lives.