Tag: State Department
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Marine Security Guards at 70
The Marine Security Guard program this week celebrated 70 years protecting U.S. diplomatic missions around the world. Happy Fourth of July to the Ambassadors in Blue. Two books covering their service, one non-fiction, the other fiction: Greg Matos’ Shattered Glass—The Story of a Marine Embassy Guard… recounts the December 2004 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.…
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Diplomatic Security
This trailer from the film America’s Diplomats shows how our diplomatic security personnel train for the worst case scenario—from protests and threats to bombings and outright assaults on our missions overseas. Their storied bureau turned 100 this year. Learn more about the daily grind of our DS personnel in Two Pumps for the Body Man,…
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Peter Van Buren–We Meant Well
Van Buren’s book stands shoulder-to-shoulder with many other great war books. The food is bad and the environment gritty. The Colonel’s in charge; body armor’s strapped on; everybody piles into helos or Humvees to leave base. A young soldier, comrade torn by hot shrapnel, ignores the bloody gristle staining his cheek to stop the damn bleeding.…
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The Departed–Ten Years After
The opening column in this month’s Foreign Service Journal is a timely and moving reminder of friends and colleagues killed ten years ago in a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia. American Foreign Service Association President Robert J. Silverman writes: The Foreign Service has taken more deaths in the line of duty, on a percentage basis, than has…
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My Thoughts on Uranus
I’ll admit it—I’m a bureaucrat. A federal bureaucrat. I’m not some fancy ad-man in a pinstripe suit on Madison Avenue. Still, I know a thing or two about language. And when I see lousy wordplay in advertising, it bothers me. Take this insurance ad, targeted at the dreary, browbeaten federal workforce (it’s on a bus stop…
Ben East Books 