A diplomat's guide to fashion at FSI

At the end of your six weeks of A-100 your instructors will tell you about your follow-on training. They will offer one key piece of advice: don't wear flip-flops to class. You will scoff at the idea--after all, you've worn a suit everyday for the past month, you're a diplomat, a representative of the United States Government. You may not wear a suit to Spanish class, but you're certainly not going to wear flip-flops.

On your first day you do just that--collared shirt, slacks, maybe even a blazer if you're feeling so bold. You feel good. You feel like a diplomat. Then you arrive to ConGen and you see the haggard FSO veteran next to you wearing jeans. Bold move, you think, maybe after I'm in a few years, I can dress so casually at FSI.

But after you've run through your clean slacks later that week, you'll find yourself staring at your own jeans--clean, comfortable, casual. You'll put on one leg, then another. Of course you'll throw on a collared shirt to put your outfit on the upper-end of business casual. And you'll wear shoes, certainly not flip-flops.

You feel good. Weeks pass. You've been in language training a few weeks now. You love your professor and the few other students in class with you. Each work day is like a get-together with your friends--you chat a few hours, you crack jokes, you watch movies. You feel so relaxed you can't believe you're getting paid for this. It's like college all over again. Except, of course, with close-toed shoes.

You're wearing blue jeans almost everyday now. You haven't tucked in your shirt for at least two weeks. It's started to get warmer out. The women are wearing dresses and at lunch people sprawl out on the lawn to catch the spring sunshine. You see the new A-100 class in their stiff suits at lunch and you smile because you remember when you were like them. Diplomacy isn't all stiff collars and polished shoes, and anyway, this is training. Relax.

Then it happens, maybe two months in. It's summer now. The sun is out. It's hot. Language training is still relaxed and casual, but it's lost its luster. You roll out of bed and throw on a t-shirt and the same jeans you wore yesterday. Otro dia, otro dolar, you think and search around for a pair of clean socks. But you forgot to put your clothes in the dryer last night and your only clean socks are dripping wet.

You spot them, pushed back under your bed, barely peaking out--dried leather, salt marks from when you last went to the beach. You haven't worn them for so long. You've been good. And besides, it's summer and language training and who's going to say anything anyway? You'll be back in that suit soon enough when you're abroad. Don't you deserve a to be comfortable?

You slip them on. First one foot, then another. They feel so right. Diplomacy has nothing to do with appearances, you think. It's an internal thing, not a tie or a collar but an attitude. The thing you said you'd never do is exactly what you should have been doing all along, you think as you leave your Oakwood apartment.

Now you truly are a diplomat.

Practicing Public Diplomacy

For the aspiring diplomat, it's important to be able to discuss domestic politics to a foreign audience, and to able to convey the importance of foreign policy to a domestic audience. Use the following talking points to practice shaping your conversational savvy:


Communicating Domestic Issues to a Foreign Audience:

• Why do people like Donald Trump? The US is increasingly streamlining its political selection process. Ever since the election and successful presidency of Ronald Reagan, we've learned to safely rely on Hollywood to separate the wheat from the chaff in political races. Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Jesse 'the bod' Ventura--Trump is just the latest in a growing line of celebrities-turned-politicians. Moreso, decision-making is one of the most important traits we look for in a president, and Trump proved he has decision-making skills in spades through Celebrity Apprentice, especially when he picked NeNe over Gary Busey.
  
• Why do people like Sarah Palin and the Tea Party? Americans have always loved women and guns, so a woman who loves guns is a natural fit for us. As to her politics, and the politics of the Tea Party, the ultra-conservative organization was created in the best tradition of American's opposition to the authoritarian nature of conglomerates. After all, the party derives its name from the act of frustrated colonialists who threw the tea of the monopolistic East India Trading Company into Boston Harbor. That's why the grassroots organization wants less commercial regulation and is funded by one of the largest private industries in the world, Koch Industries.
  
• What's up with Guantanamo Bay? We would gladly close Guantanamo Bay if your country would take the remaining hundred or so people left there. Didn't think so.

Explaining Foreign Policy to a Domestic Audience:

• Why is everyone in the world trying to kill us? At any given time, only about 1% of the world is actually trying to obliterate the United States from the face of the earth. However, since fewer than half of all Americans own a passport, it's safe to assume that your only window to the outside world is through the news media, which makes it seem like everyone outside America's borders sure is itching to genocide, rape, and terrorize ol' Uncle Sam. The plain truth is that American's may be shocked to realize just how much the rest of the world doesn't care about us.
  
• What exactly does a Foreign Service do? You know all that cheap stuff in Walmart that's been shipped from overseas? That's all thanks to an Econ Foreign Service Officer. You know how we haven't gone to war with Iran or North Korea or Pakistan yet? You can thank a Political Foreign Service Officer for that. Google and Yahoo! were both founded by immigrants that got into the country through a Consular officer, so next time you log onto Gmail, go ahead and give a shout out to the Consular folks. Overall, we deploy to some pretty nasty places for longer periods than the military does, and we get paid less to do it, but Walmart's low-price guarantee makes it worthwhile.
• We don't want to become sissy like Europe, how can we prevent that? No one wants to become sissy like Europe, what with their healthcare, long vacations and affordable schooling. Our first step to ensuring American prosperity and manliness is to continue spending our money on large, costly wars, and, no matter what, ensuring that we never elect a closet muslim-terrorist socialist as President.