A-100 Journal 5- Flag Day

We were told to gather in the auditorium by 3:15. The place was full by 3. Since before we took the written test, some of us years ago, there was always the one question: "Where will you go?" Suddenly we were only twenty minutes away from finding out. On the one hand, we would suddenly know what the next year or two held for us. On the other, we would NOT be going to all those other cool places that were on the list.

Going in to the event, my family full of Class 2 EFMs had left us with only 6 or 7 available overseas posts, plus a slew of Washington, DC jobs. A DC job would have meant having to move out of our apartment in a few weeks' time while hoping to stay in the same school district. It would also have meant a significant decrease in financial stability. I had firmly convinced myself that DC was where we were headed. It would just be too easy to slot us in there.

We had been told to have someone supportive nearby for Flag Day, because after all the rule for FSO's is "go where they tell you to go, do what they tell you to do, and say what they tell you to say." We had no right or expectation for anything, but hoped REALLY hard to be sent overseas.

I had the bid list in front of me when they started reading off names and posts, and was writing the names in for the first few. At that point the stress and anticipation made it impossible to write, so I put the papers down and started with the breathing exercises. A few names were called for places we couldn't qualify for medically, and my classmates screamed in joy and went up the center aisle to claim their flag. 

Then the DC flag came up for the first time, and I thought "here we go." Someone else got that post, and they were happy. So was I since it wasn't mine.

About 10 posts in, a flag that many people mistake for the Polish flag came up. However, it was one I knew very well: 

This is the Indonesian flag, and our embassy is in Jakarta. I had ranked this high, and it was my personal number 2. Hard language training, consular coned, and the timing was so right for our family. They said my first name (one which I shared with others in my class) and my middle initial (one which I did not). I was half way out of my chair before the echo died on my last name and was running. I realized where I was far too late to walk up the center aisle and just kept running all the way around the class and back to the podium. Our class sponsor probably feared she was going to be hip-checked into the wall, but no. A flag, a training schedule, and a future were laying there in my hands as my breathing slowly returned to normal.

My wife was trying to record the event. We can see the Indonesian flag, and then suddenly a chair and peoples' feet as she begins to freak out and forgets the camera. Classic. Our whole family is very excited.

And there it was. Stability, financial security, a new and very challenging language and an amazing first post. Bali, Sumatra and Australia an easy flight away. Will it be perfect? Well, the traffic, heat, and cockroaches you can ride say no. Am I thrilled beyond my wildest dreams? Oh, yes.

The only sad thing is that I only have a week left with this amazing group of people I have come to know and respect. Some of them were certainly not thrilled with their first posts, though you would never know from how everyone reacted. A surprising number of classmates I talked to got posts they rated high. They could tell I was happy and they were happy for me. 

So, here we are. I sold insurance in Laredo, Texas for 9 years in what I have been told by the State Department is "la idioma de la frontera" (the language of the border), something that is not really Spanish at all. Their solution: a Southeast Asian archipelago. Of course.

All I can say to all this is what I have been saying all along. Thank you, thank you, and thank you. I have been blessed beyond imagining, and I know it very well.

-S