A Foreign Service Officer (FSO) is a commissioned member of the United States Foreign Service. As diplomats, Foreign Service Officers formulate and implement the foreign policy of the United States. FSOs spend most of their careers overseas as members of U.S. embassies, consulates, and other diplomatic missions, though some receive assignments to combatant command, Congress, and educational institutions such as the various U.S. War Colleges. Within the Foreign Service they are also known as Generalists. Foreign Service Officers occupy most of the top tiers of the Foreign Service and are distinguished from the other category of Foreign Service employees known as Specialists (e.g., Special Agents of the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service).
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Famous quotes containing the words foreign, service and/or officer:
“It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness I have in mind. With Americans, it is a national trait, as native to us as the rollercoaster or the jukebox. It is no simple longing for the home town or country of our birth. The emotion is Janus-faced: we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.”
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“I who have cursed
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Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?”
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