I learned about the U.S. Foreign Service while sitting in Harding University's student placement office to eventually get a job at a local poultry-processing plant. While filing out my chicken job application, I noticed a brochure from the State Department seeking diplomats to represent America.

For a trailer-park kid who aged out of foster care and went to a small liberal arts college in Arkansas, it wasn't an obvious career. Even so, the idea of traveling the world in service to our country called to me. Eventually, I made it through the selection process and served in seven countries on four continents, rising to the senior ranks.

Over those two decades, my state, intelligence community, military, law enforcement, and international assistance colleagues blew me away with their patriotism and personal sacrifices for our county--often in hardship and danger posts. I witnessed these professionals give their all to create a more secure, democratic, and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community. This was the bipartisan and non-controversial aspiration of a great country.

What a difference an........

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