FOCUS
and didn’t return for years at a time,
with nothing more than “V-mail” to
maintain ties. A generation ago, I
spent 14 of the first 15 months of
married life as an Army officer in
Korea. During that period, we
made do with snail mail and
recorded tapes — telephone calls
were too difficult and expensive to
contemplate. Was I happy about it?
Of course not, but I was doing important work — and glad that I had not been assigned to
Vietnam where Army buddies died.
In the latter part of my career, my wife and I spent
two years assigned to separate posts in Canada. Happily, we were able to see each other regularly (and my
ambassador suggested that we “have a honeymoon every
weekend”). But I didn’t expect any sympathy for separation (even though I was caring for a teenage child by
myself), any more than a couple living and working in
I made a personal
commitment to write a
postcard to our youngest
Washington and New York City
would think that separation was a
dire trial.
David T. Jones
FSO, retired
Washington, D.C.
daughter each evening
before going to bed.
IF TROUBLE COMES,
MAKE USE OF IT
Like many Foreign Service families, we have faced
separated assignments due to evacuations and service at
an unaccompanied post. For us, the two most memorable
were my tours in Yemen from 1990 to 1991 and in Pakistan from 2006 to 2007.
On the eve of the Persian Gulf War, my wife, Fiona, returned to Scotland following a mandatory evacuation of dependents and stayed with her own family outside Inverness,
