Foreign Service Day

Hi I'm Chris Van Hollen Senator from Maryland and I'm here with my friend and colleague Dan Sullivan senator from the Great State of Alaska and we're here to celebrate Foreign Service Day where we pay tribute to the work of our foreign service officers in Washington and around the world in different post. who are representing our country and it was two years ago that Senator Sullivan approach me on the floor of the Senate suggesting we set up a foreign service caucus based on your experience with foreign service officers and I think he asked me As I come from a foreign service family my father was a foreign service officer. My mother was a expert in foreign Affairs as well and we lived in Pakistan and India and Turkey and Sherlock and we decided it was important to have a forum for the men and women of foreign service in the United States Senate and beyond that we wanted to do some things together. So we're also announcing today, the introduction of something called the Foreign Service Families Act to support a foreign service family sizes again. Thank you for having the idea of Bringing us together in a bipartisan way we have to support the men and women of armed services. Well. Thank you Chris and to all the men and women in the foreign service and the civil service of the United States. Thank you the whole idea. What Senator Van Hollen and I started in the Senate was to create what we're now. Calling the Foreign Service caucus you know in the US Senate there's a lot of coke assist Army Navy Air Force Marines all have a caucus where leaders of those organizations come to the Senate either for break Easter lunch and kind of a low key meetings, but it shows the support of the Senate for these men and women serving our country Well, Senator Van Hollen, and I thought you know what there's another great group of Americans who also serve their country They deploy they take risk. They have family hardships and that's. All of you the men and women of the foreign service and we thought it was appropriate to say the US Senate support you and we wanna show that so we started the Foreign Service caucus here in the Senate I think we're up to about Members may effect we had a briefing with the Deputy Secretary State last year had 22 Senators 22. Senators really show up for anything in this building so It's been a highly successful a lot of support and so we're we're proud to announce the Foreign Service Families Act that Senator Van Holland crafted and I wanted his original Co sponsors on. But we just want all of you to know that whether It's through legislation or through the caucus that we think the work you're doing deserves to be recognized, I served as some of you might know is the Assistant Secretary for the economic Business Affairs Bureau at the State Department under Condoleezza Rice and so I've seen that work firsthand the great work that all of you do all over the world and I think when senators travel we always see the professionalism of the men and women representing us overseas. So thank you and you should know that you have people have your back in the US Senate and It's a very bad person as you're seeing right here It is and you know one of the challenges of foreign service families face when they deploy overseas is making sure that spouses of the foreign service officers who want to have that opportunity and That's been a challenge? for the foreign service. I know when my family was overseas. my mother was an expert for all their own right and the foreign service wasn't very well equipped back then to provide opportunities for spouses so part of the idea here is to provide foreign service families and spouses of foreign service officers Some of the opportunities we provide to the spouse as a military That's right folks who were Overseas, and so we wanna make sure that as Center salt would said. We wanna make sure that the service families and officers received the full support of the United States that Congress so thank you again for your leadership and as you said It's a bipartisan effort So we're gonna work hard to get this bill pass and we'll. Keep you posted but keep up the great work and again I know that you have a bipartisan support growing The caucus is yet actually getting bigger and here in the US Senate S