F OCUS - American Foreign Service Association

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2008 AFSA CONSTRUCTIVE DISSENT AWARD WINNERS
Rachel Schneller demonstrated courage and
integrity in speaking out publicly on the occurrence
of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
among Foreign Service employees returning from
assignments to war zones. For taking on this
extremely sensitive issue, working within the system
to push the State Department to address the problem,
Schneller was selected for the Rivkin Dissent Award.
After returning to Washington from a tour in Iraq,
as a Provincial Action Officer in Basrah, Schneller
began speaking out about the realities of PTSD in war
zones, working through proper media and other
channels to heighten awareness of the problem in the
Foreign Service community. She urged the department
to provide greater services and treatment for
those suffering from symptoms of PTSD following
war zone assignments.
Her willingness to bring this issue out into the open has given
many other Iraq returnees the strength to seek help for their own
post-deployment issues. Her advocacy efforts helped pave the
way for acknowledgment by senior management of the need to
invest greater personnel and budgetary resources to deal with
this growing problem. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has
committed the State Department to doing more to assist those
suffering from PTSD, and the Medical Bureau has been authorized
funding to dedicate additional employees to work on
PTSD issues.
Despite the widespread belief that talking candidly about
post-deployment stress issues can be detrimental to a Foreign
Service member’s career, Schneller pressed openly for increased
services for returnees from war zones — such as the start of a
Schneller at a November 2005 Iftar dinner in Basrah with Locally Engaged
Staff: Dolfakar Al-Waheed (now resettled in San Francisco); Muntaha Ali
(assassinated in Basrah in June 2006); Schneller; and Basil Jowdat
(now resettled in Nashville).
64 FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL/JULY-AUGUST 2008
William R. Rivkin Award
FOR A MID-LEVEL FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER
Rachel Schneller
support group, the right
to adequate home leave
for those on long-term
TDY status in Iraq and
access to information on
treatment and payment
options for PTSD. She
argued that seeking
treatment for PTSD following
an assignment in
a war zone should not
adversely affect an officer’s
medical clearance.
Schneller’s remarks
during a town hall meeting
with the director
general of the Foreign Service, her three media interviews (all
arranged and officially sanctioned by the Bureau of Public
Affairs) carried by CNN, USA Today and the New York Times, as
well as her January 2008 article in the Foreign Service Journal,
have given other returning Iraq vets the courage to seek help for
their own post-deployment stress-related issues.
The USA Today interview helped generate media and congressional
interest that contributed to pressure on the department
to do more about PTSD. For example, at an Aug. 1, 2007,
hearing, a senator cited the USA Today article in urging Human
Resources Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Heather Hodges
(testifying for the administration) to do more to assist employees
with PTSD.
Many officers familiar with Schneller’s efforts are convinced
that her public frankness about her own mental health, and her
battle over her own home leave situation (all within proper
channels) are largely responsible for these recent positive policy
changes that benefit all employees. “There is no other award I
would rather receive than the one for constructive dissent,”
Schneller tells the Journal, “and I am honored to be among the
women to receive it.”
Rachel Schneller joined the Foreign Service in July 2001 and
has served overseas in Skopje, Conakry and Basrah. Her domestic
assignments have included the U.S. Mission to the United
Nations and the Economics Bureau Office of Multilateral Trade
Affairs. She received a master’s degree in economics and conflict
management from Johns Hopkins University’s School of
Advanced International Studies in 2001.
Rachel Schneller attending a Provincial Reconstruction and
Development meeting December 2005 in Maysan Province.