From November 2000 issue of Soldiers

FOCUS on Berlin (continued)


                                 Assignment: Berlin

"IN the Defense Attache Service, as a sergeant, staff sergeant or sergeant 
first-class, you have to be able to meet with a foreign minister of defense 
and represent the U.S. Department of Defense," said CW2 Tom Castle, who's 
assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Berlin. 

"The job sounds very romantic to many people. Often it isn't. You're always 
on call, and you're often standing on a flight line, bored to tears, waiting 
for a high-level visitor to arrive," he said. 

You can also be pulled from one assignment to another at a moment's 
notice, said Defense Attache COL Eric Hammersen. "When we opened the 
embassy in Moldova, soldiers were pulled from other embassies around 
the world to help set that one up." 

Castle, who came to Berlin in August 1998, will depart for Harare, 
Zimbabwe, next July. He was in Ankara, Turkey, for three and a half 
years. 

SFC Michael McDonald, the Army operations NCO in Berlin, came to Berlin 
from Tanzania, where the embassy was bombed. "I helped put it back 
together again and set up the house for the incoming defense attache," 
said McDonald, who's been in his current position roughly a year. Earlier, 
he spent 14 months in Bonn and two years at the U.S. Embassy in Minsk, 
Belarus. 

McDonald went into Tanzania from Berlin, then returned to Berlin to 
support President Bill Clinton's visit, Hammersen said. "He went from 
setting up housing in Tanzania, to standing at an airport to receive the 
most senior U.S. leaders, including the deputy defense secretary." 

"Each post has a different appeal," said Castle. "I loved Ankara for the 
people and the operations mission. I love Berlin for the people and the 
city. There's so much history here. 

"Everyone in our system is hand-picked," Castle continued. "Soldiers 
can volunteer for an assignment to the Defense Attache Service. Air
Force personnel must go to Washington, D.C., where they and their 
families are interviewed. Army personnel submit an application 
package to the Joint Field Support Center in Hanover, Md." 

"The DAS will take people from all backgrounds," McDonald said. "But 
you need to be an office manager and logistician. On one hand, you 
have to be able to type a letter to account for hundreds of thousands 
of dollars worth of furniture or electronic equipment. On the other 
hand, you have to be able to act diplomatically." 

Assignments are typically for three years, Castle said, except when 
the embassy is in a very remote location. 

Training for a first assignment includes the Attache Staff 
Operations Course for enlisted personnel. Officers undergo a 
comparable, eight- to nine-month course, plus language courses. 

Castle, who underwent 32 weeks of Turkish language training before 
being sent to Ankara, said, the attache service takes the most 
qualified service applicant for a position. "If you're Air Force," 
which he was at the time he was selected, "you can be put into an 
available Army slot." 

"The position here doesn't preclude soldiers from fulfilling Army 
requirements for ANCOC and BNCOC," Castle said. "We don't put on 
rucksacks, but when we go downrange, we could be the only U.S. 
soldier in the country." -- Heike Hasenauer