New Hampshire Native Son Going to China as Foreign Service Officer
WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 – Because his father was in the Foreign Service, David V. Muehlke of Woodstock, N.H., was born in Thailand and lived abroad for most of his young life. He has always seen himself as someone who has moved back and forth between two different worlds.
When the 23-year-old Harvard graduate was sworn in to the Foreign Service himself at the State Department on Friday, he said that the experience of being raised overseas, combined with his New Hampshire roots, would aid him in his mission to represent America while living and working in the international community.
“My family is deeply rooted in new Hampshire,” said the Phillips Exeter alumnus. “We have a unique tradition there in general when it comes to politics. I’ve also spent time overseas, so I hope to bring a unique and creative perspective in representing the United States.”
Muehlke, who said he speaks functional Mandarin Chinese, will soon be moving to Guangzhou, China, where he hopes to learn the ropes as a Foreign Service Officer by assisting with the adoption of Chinese children by American families.
Muehlke is one of 96 members of the 126 th Foreign Service Officer Class from the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, the primary institution for training American diplomats.
Upon completion of a seven-week Foreign Service course, Muehlke and his classmates were sworn in at their graduation ceremony on Friday by Robert Zoellick, the deputy secretary of State, who welcomed them as the next generation of American diplomats.
“It is easy to recognize the challenges you will face,” Zoellick said in his speech to the class. “But you have been given an extraordinary gift and opportunity to represent the United States.”
With classmates from all walks of life and professional backgrounds, ranging in age from 23 to 50, Muehlke said he was impressed by the expertise his peers brought with them. An expertise which he said was crystallized by one event: the collapse of a platform during their training.
“We were all standing on it and the foundation collapsed,” he said. “Some people were injured. But we knew how to respond in the crisis. Some of the class had medical training and military training; we all handled the situation very well.”
In his final remarks, Zoellick stressed to the class that they not ignore the domestic structure of American politics or forget about the issues and people back home. It was a challenge Muehlke said he was prepared to meet.
“The challenge in Foreign Service is to live in the world internationally but never forget who we are as Americans,” said Muehlke. “I’ve been doing that my whole life.”
