3/31/2007 - Excerpts from Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns
Returnee Speakers Series: March 5, 2007 Yale Club, NYC Guest Speaker: R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary of the United States and AFS Returnee, U.S./Luxembourg, 1973
For me AFS is like a family. It’s had such a huge impact on my life. For me it was the transforming event of my teenage years. Because had I not done that… I wouldn’t have had the ability to transport myself out of my culture into another culture.
I made life-long friends. My family and I lived in Belgium for 4 years…where I was in NATO and I drove 4 or 5 times a year during those years to see my host family. You don’t get those types of friendship [on programs] where the object is to tour. The object is not to travel to Paris or Rome…the object is to live with a family and try to transport yourself into that culture and to try and connect with them, and to be a bridge from our culture to their culture.
I think all of us who’ve been on AFS have found this was a transformative experience. It’s also an opportunity to learn something about history and politics, and the importance in societies beyond our own. I learned so much that summer, not just facts and figures and how to conjugate certain verbs, but a different way of looking at life.
This is a tremendously important program. For everyone who’s been in it and for all the kids who can be in it in the future. I asked myself this morning, ‘What business is AFS in?’ AFS is in the bridge building business because I think understanding other cultures and seeing things the other person’s way, and seeing if there’s another agenda out there in the world, not just an American agenda, is about the most important lesson that Americans can still learn in the modern world.
I just want to say how thankful and grateful I am for the American Field Service, for the opportunity they gave to me.
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