Public Service Recognition Week

This week has been designated by Congress as Public Service Recognition Week, and, as a professional public employee, I want to recognize the thousands of public servants at all levels of government for the services they provide, not just to residents of the United States, but throughout the world. They include aid workers in Africa, clerks in embassies, soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan or elsewhere, first responders in our nation’s towns and cities, managers of local parks departments, teachers, air traffic controllers, public highway workers, scientists working in the national health regulatory, Border Patrol officers, and countless others (the list goes on and on). And, while others might not always agree, to me public service also includes elected officials both paid and unpaid. Each and every day, those of us in the public service have one mission–to make the lives of our fellow human beings better, safer and more fulfilling. Public service is, at its root, ennobling. I know of no higher calling.