Call To Service Medal Rapid Ascent

onkeys swung from the rafters that buttressed the high, arched ceiling. Their sharp odor mingled with the smell of burning cow dung that permeated the hot, muggy air. But Rachel Billingslea was undeterred. Much of her professional energy for the previous two years had been spent preparing for this moment in Delhi, India, last December. Standing at a podium, she had 10 minutes to summarize U.S. missile defense policy and make a proposal to top officials in the Indian Ministry of Defense.

Despite the row of Indian officials staring at her, the heat and the stench, the 26-year-old kept her cool. And when Billingslea finished her briefing, the Indian officials were speechless.

Few others Billingslea's age, now 27, could say they have briefed ministers in Delhi, smoothed ruffled feathers in Tokyo, worked on defense relations in Tel Aviv-and prepared the Secretary of Defense for White House meetings.

Billingslea grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, but she always had a wide world view. Her family talked about international affairs at the dinner table. She studied Japanese in high school and spent a year abroad in Tokyo during college. In 1999, she earned a graduate degree in public policy from Harvard and became a Presidential Management Intern at the State Department. After a year at State, she accepted a job as a GS-11 foreign affairs specialist in the Defense Department's policy shop.

At State and the Pentagon, Billingslea came to believe that cooperating with India on missile defense could help bolster America's relationship with the world's largest democracy and eventually help stabilize the region.

In 2001, she drafted a paper recommending initial steps the United States and India could take to foster cooperation on missile defense. Her position was-and is-controversial. But she defended her paper up the chain of command. Eventually, top administration officials approved the first few steps in her proposal, including briefings for Indian officials and a war game involving Indian and American military personnel.

At the Indian Ministry of Defense, as the agenda closed in on her presentation, Billingslea passed a note to the highest-ranking American at the meeting. Who was supposed to make the official offer of the initial steps, she asked. He passed a note back: You make the offer.

Putting such a proposal on the table was no small matter. American-Indian relations had soured after India conducted nuclear tests in 1998. Signaling a willingness to cooperate on missile defense was a significant shift. The Indians at the meeting understood this.

As Billingslea described U.S. missile defense policy, she didn't know that a few months later she would be hosting the Indians for a missile defense briefing in Washington. She didn't know she soon would be in Colorado Springs, Colo., overseeing a missile defense war game with Indian and American military participants. She was just trying to get through the speech, and to ignore the heat and the smell.

When Billingslea stopped talking, the Indians were silent.

At the end of the table, opposite the podium at which Billingslea stood, a top aide to the Indian minister of defense removed his glasses. He paused. Then he repeated back the steps she had outlined and asked if he had heard correctly. Billingslea said yes.

We welcome this, he said.