Judy Ikels is the recipient of one Meritorious Award and three Superior Honor Awards from the Department of State. She received the 2017 Champion of Career Enhancement Award from the Associates of the American Service Worldwide. After 28 years service, in 2019, she was honored with the Director General of the Foreign Service Cup awarded annually to one Civil Service employee "for devotion to duty, outstanding leadership, creative innovation, and tireless pursuit of what is right." Judy has lived and worked in Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Greece, Mexico, and Venezuela; and speaks Spanish and Portuguese.

Judy recently published "Death in Wartime China: A Daughter's Discovery" a book about her father's service in WWII. It is in that capacity that I had the pleasure of speaking with her.

It was on a fateful day in 2016, a simple email from an interested stranger would uncover a world where her father continues to be revered as a hero. Judy would board a plane to Kunming, China, where her father is honored with a mountain memorial that heralds the bravery of a man who sacrificed his life to save his entire B 24 Liberator crew during the China Burma India conflict of World War Two. This journey would welcome her to the country as the daughter of an important hero and lead her to create the new book” death in wartime China, a daughter's discovery,”.

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