From the 120 countries in the world I've been in, Kosovo and its people are special to me”

In this letter, she had told Kosovo girls about her life, the difficult journey from Prague to the United States to the highest state position ever held by a woman.

Full Letter of Albright

Dear Kosovo girls,

It is an honor to write to you the next generation of diplomats, activists and leaders in Kosovo.

I have visited many places throughout my life. In fact, I've been serving as Secretary of State of the United States of America flying over a million miles and visiting 120 countries. I could have flown around the world over 40 times with that distance. Of all the places I've been in, Kosovo and its people are special to me. Every time I visited your country, I was inspired by the recovery and determination of the people, especially those of Kosovo women and girls.

Like many Americans, I'm not even an autochton in the United States. In fact, I was born in a country that is closer to Kosovo than Washington D. C., in what was once known as Czechoslovakia. However, about two years after I was born, Adolf Hitler's troops marched into Prague's capital.

My father was a diplomat at the time, and he was unwilling to cooperate with the Nazis. So my parents left for England, where we stayed during World War II. My first memories were gatherings at a bomb shelter during the air strike, singing songs with our British neighbors, and we waited for the announcement: “no more danger! ”

I was only eight years old when the war ended and returned to Prague, where I pretended to be Winston Churchill, speaking Czech with a British accent. After the fighting ended, my parents and I were expected to resume our lives in our homeland. But within a few years, the rule of Czechoslovakia was taken by Communists. Once again my family was forced to seek asylum, but this time by sailing across the Atlantic for a new, welcoming home.

Not long ago we moved to Colorado, where my father helped establish the faculty for international relations at the University of Denver. So time, my biggest ambition was to fit in with my classmates. I wanted nothing more than to be a sincere American teenager. That meant I had to take off my European accent, learn how to chew gum, and say unsuccessful prayers to my mother to let me spend the night with my friends.

During that time I never imagined that one day I would become a secretary of state in America. Not because I lacked ambition. I'd just never seen a state secretary wearing skirts.

In January 1997, I took my oath for Secretary of State after being nominated by President Bill Clinton. I never forget when I first went to my new office. To get there, you had to walk across a long corridor that contained portraits of past secretaries, most of whom had beards. I thought for a moment that the walls were shaking a little bit while I, the first Secretary of State, was walking along that corridor and now I was taking a seat among these bearded men.

Looking back, I find it unusual that the United States has not had an ambassador until 1949. And until 1973, each Foreign Services official had been laid off shortly after he was married. Throughout most of our history, the only way a woman could be diplomatically impressed was to pour tea accidentally on the ambassador's lap.

Thanks to President Clinton, I had the opportunity to change this and was determined to do the best I could. Many responsibilities come with being Secretary of State: he or she is the third person in the US government (after the president and vice president), supervises foreign policies of the state, and is the head of the State Department. When I look back, I'm proud that we could achieve as much as we achieved by expanding NATO's alliance, overturning the Asian financial crisis, promoting democracy and supporting international market expansion.