The U.S. ambassador to Fiji also serves as the ambassador to Tonga, Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu. Larry M. Dinger took over this position on July 22, 2005. Dinger received a BA from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1968. He later earned a JD from Harvard Law School in 1975 and an MA from the National War College in Newport, Rhode Island, in 2000. From 1968 to 1972 Dinger was a U.S. Naval Officer, graduating from Officer’s Candidate School in 1969. He served in Vietnam during the war and from 1970-1972 was stationed in London as an intelligence watch officer. Dinger then worked in politics, served on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee staff, and he briefly practiced law. Dinger joined the Foreign Service in 1983, serving first as a consular/narcotics affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City until 1985. Dinger was Staff Assistant in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs through 1986, and then served as political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia from 1987 to 1990. He then became Indonesia Desk Officer from 1990 to 1992. From 1992 until 1995 Dinger was political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Canberra, Australia, and then, from 1995 to 1996, he served as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In 1996 Dinger was appointed Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Suva, Fiji. He held this post until 1999 at which  time he began his studies at the National War College.  After gaining his degree there, Dinger was appointed Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal.. He assumed his first ambassadorial post Micronesia in 2002.  In 2005, he served as the State Department’s Senior Advisor to the Naval War College until he received his appointment as ambassador.