FACTS ABOUT THE PEACE CORPS
G'day folks,
On September 22, 1961, seven months after an executive
order from President John F. Kennedy, the U.S. Congress authorized legislation
officially establishing the Peace Corps. Founded with the goals of promoting
“world peace and friendship” abroad, the organization has since sent over
220,000 volunteers to 140 countries in the developing world, where they have
assisted with everything from education and agricultural projects to HIV
awareness and disaster relief. Here are eight surprising facts about one of the
United States’ most iconic service programs.
While President John F. Kennedy took the lead in
establishing the Peace Corps, he wasn’t the first politician to propose an
international service organization. One of the idea’s earliest champions was
Wisconsin Representative Henry Reuss, who pushed for the creation of a “Point
Four Youth Corps” in the late 1950s. In June 1960, meanwhile, Minnesota Senator
Hubert Humphrey coined the name “Peace Corps” when he introduced a bill
advocating for a program to send “young men to assist the peoples of the
underdeveloped areas of the world to combat poverty, disease, illiteracy and
hunger.” Neither of the earlier proposals gained traction, but they played a
key role in inspiring Kennedy and his staff to begin researching the idea
during the 1960 presidential campaign.
At 2 a.m. on October 14, 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy
arrived at the University of Michigan near the end of his presidential
campaign. The candidate had planned on heading straight to bed, but when he
noticed that a crowd of 10,000 students had gathered to greet him, he stepped behind
a microphone and gave an unscripted speech. “How many of you who are going to
be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana?” he asked. “Technicians or
engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend
your lives traveling around the world?” Kennedy wouldn’t officially call for a
“peace corps of talented young men and women” until two weeks later, but his
late-night challenge is now cited as the program’s founding moment. The
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor even has a plaque on its campus marking the
spot where Kennedy “first defined the Peace Corps.”
By the time he was inaugurated as president, Kennedy’s
Peace Corps had become one of the most talked-about aspects of his platform.
University students circulated petitions and pledges to serve, and more than
25,000 letters arrived from prospective volunteers. Faced with such an
overwhelming response, Kennedy placed his brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, in
charge of a special task force to create the new organization. Shriver and a
brain trust of academics issued a report on the program in just a few weeks,
and Kennedy officially established the Peace Corps by executive order on March
1, 1961. Work continued at a frantic pace over the next few months as
Shriver—the organization’s first director—interviewed applicants and enlisted
the participation of foreign governments. By August 30, little more than seven
months after Kennedy’s inauguration, the first contingent of 51 Peace Corps
volunteers had already arrived in Accra, Ghana, to serve as teachers.
President Kennedy considered the Peace Corps a Cold War
tool to bolster the United States’ reputation and counter the Soviet Union’s
influence abroad, but many of his fellow lawmakers were skeptical of what was
mockingly called the “Kiddie Corps.” Richard Nixon branded the program a “cult
of escapism” and argued that it catered to young men looking to skip out on the
military draft. Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, meanwhile, called it a
“juvenile experiment” and suggested that its members should be sent to the
moon. Despite the criticisms, the Peace Corps remained popular among college
students and young people during its early days. By its fifth anniversary in
1966, it boasted over 15,000 volunteers serving two-year terms in 46 countries.
Since it was founded during the height of the Cold War, the
Peace Corps was often subject to speculation that it was a front organization
for the Central Intelligence Agency. The Kennedy administration ordered the CIA
not to meddle in the Peace Corps’ affairs, but many host countries still
believed rumors and Soviet propaganda that the program’s volunteers were
undercover spies. In the interest of avoiding any connection to the espionage
community, the Peace Corps has always maintained a blanket ban on former CIA
employees becoming volunteers. Former members of other intelligence outfits are
allowed to serve in some cases, but only after a 10-year waiting period.
Peace Corps volunteers often face extreme conditions while
working in remote and undeveloped parts of the world. The organization suffered
its first casualties in 1962, when volunteers Larry Radley and David Crozier
were killed in a plane crash in Colombia. Since then, around 300 other
volunteers have died on duty from car crashes, accidents, sickness, drowning,
animal attacks and violent crime. While certain hazards are unavoidable, the
Peace Corps often evacuates volunteers from unstable or potentially dangerous
parts of the world. In recent years, security concerns have seen it suspend
operations in Kazakhstan, Niger, Honduras, Jordan and El Salvador.
The Peace Corps is designed to work in the developing
world, but a lone exception to its overseas mandate came in 2005, when
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the U.S. Gulf Coast. In the wake of the
storms, the Peace Corps dispatched nearly 300 veteran volunteers to Louisiana
to distribute food, search for survivors and clear debris. The relief efforts
marked the first time in Peace Corps history that the organization carried out
operations on home soil. Information on fallen Peace Corps volunteers and staff
can be found at fpcv.org
The average age of Peace Corps volunteers is 28, but the
organization has no rule preventing the middle-aged or the elderly from
serving. President Jimmy Carter’s mother Lillian famously joined the Peace
Corps at age 68, and roughly 7 percent of all current volunteers are over age
50. As of 2016, the Peace Corps’ oldest active member was Alice Carter, an
87-year-old Boston grandmother serving in Morocco.
Clancy's comment: It would be ideal to be introduced in Australia. Or, maybe boot camp for some of our young offenders. I'm not surprised that most members are over 50 years-of-age. The modern generations don't seem to be willing to join any volunteer organisations.
I'm ...
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