One More Thing About Veteran's Day

[howeird]

lemmozine reminded me that I served in the US Peace Corps, and that this was another form of service which ought to be honored. In my case, I joined for entirely selfish reasons, I was 25 years old and had ducked the draft by dint of having a relatively high lottery number when I was 19, and as the Vietnam war was basically over I wasn't feeling guilty about it. I served in Thailand, and honestly I do not think I or most of the volunteers I served with helped promote World Peace. I was there to do and teach photography and videography, the rest of my group was teaching English in high schools and colleges. There were one or two who volunteered in the refugee camps in northern Thailand where Vietnamese and Cambodian escapees were put up in a miserable tent city, so kudos to those volunteers. But Thailand loves America and Americans, and has for 150 years, so it's not like I was about to make that any better.

Of course the majority of Peace Corps Volunteers *do* work at sites which are more of a challenge, and they really did/do change the world for the better.