Peace Corps News

Obituary for Morocco Country Director Everett Woodman

Obituary for Morocco Country Director Everett Woodman
At age 88, World War II veteran and former diplomat Everett M. Woodman took the podium as guest speaker at the 2004 Fourth of July celebration in Hanover, N.H., and condemned the war in Iraq as a betrayal of American ideals. Some in the crowd booed the former Navy intelligence officer, who 60 years prior had stormed the beaches at Normandy and now stood with the help of two canes. But Mr. Woodman continued speaking, according to his daughter Betsy, of Andover, N.H., who was in the audience. "I think they expected a normal patriotic speech and he came out with this blistering stuff," she said.

From 1952 to 1954, Dr. Woodman worked in Madras, India as a cultural affairs officer for the United States Information Agency, and for an interim as acting public affairs officer for South India. For the next four years he served as an attaché at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and as director of the Educational Exchange Program under the India-U.S.A. Agreement of Public Law 48. In 1958, Dr. Woodman joined the Ford Foundation as an educational consultant to the Government of India's Ministry of Education until his appointment as president of Colby Junior College in 1962.

As president, Woodman led the college through ten years of growth and transformation. During his term, he emphasized the importance of an international perspective on education, as evidenced by campus events such as United Nations Day and Reaching the Questioning Mind Overseas. He also sought the opinions of the college's students, faculty, and alumnae and cultivated a strong relationship with them. Dr. Woodman served as president of the American Association of Junior Colleges from 1969 to 1970 and was also active in the New Hampshire Council on World Affairs.

After leaving Colby Junior College in 1972, Dr. Woodman served as president of the Nature Conservancy in Washington, D.C. Later he was appointed director of the Peace Corps in Morocco. Colby-Sawyer College presented him with an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters in May of 1995. Read more.

Speech by WWII D-Day Veteran and Morocco Country Director Everett Woodman on July 4, 2004
I am glad that we are not closing this event with a bugle sounding taps, for it is not a military funeral.

It is our celebration of freedom -  our  pledge to be worthy.

And while a holiday is all around us, this gathering on the green is not a high-five conqueror’s party.

We gather in justifiable pride, knowing likewise that  we have as much to mourn as to memorialize.

We weep for those we have lost, and combat veterans will best understand that kind of loss, for they had loved each other in that bond of danger and death.

I am especially mindful of that ultimate patriotism for exactly four Sundays ago I was at the American Military Cemetery, at Omaha Beach in Normandy where 9,387 headstones mark our permanent  presence on “that terrible and Sacred Shore.”

My thoughts of D-Day 60 years ago prompt thoughts of why wars should and should not be, and includes deep feelings for all families of  soldiers, sailors, airmen  who long ago gave their lives for America. Most  recently I think  today of the sadness of  Iraq - and join you in tribute to the unselfish service our forces are still performing over there with honor and courage - pray that we can say sometime soon, honestly this time,  “Mission accomplished.”

Permit me now to pursue that theme - quietly - because the subject is delicate, and I am sensitive to that.

I say this carefully:

I am glad that  Saddam Hussein is no more a worry.

He was brutal and good riddance -  but to get rid of him we betrayed our ideals and sold our soul to the totally un-American concept of “preemptive attack deterrence” - the most transparent rationalization of  Pentagon double  talk and in that unprovoked invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation  we forfeited our claim to the moral high ground.

There is no need to multiply illustrations of why much of America is now recognizing that the Iraq adventure was a colossal tragic mistake – and when history fully appraises this worst military and diplomatic blunder in memory it will portray properly a man so hungry to be a war time President that he could  taste it. “Bring ‘em on” he said.

It will also reveal how every episode of this dreadful undertaking , from the constantly concealed civilian death toll, to American torture of prisoners, to the hastily arranged secret and superficial ceremony conveying  “full sovereign authority” to Iraq, how every aspect of this long charade has been slanted and sold by shameless rationalizations – semi-plausible sounding reasons for doing what should never be done, and not doing what should be.

Now we look ahead and our prayer is that our young people and their children will develop the courage and wisdom to find victorious living in ways other than war - that their lives in a contracting world will eliminate fear of cultural differences - the mindless prejudice that often twists proper patriotism into negative nasty nationalism that  turns otherwise civil societies into warring tribes.

Teach our children to have faith in humanity and to know the dignity of all human beings. Reaffirm America’s basic belief that all people are created  equal -   that we all are children of the Universe.  There is no nonsense about that - it is universally obvious and fundamentally American.  Read more.

Read more about Peace Corps Morocco.

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Michael O'Hanlon writes: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq

Michael O'Hanlon writes: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq
In war, sometimes it’s important to pick the right adversary, and in Iraq we seem to have done so. A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists. The result has been that in the last six months Iraqis have begun to turn on the extremists and turn to the Americans for security and help. The most important and best-known example of this is in Anbar Province, which in less than six months has gone from the worst part of Iraq to the best (outside the Kurdish areas). Today the Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda and its Salafist allies. Just a few months ago, American marines were fighting for every yard of Ramadi; last week we strolled down its streets without body armor.

But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners (at least for as long as American forces remain in Iraq).

In addition, far more Iraqi units are well integrated in terms of ethnicity and religion. The Iraqi Army’s highly effective Third Infantry Division started out as overwhelmingly Kurdish in 2005. Today, it is 45 percent Shiite, 28 percent Kurdish, and 27 percent Sunni Arab.

In the past, few Iraqi units could do more than provide a few “jundis” (soldiers) to put a thin Iraqi face on largely American operations. Today, in only a few sectors did we find American commanders complaining that their Iraqi formations were useless — something that was the rule, not the exception, on a previous trip to Iraq in late 2005.

Michael O'Hanlon, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Congo Kinshasa. Read more.

Phillip Carter writes: Why O'Hanlon's latest good news from Iraq doesn't matter
In 1975, Army Col. Harry Summers went to Hanoi as chief of the U.S. delegation's negotiation team for the four-party military talks that followed the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. While there, he spent some time chatting with his North Vietnamese counterpart, Col. Tu, an old soldier who had fought against the United States and lived to tell his tale. With a tinge of bitterness about the war's outcome, Summers told Tu, "You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield." Tu replied, in a phrase that perfectly captured the American misunderstanding of the Vietnam War, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."

Today, in Iraq, we face a similar conundrum. Our vaunted military has won every battle against insurgents and militias—from the march up to the "thunder runs" that took Baghdad; the assaults on Fallujah to the battles for Sadr City. And yet we still find ourselves stuck in the sands of Mesopotamia. In a New York Times op-ed published Monday, Brookings Institution scholars Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack argue that "[w]e are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms." They go on to describe the myriad ways the surge is succeeding on the security front. But in emphasizing this aspect of current operations, they downplay the more critical questions relating to political progress and the ability of Iraq's national government to actually govern. Security is not an end in itself. It is just one component, albeit an important one, of a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. Unless it is paired with a successful political strategy that consolidates military gains and translates increased security into support from the Iraqi people, these security improvements will, over time, be irrelevant.

O'Hanlon and Pollack report progress from several diverse Iraqi cities, including Sunni-dominated Ramadi, Arab-Kurdish-Turkman Tal Afar and Mosul, and Shiite-Sunni Baghdad. Curiously, the scholars' dispatch ignores Baqubah, Samarra, Kirkuk, and the areas south of Baghdad—places with the highest sectarian tensions, worst fighting, and least progress.

The short, selective itinerary raises questions about who planned the trip, whom O'Hanlon and Pollack were able to talk with, and what they actually saw—as opposed to what they were briefed on during visits to U.S. bases. At best, these two men saw enough of Iraq to get a glimpse of reality there. At worst, they saw a Potemkin Village of success stories, not unlike the picture shown to visiting congressional delegations, that left them with a false vision of progress. Read more.

Read more about RPCV Michael O'Hanlon.

Read more about RPCVs and Iraq.

Iran RPCV Donna Shalala says Veterans report will be solution driven

Iran RPCV Donna Shalala says Veterans report will be solution driven
"We will not be issuing a report that points fingers. Our charge has and will be to focus on solutions that can be activated in a reasonable time. We will also not be issuing a report with a laundry list of recommendations. Our report will be action oriented and patient centered with our primary goal being to improve and simplify, where needed, the system of care for our service men and women so they can transition, as soon and as best as possible, to civilian life or active duty."

As we have said from the beginning, we are solution driven. We will not be issuing a report that points fingers. Our charge has and will be to focus on solutions that can be activated in a reasonable time. We will also not be issuing a report with a laundry list of recommendations. Our report will be action oriented and patient centered with our primary goal being to improve and simplify, where needed, the system of care for our service men and women so they can transition, as soon and as best as possible, to civilian life or active duty.

Our report is rooted in the work done by the Commission over the past three months plus the work of other Task Forces and Commissions that have been examining similar issues. This Commission has heard testimony at seven public meetings and has conducted 23 site visits to military bases, VA hospitals and treatment centers across the country. We have heard from experts on providing physical and mental health care, navigating health care and disability evaluation and compensation systems, members of Congress and their staff, and most importantly, service men and women, their families and the health care professionals charged with their care. The Commission is also conducting its own nationwide survey of service men and women and is currently analyzing the data. Read more.

University of Miami President and former Clinton Cabinet member Donna Shalala served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran in the 1960's. Read more about Donna Shalala.

Read more about Peace Corps Iran.

Spotlight on Peace Corps Niger

Michael R. Bell writes: Most farmers are subsistence farmers trying to produce enough food to feed their families
I have been in Niger for almost two weeks, experienced four very interesting bus rides, toured a small part of the Sahara desert and tried many new foods. One of the most impressive things I have seen over my time here is the complete dedication of these mostly young Peace Corps volunteers. Niger is the poorest country in the world today. When my daughter came here two years ago, it was the second-poorest country. The conditions under which these volunteers work and live is difficult at best. You should be very proud of the work these young adults do as Peace Corps volunteers serving around the world representing the U.S.

Most farmers are subsistence farmers trying to produce enough food to feed their families, share with others and possibly use as barter to obtain other needed items for survival. In the bush, which is where most Nigeriens live, daily routines are the same except during planting and harvest times. Families will raise livestock and poultry, vegetables, fruit if possible and all grow millett as their food staple. Feed for livestock is not grown. Land capable of growing a crop is used only to produce commodities to be used directly by humans. So how do they feed their livestock? Each morning a worker (probably one of their children) is assigned the task of taking the animals out further into the bush to forage. Animals that can find feed survive, those that can't don't. Since Niger is mostly desert, finding forage can be difficult. The Fulani are nomadic herders of animals such as cattle, goats, donkeys and camels, and are allowed to use certain areas of the country. After a day of grazing, the worker will lead the livestock back to the village for the night.

Nigeriens as a whole are a hardworking, intelligent, caring and happy people. They are generous with what they have no matter the circumstance. Those whom I have encountered during my stay here have all been quick to smile and find pleasure in everything, no matter the conditions. It has not taken long to get used to seeing camels grazing, being ridden or lead down a main street in a large city with typical automobile congestion as I saw just a few minutes ago. Read more.

PCV Joshua writes: Eco-Farming in Niger
Last week we visited a terrific place named ICRISAT. ICRISAT is the leading West African seed bank and scientific location for testing new farming practices and developing improved crop varieties of millet, groundnuts, beans, cowpeas, and many other vegetables resistant to both pest and drought. There is a lot of information disseminated from this place but what caught my attention most for the purpose of this blog imput was their efforts towards developing eco-farming.

Eco-Farming is a term used to describe using a plot of land to its maximum potential incorporating both intercropping and agro-forestry in concert to reduce or eliminate the use of fertilizers and additional irrigation. A critical aspect of eco-farming is to reduce land erosion by making a snake like terraces or demi-loons (terrace like half moons) along the contour of the land. Within these terraces trees useful for nitrogen fixing, mulch, fruit, and other useful improvements are placed in these half moon circles.

The social impacts of this type of agriculture is that it provides the farmer with labor for nearly 10 months out of the year instead of the typical 5-6 months usually attributed to a typical growing season. The impacts of this aspect are incredible because when the farmer has income generation throughout the year there is no need for the farmer to "€œexode€". Which means work as a migrant laborer in neighboring countries depriving their families and nation of its most critical workforce and most productive of individuals. Read more.

Niger RPCV Angela "Khadija" Williams is helping gain asylum for Ansam, a translator for coalition forces in Iraq
Angela "Khadija" Williams, 53, is a veteran U.S. foreign-service officer who embraced Islam nearly three decades ago and now serves as a U.S. cultural affairs liaison at Camp Fallujah. A State Department colleague familiar with Williams' devotion to the translator's case affectionately described her as "a pit bull in hijab."

Angela Williams went to the University of Denver - the same institution from which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice received her undergraduate degree - before dropping out of graduate school in 1978 to join the Peace Corps. "The bug just got to me," Williams said. "I was so anxious to go out in the world and do something."

After volunteering in the West African nation of Niger, Williams joined the World Council of Churches relief agency in Senegal. A Muslim housemaid there helped Williams convert to Islam in 1981, the culmination of a longtime spiritual quest. Switching faiths proved just as controversial for Williams as for Ansam's family. She lost her job with the Christian relief group and faced a strained relationship with her parents, who were devout followers of the Church of God and Christ. "My father hung up the phone," Williams said. "I called back again and my mother answered this time. She said, `I still love you,' then she hung up too."

Williams remained in Senegal, where she studied Islam and married a local Muslim activist. He died of a heart attack when she was five months pregnant; she miscarried three months later. That experience, Williams said, helps her empathize with the grief of the Iraqi women she reaches out to in Anbar. "I was a 24-year-old widow, so I understand how it is out here to be a young widow," Williams said. "I would walk the streets in Washington, D.C., and ask myself, `Why am I alive?'" Struggling to recover from the tragedy, Williams dabbled in agricultural studies, then worked briefly at the World Bank. She found her calling in 1989 when she joined the U.S. Foreign Service, which offered her the opportunity to create cultural affairs programs in far-flung posts across the globe.

Ansam and Williams first crossed paths when they worked on an empowerment program for Iraqi women in Anbar. They clicked instantly, marveling at the parallels in their lives: grief for their parents, tests of their faith, life as civilian women among battle-hardened Marines and a determination to improve the lives of ordinary Iraqis. Ansam and Williams spent the past week in Baghdad, where Williams lobbied U.S. refugee officials, compiled Ansam's recommendation letters, surfed the Internet for federal resettlement options and sent flurries of e-mails to military and civilian friends with influence in Washington.

When Iraqi officials stalled on Ansam's passport, Williams picked up the phone and warned them in Arabic to issue the document or face her wrath. "I believe God has his angels and Angela is one of them. If I get out of this, I owe her my life," Ansam said. "The others tried; I know they did. They wrote nice letters, but it always ended with a problem with the law."

The friends cut a striking pair as they strolled together through the ornate marble halls of the Republican Palace one recent day. Ansam was in full camouflage and toted a Burger King sack. Williams was in her trademark black and yelled, "Assalamu alaikum!" - the Islamic greeting of "Peace be upon you" - to Iraqi colleagues. They walked to lunch, oblivious to the double takes of the soldiers and security contractors who roam the palace. Williams put her arm protectively around Ansam, looked her square in the eye and said: "No one's forgetting you." Read more.

Caption: Ansam, an Iraqi translator for coalition forces whose last name is withheld because of death threats against her, at Camp Fallujah. Ansam hasn't been able to gain asylum in the United States, despite letters of recommendation from a Marine brigadier general, several colonels and a number of other officers who praised her service as a translator and guide. Photo: Hannah Allam/MCT

Niger RPCV Charles Dufresne is a Partner at InterWorks, a Madison firm that helps agencies around the world respond to disasters and provide humanitarian aid
"I started off as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa and did that for two years. I was involved in community development programs and . . . I got involved in setting up groups and technical experts to transfer those skills. Then I worked with a language and literacy training organization in Minnesota, the Minnesota Literacy Council, their English as a second language program, with refugees and immigrants settling in the Twin Cities. Quickly I got involved in setting up training and recruiting tutors so I found myself again involved in that. I got increasingly intrigued in how people learn."

I work with people who are trying to do humanitarian work and they're working in extremely complex situations, places like Sudan and Afghanistan . . . to say nothing of New Orleans. They're often put into positions and jobs where they have the desire to do something but not the refined skills and knowledge to do it. So again you come back to training and learning to equip these people to be more effective. "There's no such thing as perfection. There's only the process of perfecting." Read more.

Praise for Niger RPCV Susan Rich's "Cures Include Travel"
"Susan Rich writes gorgeous lyrical poetry which so courageously tells us the truth about the world, tells us the world is much larger than we Americans usually like to admit. Her beautiful ear, her fierce attention to detail, her deeply human empathy inspire me and make me glad. I am glad, no €”thrilled that there exists such a unique and memorable voice writing today about the joys and grievances of our planet, writing with such charge in ideas and language. In this age of irony as an end in itself and of art for art's sake, it is a rare luck to encounter a poet such as Susan Rich for whom living in this world and writing about it is one and the same flash of poetry's transforming revelation."

A generation of war-lords have made Somalia an archetype of natural disintegration and the power of tyrants. Even now, with the death of Mohammed Farah Aideed, there is no end in sight. But there is another dimension to Somalian politics: the radical role of women. Two years before the entire country collapsed into civil war, in Kismayo, Somalia's southern coastal city, something happened that momentarily interrupted the slow march of strife over the body politic. A few dozen women, defying the conviction that enjoins female sartorial modesty, bared their breasts in public in front of a crowd of men. Fists raised, voices harsh, they shouted "Rise, Rise!", challenging the men to action, reproaching them for their failure to confront the excesses of the dictatorship. By challenging the men in this manner, the women implied that they would not from then on defer to them as husbands, fathers, or figures of authority. (From The Times Literary Supplement (London), (November 15, 1996), pp. 44) Read Susan Rich's Poem "the Women of Kismayo" about this event:

The Women of Kismayo

The breasts of Kismayo assembled
along the mid-day market street.

No airbrushed mangoes, no
black lace, no underwire chemise.

No half-cupped pleasures,
no come-hither nods, no Italian

centerfolds. Simply the women
of the town telling their men

to take action, to do something
equally bold. And the husbands

on their way home, expecting
sweet yams and meat,

moaned and covered their eyes,
screamed like spoiled children

dredged abruptly from sleep—
incredulous that their women

could unbutton such beauty
for other clans, who

(in between splayed
hands) watched quite willingly.

Give us your guns, here is our
cutlery, we are the men!

the women sang to them
an articulation without shame.

And now in the late night hour
when men want nothing but rest,

they fold their broken bodies, still
watched by their wives cool breasts

round, full, commanding as colonels—
two taut nipples targeting each man.

— Susan Rich, from her collection of Poetry "Cures include Travel" Follow this link to order the book.

Read more about Peace Corps Niger.

RPCV Donna Shalala to co-chair bipartisan presidential commission

Donna Shalala and Robert Dole co-chair bipartisan presidential commission charged with looking into the care of wounded service members
President Bush named Donna Shalala and Bob Dole to head the commission, which he formed in response to a growing outcry over the care of wounded outpatient soldiers. Demands for corrective action arose among the public and in Congress after The Washington Post last month exposed squalid living conditions in a decrepit Army-owned building just outside Walter Reed and highlighted bureaucratic obstacles and delays in the outpatient treatment of soldiers who suffered serious injuries, including brain trauma, in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This is going to be comprehensive; it's going to be vigorous," Shalala said as she and Dole stood outside the White House after their meeting with Bush. "And neither one of us are afraid of talking to the brass, whether it's the president of the United States or a general." Read more.

The Miami Herald writes: University of Miami President Donna Shalala is an invaluable community
asset
People throw around terms like ''transformational leader'' and ''change agent.'' President Shalala brings life and meaning to those words. She has reinvigorated the already-strong UM, bringing new faces and energy to the senior leadership, revamping the curriculum, improving our students' experience and growing our medical enterprise. We hosted the 2004 presidential debate that focused the world's spotlight on our campus and on South Florida. We raised more than $1 billion well ahead of schedule. That money is being pumped into scholarships, academic programs, infrastructure and our community. We named two of our schools -- the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine and the Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music -- thanks to the generosity of two distinguished and philanthropic families.

The transformation of our medical school is astounding. Faculty and students are making incredible strides in research and patient care that have an immeasurable impact on the quality of our lives and on life itself. President Shalala's decision to invest in the biosciences will jump-start a new industry for South Florida that will provide jobs and, more important, cure diseases.  Read more.

RPCV Donna Shalala says:  "I like to think of the Peace Corps as the 51st star on the American flag, because it represents the very best in the American character"
"I like to think of the Peace Corps as the 51st star on the American flag, because it represents the very best in the American character. The Peace Corps is a voice for democracy and American values. Like the stitching of a quilt, it helps bring together the world's diverse cultures. And the Peace Corps sows the seeds of peace by planting the enthusiasm, ideals, and skills of America's young people in the soil of other nations. I know this from my own service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Iran in the 1960s."   Read more.

Donna Shalala says: "I'll never forget my own family's reaction in 1962 when I told them I was going to go half a world away to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Iran."
I'll never forget my own family's reaction in 1962 when I told them I was going to go half a world away to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Iran. As you can imagine, they were less than thrilled. You want to do what? For how long? My father even tried to bribe me by offering me a car if I chose Cleveland over Iran. I said, "No. I'm going."  And that was that. My grandmother had other ideas. She handed me this very gracefully worded letter -- in classical Arabic -- addressed to the headman of the village that I would be living in. She made it very clear that she expected her granddaughter to return to Cleveland -- in one piece. Her note read, "This is the daughter of a very important headman in the United States -- take care of her." Read more.

Find out more about Iran RPCV Donna Shalala.

Bill Moyers returns to US public television with weekly "Bill Moyers Journal" starting in April

Bill Moyers returns to US public television with weekly "Bill Moyers Journal" starting in April
Bill Moyers is returning to PBS public television in April with a weekly public affairs series, "Bill Moyers Journal," that resurrects the name of his first public television series for a new century. "People keep writing or stopping me on the street to suggest stories that are not being reported and voices that are not being heard," said the former press secretary for U.S. President Lyndon Johnson. "A lot of Americans long for more than convention wisdom, celebrity pundits, predictable opinions and safe analysis of the obvious."

The first episode on April 25 discusses the role of the press before the invasion of Iraq. Moyers' previous weekly series shut down in 2004. It became the center of controversy when it was revealed that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was monitoring the show for the political leanings of its guests.

Journalist Bill Moyers was the Deputy Director of the Peace Corps under founding Director Sargent Shriver.

Bill Moyers slams President Bush for "mind-boggling" contempt for proof of global warming and blamed what he called Bush's dependence on conservative Christians and multinational corporations
"Without the Christian right, the corporations that now control Washington would not have had the votes to eviscerate our environmental protections," Moyers said in a Chrysler Hall speech hosted by The Norfolk Forum. He also said Bush was "beholden to his corporate patrons and campaign contributors" and that corporations control the nation's environmental policy "lock, stock and barrel."

Religion is equally challenging because of the country's growing spiritual diversity, he said. "We have to ask, Can we avoid the intolerance, the chauvinism, the fanaticism, the bitter fruits that spring up when different religions are next-door neighbors?" Moyers said his wide-ranging interviews on subjects such as the book of Genesis showed him that each religion "offers a profound insight into human nature." "They have led me away from condescending toleration of other faiths to an anticipation and affirmation of positive engagement with them," said Moyers, who called himself both a journalist and a spiritual "pilgrim."

Bill Moyers delivers the Sol Feinstone Lecture on The Meaning of Freedom at the United States Military Academy at West Point
"This is a tough subject to address when so many of you may be heading for Iraq. I would prefer to speak of sweeter things. But I also know that 20 or 30 years from now any one of you may be the Chief of Staff or the National Security Adviser or even the President—after all, two of your boys, Grant and Eisenhower, did make it from West Point to the White House. And that being the case, it’s more important than ever that citizens and soldiers—and citizen-soldiers—honestly discuss and frankly consider the kind of country you are serving and the kind of organization to which you are dedicating your lives."

"People in power should be required to take classes in the poetry of war. As a presidential assistant during the early escalation of the war in Vietnam, I remember how the President blanched when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said it would take one million fighting men and 10 years really to win in Vietnam, but even then the talk of war was about policy, strategy, numbers and budgets, not severed limbs and eviscerated bodies."

"In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department. Beside the objection to such a mixture to heterogeneous powers, the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man. Twice in 40 years we have now gone to war paying only lip service to those warnings; the first war we lost, the second is a bloody debacle, and both rank among the great blunders in our history. It is impossible for soldiers to sustain in the field what cannot be justified in the Constitution; asking them to do so puts America at war with itself. So when the Vice President of the United States says it doesn’t matter what the people think, he and the President intend to prosecute the war anyway, he is committing heresy against the fundamental tenets of the American political order."

Caption:  Statue of Washington at West Point.

Read more stories about Bill Moyers.

Tunisia RPCV Lance Holter writes: 1st Lt. Ehren Watada risks it all in an act of moral conscience

Tunisia RPCV Lance Holter writes:  1st Lt. Ehren Watada risks it all in an act of moral conscience
"I learned about the courage of conviction last week when I met with a courageous young American patriot. A leader who lives by example. An individual, who out of a decision of moral conscience, refuses to participate in a war that he believes (after much personal research) violates the U.S. Constitution, Geneva accords, Nuremberg principals, and the United Nations Charter.  First Lieutenant Ehren Watada, a 28 year old U.S. Army artillery officer from Hawaii, has become the first active duty military officer publicly to oppose the war in Iraq.  As a result of his act of conscience and challenging what we now know about the war in Iraq, Lt. Watada is facing military court martial at Ft. Lewis Washington this February 5, 2007."

"I, for one, am outraged. If the past national election or national polls are any indication of America’s dissatisfaction and outrage with the Iraq war then I am in good company.   Seventy-two percent of the U.S. troops in a 2006 Zogby poll want the U.S. out Iraq in 12 months. So when an individual emerges with the integrity of Lt. Watada, all of us benefit, whether we agree with him or not. In the national debate on the Iraq war we have an island boy risking all that he has including his future to help us all arrive at the truth."  Read more and leave your comments.

Caption: 1st Lt. Ehren Watada

Lt. Ehren Watada, son of Peru RPCV Robert Watada, calls Iraq war illegal, refuses order to go
"I feel that we have been lied to and betrayed by this administration," Watada said in a telephone interview from Fort Lewis. "It is the duty, the obligation of every soldier, and specifically the officers, to evaluate the legality, the truth behind every order — including the order to go to war." His father — Robert Watada, a retired Hawaii state official — was opposed to the war in Vietnam, and was able to do alternative service in the Peace Corps in Peru.

In making his decision, Watada has reached out to peace groups, including clergy, students, some veterans opposed to Iraq and others. Some war critics are raising money for his legal defense as they seek to galvanize broader opposition to Bush administration policy in Iraq.  Read more and leave your comments.

Caption: Lt. Ehren Watada, center, with his niece Kodie Watada and his father, Robert, who opposed the Vietnam War and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru.

India RPCV Charles L. Griffin Jr. writes: Why I am for universal national service

India RPCV Charles L. Griffin Jr. writes: Why I am for universal national service
"I served in a draft Army, but as a volunteer. I followed that with two years in the Peace Corps, also as a volunteer. In total, I put in five years of service that gave me experiences that would have been difficult to gain on my own. Volunteers in the Peace Corps were also from every walk of life, with the exception that most were college graduates or had valuable life experience to share. Young people, 18 to 30 years of age, mixed with professionals or retirees who might be as old as 80, and all trained together before being broadcast about some developing country to isolated spots in a totally foreign culture. It was not something they all could handle. Being volunteers, they could un-volunteer at any time, and many did. Some simply could not meet the physical requirements or could not adjust to a different culture or the lack of privacy."

"Through these experiences I came to believe that the dynamics of becoming engaged in an alien culture, and I include the rituals and traditions of the military as a culture alien to everyday Americans, is as valuable in one's education as a degree. Perhaps more so. "

"The ultimate benefit of both kinds of service is the production of citizens knowledgeable of the sacrifice and dedication of those who work to better the world or protect it from those who would bring about chaos and destruction. Neither route is safe. There is a long list of volunteers who died in service and a much longer list of those who died in the military. Today's American youth are famously regarded as soft, fat and self-centered. While there are many exceptions to that stereotype, a universal national-service requirement would go a long way in countering the trend."

Read the rest of the op-ed and leave your comments.

"Peace Corps Online" and NPCA collaborate on story "Snowshoe Bob" in Worldview Magazine

"Peace Corps Online" and NPCA collaborate on story "Snowshoe Bob" in Worldview Magazine
Robert Paul died September 8 of this year when a suicide car-bomber struck his Humvee in Kabul, Afghanistan. Sgt. Paul was in his third year of active duty in the Army reserves and had completed two years in Iraq commanding a civil affairs unit in Baghdad. Paul had also served in Peace Corps in Kenya and last year, while studying Thai at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, joined a 2005 e-mail debate peacecorpsonline.com (sic) about Peace Corps as an incentive for military recruitment. Read more.

He served with honor
One year ago, Staff Sgt. Robert J. Paul (RPCV Kenya) carried on an ongoing dialog on "Peace Corps Online" on the military and the peace corps and his role as a member of a Civil Affairs Team in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have received a report that Sargeant Paul has been killed by a car bomb in Kabul. Words cannot express our feeling of loss for this tremendous injury to the entire RPCV community. Most of us didn't know him personally but we knew him from his words. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends. He was one of ours and he served with honor. Read the original discussion with Bob Paul on "Peace Corps Online" here.

Friends and Family remembers Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Robert Paul killed in Afghanistan
Paul's mother said her son never stopped charting his own path, whether it was taking German when French and Spanish were the only languages offered, or announcing over dinner that he had joined the Peace Corps. "His first year there, he learned Swahili, and that's a very hard language, I understand," she said. "Then when that year was up, he called and said he was staying another year."  When he left for Afghanistan "I asked, 'Is there anybody I can call to get you out,'" his mother recalled tearfully. "He said, 'You don't understand; I want to go.' Kenya RPCV Robert Paul worked in a Civil Affairs unit in Afghanistan.  He was killed in a car bombing in 2006. Read more.