The Peace Corps and the Returned Peace Corps Community have tremendous support from around the world.  Here is what some people have to say:

MorePeaceCorps/Less Money--Something to Think About Over the Labor Day Weekend

We know from the Peace Corps HQ and Congressional debates that the agency is facing an estimated $8.7 million loss in fiscal year 2008 from the weakening dollar and the tight budget. This will decrease the number of Volunteers worldwide by up to 5 %, or 400 people this coming year.
 
The Peace Corps responded to the problem by closing two recruitment offices (Minneapolis and Denver) to cut its losses and, of course, you don’t need to recruit if you don’t want the PCVs. Friends on overseas staffs are saying that they are cutting back on requests as HQ tells them that they can’t afford to send new PCVs overseas. Also staffs are being cut overseas and in Washington, D.C.

So much for MorePeaceCorps.

What this means is that an enlarged Peace Corps is a nice idea, but it is just a nice idea.

However, that is all about to change. Once we have an election, we will have National Service enacted, regardless of who is elected. Both McCain and Obama want National Service, but for different reasons.

McCain wants and needs bodies for his wars. National Service is the army draft under another name. If McCain is elected (and I’m afraid he will be) he will respond to any problem in the Middle East or Eastern Europe with increases to the military, weapons as well as bodies. He needs young men and women and that means everyone who reaches 18 will serve somewhere, somehow, with or without a rifle.

The smart kids, the well connected kids, and those who go to College, will beat a quick path to the Peace Corps, VISTA, Teach for America, and perhaps ‘church related’ service organizations for their National Service. Everyone else will be drafted. (What we tend to forget is that 85% of all Americans never go to college, never earn a BA.)

Obama wants National Service but for other reasons. He believes in service and he has the full backing of people like Harris Wofford who has been talking about National Services since Wofford was in pre-school. Wofford is one of Obama’s advisers.

What this means for the Peace Corps is that the agency will get fully funded and the number of PCVs overseas will grow—we have to put these college kids somewhere!

John Coyne
Peace Corps Writers

Charlie Rounds and Lucy Mize:

As returned Peace Corps Volunteers (Cameroon 1978-80), we learned first hand what it was like to be strangers in small villages. We learned about universal kindness and the embrace of families as we developed friendships and kinships with our Cameroonian neighbors. We learned it didn't matter that we came from privileged backgrounds and our students from poverty, the first days of rainy season were cause for elation and joy amongst us equally.  We watched our fellow Peace Corps volunteers play pick-up basketball with Chinese herbalists who were living in Cameroon right near our training camp, it was our own private contribution to détente and expanding the channels of communication. We had no common language but somehow the game was played and the feast was shared.

So what does all this have to do with Barak Obama?  His international life experiences and his parentage of two races have created a man who can lead our country into the future of continued globalization and cultural enmeshment. He can appreciate the small man from Africa as well as the storied giant from Europe, he can feel the universal condition of people who want better things for their children. He is not so smug or arrogant to think he knows all the answers but continuously says "Let's talk to each other, lets figure things out." In Cameroon, that process is called "palaver" and we want a president who can "palaver", who can reach across to uncommon enemies and find common ground.  The sign at our flight registration desk in JFK where we were boarding the plane for the Peace Corps said we were going to the beyond.  We want and need a young president who can take us to the beyond, to places where we try new solutions to old problems, where we dialogue with many voices and where all people are welcome to work for a better solution.   We were Peace Volunteers a lifetime ago but those experiences marked us indelibly as internationalists and as people who can create quilted communities of common experiences and desires.  Barak Obama's life has marked him just as indelibly and makes him uniquely qualified to take us on the journey of the next decade. We support him and we vote for him

Lucy Mize 1978- 1980
Charlie Rounds 1978 -1981
Cameroon

Charlie Rounds
President
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