Carl Childress says: The Peace Corps was a resounding success in the 60s. It would fail miserably today



Forty years ago, surveys showed that graduating college seniors wanted to do something for mankind. Surveys today show they only want to do something for themselves. The Peace Corps was a resounding success in the 60s. It would fail miserably today.

Carl Childress says: The Peace Corps was a resounding success in the 60s. It would fail miserably today

A volunteer, hence an idealist

"Coach," I wrote, "the fact you are a volunteer is indeed germane to how you view baseball."

Volunteer coaches, I fear, are a vanishing species. They are being killed off by training clinics for players, for umpires, even for coaches; by TV; by the general "selfishness" of today's society. Forty years ago, surveys showed that graduating college seniors wanted to do something for mankind. Surveys today show they only want to do something for themselves. The Peace Corps was a resounding success in the 60s. It would fail miserably today.

You are obviously an idealist. You and Robert Browning would have been great friends: God's in his Heaven, all's right with the world. Honesty is the best policy. Winners never cheat, and cheaters never win. Life is just a bowl of cherries. I'm looking over, a four-leaf clover. My parents were life-long idealists — and marvelous people. Idealists always are. They take a lickin', and they keep on tickin'.

When this story was posted in October 2004, this was on the front page of PCOL:

Kerry reaches out to Returned Volunteers The Kerry campaign wants the RPCV vote. Read our interview with Dave Magnani, Massachusetts State Senator and Founder of "RPCVs for Kerry," and his answers to our questions about Kerry's plan to triple the size of the Peace Corps, should the next PC Director be an RPCV, and Safety and Security issues. Then read the "RPCVs for Kerry" statement of support and statements by Dr. Robert Pastor, Ambassador Parker Borg, and Paul Oostburg Sanz made at the "RPCVs for Kerry" Press Conference. RPCV Carl Pope says the key to winning this election is not swaying undecided voters, but persuading those already willing to vote for your candidate to actually go to the polls. Take our poll and tell us what you are doing to support your candidate. Finally read our wrap-up of the eight RPCVs in Senate and House races around the country and where the candidates are in their races.

---

Director Gaddi Vasquez: The PCOL Interview PCOL sits down for an extended interview with Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez. Read the entire interview from start to finish and we promise you will learn something about the Peace Corps you didn't know before. Plus the debate continues over Safety and Security.

Schwarzenegger praises PC at Convention Governor Schwarzenegger praised the Peace Corps at the Republican National Convention: "We're the America that sends out Peace Corps volunteers to teach village children." Schwarzenegger has previously acknowledged his debt to his father-in-law, Peace Corps Founding Director Sargent Shriver, for teaching him "the joy of public service" and Arnold is encouraging volunteerism by creating California Service Corps and tapping his wife, Maria Shriver, to lead it. Leave your comments and who can come up with the best Current Events Funny?

Peace Corps: One of the Best Faces of America Teresa Heinz Kerry celebrates the Peace Corps Volunteer as one of the best faces America has ever projected in a speech to the Democratic Convention. The National Review disagreed and said that Heinz's celebration of the PCV was "truly offensive." What's your opinion and can you come up with a Political Funny?

Read the stories and leave your comments.