When Richard Green left the University of Oklahoma to join the Peace Corps in 1967, the working conditions were abysmal and the pay was lousy. The days were long and the nights were lonely. Years later, it still looks like the best job he ever had.



When Richard Green left the University of Oklahoma to join the Peace Corps in 1967, the working conditions were abysmal and the pay was lousy. The days were long and the nights were lonely. Years later, it still looks like the best job he ever had.

World view: Student plans Peace Corps adventure

By Tom Lindley
The Oklahoman

[Excerpt]

When Richard Green left the University of Oklahoma to join the Peace Corps in 1967, the working conditions were abysmal and the pay was lousy. The days were long and the nights were lonely.

Years later, it still looks like the best job he ever had.

Green signed on thinking he would teach modern math to teachers in the province of Bulacan on Luzon Island in the Philippines. Instead, he installed flush toilets and built outhouses in a mining community in the mountains.

In appreciation of his plumbing skills, the town mayor took Green to a mountain pass that was the site of a World War II battle between the Japanese and an allied force of Filipinos and Americans. Green said the mayor then unholstered his Colt six-gun and they took turns shooting at paper targets.

"Through a little reading, a lot of observation and experience and plenty of trial and error, I learned that everyone views life through cultural filters," said Green, who now is employed by the Chickasaw Nation to research and write tribal history.

"To get on with people who had markedly different values and beliefs, I tried to understand those differences while adopting some, adapting to others and at least acknowledging the rest. Those two Peace Corps years were not the happiest, but they were the most meaningful of my life."

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

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?

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