Leave the Peace Corps alone

I’ve said it before, and, humbly in my practiced manner, I say it again. Donald Trump is a miracle worker. His miracle? He is worse than I anticipated and that ain’t easy to do. His slash and burn compulsion as government policy is beyond my understanding. There is much to cite, but I have a favorite program I’ve watched from its beginnings. It’s on the chopping block.

If I had the role of deciding who went to the head of the line on the way to Heaven, it would be Peace Corps volunteers; every one of the 240,000 Americans who have served since John Kennedy signed the executive order creating it in 1961. He named his brother-in-law to run it, providing glamour to a program that had, for several sessions, been the unsuccessful passion of Sen. Hubert Humphrey.

This past year, 3,000 volunteers were working in 60 countries on health, education, agriculture, the environment, and community development, among other things. They were quietly changing peoples’ lives, including their own.

They all went off to promote “a better understanding of America on the part of the people they serve, and likewise, promoting a “better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.” These service opportunities have allowed them to apply their unique skills and learn new ones that help make them productive members of the U.S. workforce, while making a tangible difference and building positive relationships among people who had known no Americans previously.

Long after Trump and despite him, millions of people, in their own languages and in 114 countries will sing their own versions of “America the Beautiful.” Peace Corps volunteers leave behind better educated, healthier people. They also take away the democratic joys they have shared and implanted.

I have recently been in contact with three Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs). One is my nephew who grew up in an affluent Jewish suburb of Minneapolis and is an M.I.T. and Berkeley graduate. By email, I’ve met a man here in Iowa who was born in a camp where we interned Japanese Americans during World War II. I also depended on a special friend of 50 years who was born in Louisiana, but raised on Guam. She served in India keeping chickens happy and the poor fed. All look back on their service as a precious part of their very different lives and backgrounds.

In my work as an aide to Vice President Hubert Humphrey, I was the advance man for his trips overseas. I found a Peace Corps group in a small village outside the capital of Somalia. PCVs had built a school and were teaching. It seemed a perfect photo op for the Vice President. He had been the first advocate in the Senate for creating the Peace Corps, long before it became real in 1961.

After setting up the visit to the school I discovered that the village might very well have been the malaria capital of the world. Everyone in town seemed to have it. Humphrey, who had some germ fears, shook hands with 10 locals — in about 20 seconds.

I know that not all Peace Corps volunteers come home happy with their experiences, but I haven’t met one yet.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.