Yesterday, I had an article proposing that the U.S. Peace Corps be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. (That article is here.) Much of the mail on the subject said, “Disgusting lefty organization, disgusting lefty prize.” Well, there is a certain amount of truth to that — certainly to the second part of that equation.
But I thought you might like to read this letter:
Just a quick note to thank you for your column . . . The Corps (or “Corpse,” as our president would say) doesn’t get a lot of respect from the right, so your words were a welcome change.
I was always a bit ambivalent toward them myself, having grown up in the ’60s, when so much utopian nonsense was thrown around. I put them in more or less the same category as the U.N.: Nice idea, but easily abused.
I started to think differently when my middle daughter graduated from college a couple of years ago. She announced that she was putting in her application to the Peace Corps. Of my three voting-age children, she was the one to vote for McCain and is a pretty solid conservative. And her degree is in social work! . . .
She is now in Kenya, working with deaf children. (She’s fluent in American Sign Language and competent in Kenyan Sign Language.) Kenya has an unusually large deaf population owing to certain childhood diseases, but the hearing population doesn’t have much interest in helping them. As it happens, the only people making an effort are Americans through the Peace Corps.
Another reminder why our country is truly exceptional.