Tag Archives: American Soviet Peace Corps (ASPC)

Buffett Request

People’s Lobby Inc. (501c4)

People’s Lobby Education Foundation (501c3)

www.PeoplesLobby.us

5/11/2018

Mr. Warren Buffett:

Because of my service as a Peace Corps Urban Community Development volunteer  in Mumbai, India from 1966-1968, I write hoping you will pen some supportive words for People’s Lobby’s   nontraditional funding mechanism (NTFM).  The NTFM will fund fielding 21,000,000 Americans into peaceful, healthy national service over the ensuing 27 years via enacting its American World Service Corps (AWSC) Congressional Proposal.

Peace Corps service exposed me to the engrained disparities of life and provided the “why” that has me pushing People’s Lobby’s   American World Service Corps Congressional Proposal for over 10 years.  The AWSC is a simple, effective means to involve the super-rich in funding millions of Americans to reduce ugly disparities.  Those engrained disparities remain with me, like…  Giving the few rupees I had to men scavenging through an  8’ mound of garbage piled in Bombay’s streets at midnight, watching a woman dying on the  curbside of a well-traveled bridge with only a rag covering some of her breast and a white textured substance covering her pelvic area, staring at a child a few feet away from me while lying on my backpack at the train station as the child scooped and licked its own diarrhea…

I served in an era where working as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) garnered one extra respect among a growing number of world citizens and humbled us PCVs via the enlightenment such service bestowed.  It was an era when Americans could safely roam just about anywhere.  It made me understand why John Kennedy wanted the Peace Corps to grow rapidly and robustly.

President Kennedy often expressed his visionary desire that “I would rather send the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps.”  Today’s Peace Corps, at about 7000, is less than half the size it was when it reached its peak of about 15,000 from 1966-68.

Today the world Increasingly sees the United States as the world’s preeminent War Corps.  Kennedy envisioned creating the world’s preeminent Peace Corps, inspiring other nations to build similar Service Corps.  Dealey Plaza bled out that vision of Camelot.

During the Vietnam War era, 9+ million served on active duty in the military.  Imagine how different the world would be if 9+ million Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV) had done active duty, rather than today’s meager 225,000 RPCVs sense its 1961 inception.

With climate weirding, violence, disasters, inequities, hatreds, etc., growing, isn’t it time that an Army of Gun-free Americans:

  • implemented the vision JFK had for the Peace Corps (and later VISTA, AmeriCorps, etc.)?
  • helped those who have little to live more securely?
  • Initiated a healthy competition among fellow Americans and the rest of the world that emanated from the good their peaceful National Service programs produced?
  • got to know fellow Americans and other nations citizens better via joint Peace Corps programs, such as Congresswoman Boxer’s HR 1807 of 1989, the US-Russian Peace Corps, which People’s Lobby inspired?
  • walked the talk about “greatness” that we so often bestow on ourselves?

I write with the hope that you may lend your stature to the envisioned nontraditional funding mechanism (NTFM) as a visionary, worthy, and doable mechanism that could provide billions of donated dollars from billionaires and celebrities; which would field millions of Americans doing good at home and abroad.

If enacted as written, annually for the first seven-year ramp-up, approximately 140,000 additional Americans would voluntarily choose to serve full time for a year or two for modest pay in their choice of:

Listed below are some of the peace building platoons of AWSC that would be dramatically enlarged and invigorated by fielding a million volunteers a year to their worthwhile efforts, after the initial seven-year ramp-up of the AWSC to a million.

Peace Corps AmeriCorps Habitat
Doctors Without Borders Head Start Mercy Corps
Oxfam Americans Friends Service Committee TechnoServe
Heifer Red Cross International Rescue Committee
Mercy Ships UN Volunteer Center Fuller Center for Housing
Boys & Girls Clubs State Conservation Corps In-need Schools
Hospitals Therapy Wards Homes for the Elderly Local Do-good Non-profits
Under-staffed needs Community Health Clinics Carter Center… Etc.

By the seventh year, one million American World Service Corps volunteers of all ages, or less than four-tenths of 1% of those aged 18-70+, would annually serve for a year or two at home or abroad in existing governmental and non-governmental organizations.  Only after 20 years could Congress consider sun-setting the AWSC legislation.  Therefore, over 27 years about 21 million Americans would have peacefully served producing good and goodwill at home and abroad organizations such as those above.

Written in a mix of legalese and laymanese, the American World Service Corps National Service (AWSCNS) Congressional Proposal  is at http://peopleslobby.us/awsc-congressional-proposal

To regain, retain, and rebuild our nation’s strength and stature, we need a robust AWSC to augment our proud military early in the 21st century.  The AWSCNS will:

  • Help keep us out of future trillion-dollar wars.
  • Make service less dangerous for our military.
  • Cost only a fraction of what the Iraq War has cost us.
  • Recycle most of its investment into the American economy by rewarding volunteers with their choice of four years of college tuition or equivalent investment in IRA and Medical Savings Accounts, home down payments, or tax credits.
  • Begin rebuilding our character, world image, and public policy IQ.
  • Respond more quickly and competently to climate weirding and natural disasters with an AWSC that can more quickly help rebuild after disasters.
  • Re-knit America’ s fraying unity by having Americans from different parts of the country address problems throughout the country and world. Serving together addressing needs provides a true picture of the world that peacefully educates and binds us together, making us saner and healthier.

Nontraditional funding mechanisms

The proposed legislation has traditional and non-traditional funding mechanisms.  If visionary leadership pushed and educated the nation on our nontraditional revenue streams, they could potentially eliminate any reliance on traditional tax revenue funding.

Funding raised by the non-traditional and voluntary funding streams would go directly into an escrow account dedicated to funding the AWSC, as outlined here http://peopleslobby.us/awsc/financing-awsc and depicted via power point here http://peopleslobby.us/coverage/powerpoints/forbes006funds.

With individuals like yourself, Gates, Turner, Nader, et al., calling on billionaires to give more, now is the time to offer the AWSCNS as a perfect place to invest their money in a safer, more prosperous future. If just the Forbes 400 annually donated between 1– 2.5% of their wealth to an escrowed account to fund the AWSCNS, no taxpayer dollars would be needed to fund 21 million serving at home and abroad over 27 years.

Including AWSCNS public spreadsheets for the Forbes Top Jocks, Top Celebs, Top CEOs, non-tax paying corporations, etc. in this voluntary donated funding mechanism, further reduces this (1-2.5%) minuscule voluntary donation percentage from American billionaires, whose number is now around 600.

Escrowed donations would be tracked via a publicly-viewable spread sheet, which may inspire billionaires to donate and common citizens to notate who donates.

Many of us see this as just a small step that supports your Giving Pledge.  It would be a wonderful way for the super-rich to provide a healthier and safer tomorrow by donating a minuscule portion of their wealth to a fund that involves millions of peaceful Americans in building a better today.  Such wise but minimal investment today would be good for healthy business tomorrow.

Joint Peace Corps

Included in the AWSCNS Congressional Proposal are calls for other nations to emulate our AWSC National Service program, as well as to form joint Peace Corps programs with other nations, such as the legislation People’s Lobby influenced Congresswoman Boxer ( http://peopleslobby.us/awsc/aspc/ ) to introduce as House Resolution 1807 of 1989.   (http://peopleslobby.us/hr-1807/ )

People’s Lobby would like to see the Joint US-USSR (Russia) Peace Corps pushed via the AWSCNS Congressional Proposal, and/or introduced as separate legislation. [An op-ed view here: (https://www.opednews.com/articles/Trump–Putin-buiild-army-by-Dwayne-Hunn-American-World-Service-Corps_American-World-Service-Corps-Congressional-Proposa_Americorps_Congress-170123-576.html&series=679 ).

The world could benefit greatly if U.S. and Russian relationships grew from a few astronauts working together in space to tens of thousands of Russian and American Peace Corps volunteers peacefully living, working, and serving together on earth.

Imagine what today’s world be like if 40,000 Russians and Americans had served together over the decades since HR1807 of 1989.

Info links

The top-row and drop-down links at the http://peopleslobby.us/ web site provide substantial information.  Videos, power points, and audios are included in the drop-downs.

Video feeds are available at http://peopleslobby.us/coverage/video

Some YouTubes are at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRbaWfRantA

Some audio at http://peopleslobby.us/coverage/audio/

About 80+ related op-eds appear at http://www.opednews.com/author/author6270.html.

Joint U.S.-Russian Peace Corps links at http://peopleslobby.us/hr-1807/                                      http://peopleslobby.us/awsc/aspc/

Supportive words from a man as respected as you could help our efforts with either/or/and the AWSCNS proposal and Joint Country Peace Corps Proposals.

In summary, we hope you will provide supportive words for:

  • Our nontraditional funding mechanisms that will encourage tentative congresspersons to think outside the funding box during this age of growing wealth inequities.
  • The AWSC proposal itself.
  • The reintroduction of HR 1807, the joint U.S.-Russian Peace Corps.

Thanks for considering.

Please contact me at any time for additional information, Dwayne Hunn, 415-383-7880, dh@peopleslobby.us, Facebook (Dwayne Hunn, People’s Lobby, and American World Service Corps Pages).

Sincerely,

Dwayne Hunn Ph.D. Executive Director, People’s Lobby

415-383-7880

What we can do for the world

San Francisco Chronicle.
San Francisco Chronicle.

   San Francisco Chronicle

THE VOICE OF THE WEST

 SATURDAY, JUNE 2,1990

 What We Can Do For the World

FOR MOST OF the 125,000 of us who worked with the Peace Corps, President John Kenne­dy’s 1961 inaugural words served as our invisible armband: “Ask not what America can do for you, but together what we can do for the freedom of man.”

Hopefully, President Bush was the world leader who said to Gorbachev during his visit to Washington: “Ask not what you can do for just your country, but together what we can do for the world.”

Bush should support legislation that provides for joint implementation with the Soviets of pro­jects that are designed to address problems In areas including care of the elderly and the disa­bled, health, and protection of the environment.

The sooner American and Soviet “peace corps volunteers” can serve under that invisible armband, the more quickly we will have fewer hungry and angry people.

At about $20,000 per volunteer per year, there are few better long-term investments. Shift­ing the $400 million (and climbing) that goes into building a single B-1 bomber to funding for 20,000 U.S. volunteers for a year In an American-Soviet Peace Corps would be a giant step toward a kind­er and gentler mankind.

This Peace Corps would start with Soviets and Americans training, living and working to­gether in their respective nations. Then volun­teers would live and work together on problems facing lesser-developed nations.

The world needs concerted and coordinated efforts from the superpowers so that they may better understand each other and global needs.

An American-Soviet Peace Corps would be a small step that moves all of mankind forward.

Dwayne Hunn is a former Peace Corps volunteer in India. He now lives in Mill Valley.

 

Peace Corps Dir. Coverdell, Kennedy, Boxer

Peace Corps Director  Coverdell on the American Soviet Peace Corps (ASPC) proposal.

Peace Corps Director Coverdell, one of several PCDs to support ASPC.
Peace Corps Director Coverdell, one of several PCDs to support ASPC.
Paul D. Coverdell Director
United States Peace Corps
1990 K Streel, N.W, Washington, D.C. 20526

 Office of the Director

November 14, 1989

Dear Dwayne:

Thank you for your recent, letter.  I enjoyed speaking with you at the Norcal Returned Peace Corps volunteers meeting in San Francisco regarding the American-Soviet Peace Corps proposal.  It is always good to hear feedback and suggestions from RPCVs. You will be pleased to know that meetings with Congresswoman Boxer and Congressman Kennedy have already been scheduled to further discuss this proposal.

Your interest in our Urban Initiative is also most appreciated.  I, too, feel Peace Corps should actively return to the cities, where Volunteers can have a significant impact on the development of these urban areas.

Again, thank you for your letter and information regarding the American-Soviet Peace Corps proposal.

Sincerely,

Paul D. Coverdell Director

United States Peace Corps

Peace Corps Director Coverdell’s letter in pdf, November 14,1989

While window is still open

Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Open Forum:

“Gorbachev world needs you.”

Gorbachev we miss ya...?  But push Putin to do the right thing anyway.
Gorbachev we miss ya…? But push Putin to do the right thing anyway.

Cleveland Plain Dealer, 9-15-1989

While the window is still open, FORUM

Dwayne Hunn

Gorbachev  has  opened  a window of opportunity to  the  world.   His changes give all politicians fewer excuses to not redirect military spending to pressing  social and humanitarian needs. While the window of  opportunity  is open,  we must establish programs that will open so many windows  that  the fresh, warm  air of new ideas will never again be closed by cold or hot wars.

One means of doing that is with an American-Soviet Peace Corps.

An American-Soviet Peace Corps would act much like the American Peace Corps established by President Kennedy in 1961.   Soviet  and  American volunteers  would  train for at least three months in  language,  custom, and work  skills  essential to their job performance.  From the  start  of  training until completion of service (usually two years later) a Soviet and an  American would  be roommates and workmates. This small program difference from the American Peace Corps could make a world of difference.

The results should be clear to all of us who have experienced living and working alongside strangers on projects that we knew were  worthwhile endeavors.   Interpersonal bonds will be built between the Soviet and  American volunteers as well as with those in whose nations the work is done.

From  their  time of service onward, each volunteer’s  “working  bonds” will allow all involved to more easily “reach out and touch someone” who  may be  half way around the world.  The world will more quickly become a global village of friends.

These working bonds will make it more difficult for radicals or  narrow minded bureaucrats to develop national hatred for nations  whose  volunteers have  worked at the grassroots level with their people.  The world  will  more personally  understand national needs and desires  because more people  from the  world’s  most  powerful nations will have worked face-to-face with  the people of nations in need.

Since 1961 approximately 125,000 American Peace Corps have served  in underdeveloped  nations  around the world.  Millions of people in underdeveloped nations  have  been  touched by the  efforts  of  those  volunteers. Without those efforts and resulting relationships, many of those nations would probably have more antagonistic policies toward America.

Consider this.  The Peace Corps was withdrawn from Nicaragua in  1979, as  the  Sandinistas  wrenched  power away  from  the  American  supported President  Somoza; and from Iran in 1976, as the Ayatolla’s  campaign against the  American supported Shah began toppling the Shah’s regime. An  American Peace Corps may not have been wanted in those countries during those troubled periods, but had an American-Soviet Peace Corps been in existence then, an option other than military support could have been added to the means  of reducing tensions in those areas.

Neither the American Peace Corps nor the American-Soviet Peace  Corps should  be  a  tool  of  diplomatic  policy.   It  is  obvious,  however, that international  crisis most often stem from the failure to provide  unmet  basic needs  — such as food, sanitation, health and literacy.  The state of today’s world does not presage that delivery of those needs is about to drastically improve.

  • The Green Revolution that started boosting world grain production in the late 60’s peaked in the mid-80’s. Consumption and population has continued to increase and carryover stocks of food have been falling.
  • Each year land area 6.5 times as large as Belgium becomes so impoverished  that they are unprofitable to farm or graze.  Desertification  marches on  as people in need cut trees for fuel and heat; erosion results from  the lost  root structures; rains erode fertile lands; rangelands for grazing are reduced and what remains is overgrazed.
  • Global temperature records spanning the last century show that the five warmest  years have all occurred in the eighties – 1980,1981,1983,1987,1988.   With  global  warming  comes  the  depletion  of  the  ozone    Scientists tell us that restoring the lost rain forests is one of the means of checking the disasters global warming and ozone depletion bring.

Of course, the profligate lifestyle lead by those of us born into the rich nations  of the world — carbon dioxide spewing automobiles for  the  shortest trip; chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs, alias freon) dumped into the atmosphere  from  air  conditioners,  refrigerators,  aerosol  sprayers  and  fast  food  carryout containers;  plastic, aluminum and convenience throwaways substituted for the most  minor social inconvenience polluting our shrinking landfills;  these  acts do  more  to  ravage  the  atmosphere than do  the  forest  cuttings  of  the struggling,  uneducated  and  unaware poor.

Yet, it may  be  that  only  by working  with the poor on their needs can we learn enough to make the  rich and  the poor more aware of the care needed to preserve our  fragile  planet. Watching the destruction of our environment on the television news or reading about  solutions in a newsmagazine will never foster the lifestyle change  that results from working on and against the problem.

Returned Peace Corps volunteers often say that the Peace Corps experience “taught them more than they  were  able  to teach.”  The same lessons would be etched into the American-Soviet  PCVs character.  Coming from the classroom of the world where needs and desires are more basic, their experiences would help change the wasteful lifestyle that harms the environment and harmonious social progress.

While attending Cleveland’s St. Ignatius High School, the Jesuits had me reading books by Dr. Tom Dooley and Albert Schweitzer.  Thoughts about the authors’ work among the poor in less developed areas of the world never left some  corner  of  my mind.  Years later I was part of a  Peace  Corps  Urban Community  Development Group working in the slums of Bombay where  maimed beggars,  poor  people  scavenging  garbage piles for  food became common sights and where rats  outnumbered  the population 5-1.

Years later, from comfortable Marin County California, those memories prompted me to try to start a model Soviet American  Peace  Corps  with  foundation funding.  Failing to raise the needed funding, I sought Congressional support.

In the spring 1989 session of Congress, Congresswoman Boxer introduced HR 1807 requesting:

“… the President to conclude agreements with the appropriate representative of the Government of the Soviet Union to create the United State-Soviet Peace Corps.”

A United States-Soviet Peace Corps could give the world cleaner skies under which fewer hungry and fewer angry people could sleep.

 

Boxer will introduce American Soviet Peace Corps

Draft -may delete

In 1988 Congresswoman Boxer took the American Soviet Peace Corps proposal, which started as a model program competing for a Buck Trust grant, and introduced it into Congress as HR 1807.

Click the link below to read her May 25, 1988 letter giving her reasons for doing so:

Boxer-Will-Introduce-ASPC-88

Read her September 1, 1988 “working on letter” here

Boxer says “working on” US-Soviet Peace Corps legislation

Have you asked her to do it again this year for America’s World Service Corps Congressional Proposal, giving us the army the 21st century needs?

Boxer introduces. To start in each nation.
Boxer introduces. To start in each nation.
Congress of United States
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

May 25, 1988

Dear Mr.   Hunn:

Thank you for contacting me again about the Soviet-American Peace Corps.  I am very pleased to see that you have continued to work on raising the profile of the concept.  I am very impressed by your tireless dedication to the creation of such an organization.

I have in fact given the subject further thought, and I plan to introduce the enabling legislation. I apologize if you perceive us to be moving slowly, but I  assure you it is only a function of the legislation and concomitant workload to which we have already committed for this session, and not a lack of enthusiasm for your proposal.

Beyond the issues John Callon of my staff discussed with you regarding the necessity of an open application and admissions process, I am also of a mind that the initial program should be directed at work on projects in the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., rather than leaping fully from the start into Third World development. I believe doing it this way would simplify the initial organizational and logistical challenge, leave more room for the massaging of any problems which arise, and keep the program more directly in the public eye. This would allow public awareness and support for the program to grow. I would be interested in your reaction to this.

When I have the proposal drafted, I will send it to you and meet with Representative Kennedy to discuss it.   Your feedback before the bill is in final form will be important.

Thank you again for your excellent efforts.  I look forward to working with you further. We will get back to you in two weeks.

In friendship,

BARBARA BOXER

Member of Congress

BB: jc

TV 50 editorials

During the late 1980’s I did a number of these TV public service announcements pushing the ASPC.  Imagine how much healthier our and Russia’s relations with the world would be today had we built it 20+ years ago.

Feel free to do your own PSAs on TV or to just a couple friends… or pests.

While at it, why not ask past supporters and now Senators Boxer and Feinstein to bring back the American Soviet Peace Corps (ASPC) and link it with the American World Service Corps (AWSC).

TV50 – EDITORIALS TWO

BY DWAYNE HUNN  PEACE CORPS#2 March  1988

GRANDPA HENRY

USED TO SAY “SHARE

A FOXHOLE WITH A

STRANGER AND

YOU’LL COME AWAY

WITH A FRIEND.”

AMERICANS AND

SOVIETS SHOULD NOT

SHARE OR FACE EACH

OTHER ACROSS FUTURE

FOXHOLES.  INSTEAD

THEY SHOULD

SHARE A SOVIET

AMERICAN PEACE

CORPS WHERE COLLEGE

GRADUATES FROM

EACH NATION TRAIN,

WORK AND LIVE

TOGETHER.  A SAPC

THAT EMULATES THE

PEACE CORPS SUCCESS

IN:

1) WORKING ON THE

BASIC PROBLEMS OF

POVERTY

2) LEARNING ABOUT

THE WORLD’S TRUE

NEEDS &

3) MAKING FRIENDS

TREATIES BREAK

DOWN WHEN RADICAL

LEADERSHIP CHANGES

TAKE PLACE IN

GOVERNMENTS WITH

PHILOSOPHIES AS

DISPARATE AS OURS.

THAT’S ONE REASON

WHY WE SHOULD TAKE

ADVANTAGE OF THE

GORBACHEV/REAGAN

ERA AND

INSTITUTIONALIZE A

SAPC.

SHOW GRAPHIC

IF 20,000 SOVIETS

AND AMERICANS

SERVED TOGETHER IN

LESSER DEVELOPED

COUNTRIES OVER THE

NEXT 10 YEARS, NO

MORE BERLIN WALLS

WOULD GO UP AND

ONE WOULD COME

DOWN.

GRAPHIC OUT

WRITE CONGRESS.

TELL THEM

AMERICA’S

LEADERSHIP SHOULD

GO TO GORBACHEV AT

THE JUNE SUMMIT

AND SAY “ASK NOT

WHAT YOU CAN DO

FOR JUST YOUR

COUNTRY.  BUT ASK

WHAT, TOGETHER, WE

CAN DO FOR THE

WORLD.”

.PA    ————————

TV50 – EDITORIAL ONE

BY DWAYNE HUNN PEACE CORPS #1

DID YOU KNOW THAT

UNTIL 1987

MILITARY MARCHING

BANDS HAD A LARGER

BUDGET THAN THE

PEACE CORPS?

THAT THE

PEACE CORPS 1986

BUDGET OF

APPROXIAMTELY $110

MILLION EQUALS ITS

1966 BUDGET?  WHAT

HAS CHANGED,

HOWEVER, IS THE

NUMBER OF

VOLUNTEERS SERVING

IN LDCs — FROM A

1966 PEAK OF

15,500 TO 5,500 IN

THE WORLD’S NEED

HAS NOT LESSENED.

WHAT HAS CHANGED,

OVER THE 25 YEARS

SINCE PRESIDENT

KENNEDY STARTED

THE PEACE CORPS,

IS THE DIRECTION

OUR LEADERSHIP HAS

GIVEN OUR NATION

IN DEVELOPING A

GLOBAL STRATEGY

FOR PEACE.

IT COSTS

$20,000 TO PUT A

PCV IN THE FIELD

FOR A YEAR.

TRANSFERRING THE

MONEY NEEDED TO

BUILD ONE B-1

BOMBER WOULD

DOUBLE THE SIZE OF

PEACE CORPS.

HELPING POOR

COUNTRIES BECOME

SELF SUFFICIENT

MAKES THEM FUTURE

TRADING MARKETS

AND HELPS

THEM REJECT

RADICAL “ISMS”.

ENLARGING      THE

PEACE CORPS MAKES

US A SMARTER

NATION AND THAT

WILL SAVE US FROM

MORE COSTLY

PROBLEMS LATER ON.

 

Some ASPC coverage

Imagine if those seeds had been growing for 30 years...
Imagine if those seeds had been growing for 30 years…

 Tuesday, Sept. 3, 1985, Marin Independent Journal

OPINION  \ EDITORIALS

 We must plant the seeds of peace

By Dwayne Hunn

FOR MORE THAN A DECADE the deserts have spread over once-produc­tive African lands. Now African famines are the harvests being reaped. In our Latin American back yard inflation soars, insurrections take innocent lives, governments tumble and communist regimes spring up or become more likely.

Our answer? Politically, the out-of-power party blames the in-power party for not implementing a long-range plan to combat such tragedies and evils. What I propose is a program for which both parties can take credit – the Democrats for initiating it and the Republicans for expanding it. Ronald Reagan, the Great Communicator of this decade, could assure his place on the list of great presidents by a simple bold but peaceful move.

In the early 1960s, Sargent Shriver, the Peace Corps first director, said:

    “If the Pentagon’s map is more urgent, the Peace Corps is, perhaps, in the long run the most important…What happens in India, Africa, and South America – whether the nations where the Peace Corps works succeed or not – may well determine the balance of peace.”

    In 1966 America spent $114 million to send 15,556 Peace Corps volunteers into service, the most dollars ever committed to volunteers.

At the time, Sen. Jacob Javits proposed a Peace Army of a million young men. Labor leaders advocated a service corps of 100,000. The Peace Corps first deputy director, Warren Wiggins, called for a corps of 30,000 to 100,000.
In 1984 America spent approximately $108.5 million and sent approximately 5,200 volunteers into service.
What happened? Had the world’s plight improved so much that we could cut the Peace Corps by two-thirds? Were the hearts and minds of enough Third World people swayed to see the economic and social benefits of the democratic way? Had communist-inspired tur­moil and revolt diminished? Did we find a better way to let the world know who we Americans were than by exporting our skills, courage and heart through the Peace Corps?
From 1965 to 1974, we assigned 2,582,304 soldiers with a budget of $138.1 billion to defoliate, mutilate and whore over the countryside of Vietnam. The cost for these services was $53,480 per soldier. In that same period we sent 108,579 Peace Corps volunteers with a budget of $956 million to teach, build and inspire over the world. The cost was $8,809 per volunteer.
If America had used the Southeast Asian war budget to send volunteers into the world, America could have sent more than 15 million people out to plant crops, ideas and ideals. Which choice do you think would have most benefited our long-term national security de­sires? Our economy? The global village’s needs?
Former California Congressman John Bur­ton in his last Washington Report to his constituents wrote in 1981:

“When I was first elected to Congress eight and one-half years ago, some of the issues facing us were the war in Vietnam, the escalating arms race… Now as I leave Congress, the issues are American involvement in Nicaragua and other parts of Central America, which might become the next Viet­nam, the nuclear arms race typified by the MX missile…”

What America needs today is leadership that will put 100,000-plus volunteers into the field of economic development:

  • Challenging communist economic ideas with practical programs.
  • Helping Africa reclaim its desert and grow food.
  • Pitting the character of the working volunteer against the slogans of radicals and terrorists attempting to antagonize the masses.
  • Establishing the economic and education­al infrastructure of developing countries.

Then we need leadership that challenges the Russians to do the same. President Reagan is the only leader that could do this today.

In 1963 President John Kennedy said:

“In some small village, volunteers will lay a seed which will bring a rich harvest for us all in later days.”

  He was right. It happened. But the crop comes from small gardens. We should be tilling fields upon fields. The time is late. We need to lay more seeds.

Dwayne Hunn of Mill Valley sewed in the Peace Corps in India from 1966-68 and speaks to groups about the importance of the Peace Corps.

When strong players partner-up, do good teams grow from them?
When strong players partner-up, do good teams grow from them?

Marin Independent Journal, Wednesday July 2,  1986

Partnership to build a better Earth

By Dwayne Hunn

DARTH VADER need not battle homeless white knights eons from now if treacherous frontiers are conquered today.

Reagan:  Gorbachev, my boy, the whole world knows your economy is not red hot and your Ukrainian breadbasket is leaking hot wa­ter. You also have some money and media problems that even you must admit.Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev could assure this result at the next summit meeting. Their conversation could go something like this:

On the other hand, our stock market is sizzling and I am cutting our peoples’ taxes.  With so much spare change, I am about to give another $300 billion to the Pentagon.

Since you Russians have this penchant for wanting to keep up with the Pentagon Jones.  I can imagine what this does to the nerves of the Politburo’s allowance-givers.  So I am about to make you an offer you would be a fool to refuse.

Gorbachev:  Why would a politician such as you make me a good deal?

Reagan:  Maybe because it is the right thing to do, or because I am tired of you and those Democrats calling me a gun-swaggering cowboy.

Gorbachev:  What is in it for me?

Reagan:  You help your nation’s image without marching in your army or mercenaries.  You force your snobbish international delegates to learn some etiquette.  You give your increasingly restless young people and many of your older ones – who instead of getting wiser have of late only been getting drunker – an outlet for their pent-up energies.

Gorbachev:  You talk like we should re-engage in the Olympics.  Is this your big deal?

Reagan:  In a way.  It’s an Olympics where your comrades will train, prepare for combat and compete on the same treacherous fields with our Americans.  The races will go on for so long that your

comrades and my Americans will win hundreds of thousands of gold medals.

These will be cast from the lasting bonds of friendship that we carry for each other and forged by the respect of those whose fields we triumph on. Those bonds will be our mutual security pact, stronger than any piece of paper we ever sign.

Gorbachev: How much does this deal cost in dollars or rubles?

Reagan:      Not much, considering how much it will save and how much world trade it will bring us. I could probably give you an esti­mate if you could tell me how much it is costing you per soldier in Afghanistan and merceneary in Af­rica.

Gorbachev: (Coughs.)

Reagan:      Well, I understand how we big kids sometimes blunder in our foreign adventures, so let me estimate from some gross figures we once tabulated.

From 1965 to 1974 we sent 2,582,304 of our finest young men and women, with a budget of $138.1 billion, to bring peace to Vietnam. That cost $53,480 per soldier. We lost many of our finest. Many who returned are mutilated and confused. We still pay a price for them.

Gorbachev: Yes, you do misuse the word “peace,” don’t you?

Reagan: Well, yes, don’t we both. So let me throw my deal on the table, knowing full well that in my hand I hold the most massive bunch of top guns and that I am willing and able to trump you should you refuse my simple offer.

This year I have an elite corps that numbers about 5,000. Since 1961 about 100,000 of these sol­diers have served around the world. They have cost this government less than $10,000 per soldier:

You had no soldiers to offset them. I propose that you deploy the same elite corps and within five years build the force to 100,000 per year. America will match that increase.

You will not supply them with anything more than we supply ours  — enough food, money and shelter to live like the people whom they fight alongside against hunger, illit­eracy and deprivation. You’ll also teach them a language and techni­cal skills and the initiative to think and work on their feet.

Gorbachev: What do you call this army?

Reagan: We call it the Peace Corps.

Gorbachev: What if I can’t get my government to agree to this dangerous and radical proposal?

Reagan: At the Peace Corp’s 25th anniversary in September, 1 may have to convince America to assign 100,000 Peace Corps volun­teers to duty. In the hearts and minds of the world’s people we will bury you and your philosophy —and we will do it without misusing the word “peace.”

Dwayne .Hunn of Mill Valley suggests  that anyone who thinks this proposal makes sense should clip and send the column to President Reagan with a note asking, “Why not?”

Novato's World College West campus was ready to start model ASPC.
Novato’s World College West campus was ready to start model ASPC.
March 18, 1987 Novato Advance

Model Peace Corps proposed at WCW

By Dwayne Hunn

World College West would become headquarters for a Model East-West Peace Corps if a pro­posal for use of part of the Buck Trust Major Project funds is approved.

The idea, according to originator Dwayne Hunn, is to build something similar to the United States’ successful Peace Corps program that would include volunteer youths from both the United States and the Soviet Union.

After training at World College West, young men and women from both countries would work together, in villages, slums, schools, recrea­tion centers and other places throughout the world.

The program would begin with 25 young Russians and 25 young Americans learning side-by-side with the hope it would be emulated by other countries throughout the world until even­tually there would be an “invasion” of Peace Corps volunteers from all nations.

In his proposal, Hunn says the project would have a number and variety of beneficial results, including:

–Building personal communication links that foster inter­national understanding.

–Reducing international tension by building bonds of friendship through healthy and peaceful side-by-side work

–Promoting economic develop­ment in lesser developed countries.

–Aiding Mann County and the Bay Area, because volunteers would work on self-help projects in the area as part of the training pro­gram.

–Developing a comprehensive program that would be applied locally, nationally and internationally

–Sponsoring conferences, seminars and discussion groups in Marin to help further understan­ding between nations.

The training, which would be conducted at World College West, would include:

–An introductory one-week training class to teach problem-solving, fear-facing, communica­tion, teamwork and trust.

–Intensive course work in Rus­sian and English, the language of the planned host country, skill training for the work requested by the host country and culture of the host country. .

–Field training in a Bay Area program that would help those in need in the area.

–A physical training program that would emphasize team sports.

The Soviet and American youths would live together throughout the program.