Stuff You Should Know - How the Peace Corps Works

Episode Date: October 6, 2011

Since its inception, the Peace Corps has sent 200,000 members to 193 countries to deliver aid and good will through know-how rather than direct funding. Learn about the successes, criticisms and dangers of the Peace Corps in this gung-ho episode of SYSK. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Flooring contractors agree. When looking for the best to care for hardwood floors, use Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner. The residue-free, fast drying solution is specially designed for hardwood floors, delivering the safe and effective clean you trust. Bona Hardwood Floor Cleaner is available at most retailers where floor cleaning products are sold and on Amazon. Also available for your other hard surface floors like Stone, Tile, Laminate, Vinyl, and LVT. For cleaning tips and exclusive offers, visit Bona.com slash Bona Clean. The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call,

like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Yeah, there we go. We were caught off guard by guest producer Casey. He gave us the... Yeah, Casey's the main. The quick punch. What's it called? The quick punt?

The haymaker. The haymaker. That's what we're calling it now, at least. He was like, we're recording. Yeah, he's like, okay, we're rolling. Be funny, monkeys. So rather than start over, I did my cheeks afterward. Yeah. All right. It's unusual. It's an unusual reversal of order, but we're going to have to go with it because we are low on tape. No one's gone to staples, so we just have to use this one. We can't record over it again or else it'll snap. That's funny. That used to be an issue. Yeah. Like how we're running low on something. Yeah. Now there's an abundance of everything. We have all supplies out the yin yang. That's right. Remember that ad for E-Trade? He's got money coming out the wazoo. It was like this ER team who

were hustling this guy in a gurney to the emergency room and they're like, what's wrong with them? And they're like, he's got money coming out the wazoo and it was coming out of his bottom. That's good. His bottom. Chuck. Yes. I think we should say that this is a special episode dedicated to the countless Peace Corps volunteers who listen to stuff you should know and who have written in over the years to say hi. Yeah. You guys were my best friends in Benin, Turkmenistan, Guam. Yeah. Wherever. Sure. Yeah. And we're finally doing that episode, how Peace Corps works. Yep. We've had quite a few right in over the years. Yeah. And they're all super nice folks and seem to really be enjoying their time wherever they are. Yeah. Their good-hearted hustlers

is how I would describe them. Really? Yeah. Okay. As of right this second. Yes. All right. So let me take you back a little bit, Chuck. Right? I don't think we need to go in the way back machine. Not far, but. It's not that far back, but we're just going to go to October, 1960, Chilly Night, 2 a.m. in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the University of Michigan. A young senator named John Fitzgerald Kennedy was working the campaign trail as his father worked to buy votes in other states. And he gave a little impromptu speech again at 2 a.m. at the University of Michigan. Unprepared remarks in front of 10,000 Wolverines. And he said, Chuck, as follows. How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana?

Error technicians or engineers? How many of you are willing to work in the foreign service and spend your days and your lives traveling around the world? Error on your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute parts of your life to this country. I think it will depend the answer, whether a free society can compete. So I pressed the wrong button. I accidentally pressed the Catherine Hepburn button. But that was what JFK said. And that was the outline. That was very good, Chuck. I'm kidding. That was the outline, the initial outline, the first time he ever spoke publicly about his idea for the Peace Corps. Mayor Quimby? I wish I could say my favorite one. Shout out. Which one?

Calm down, everyone. I know you're all frightened and blank. Oh, yeah. That was close. I almost said it for you. Simpsons fans will recognize it and appreciate it. And we have plenty of those crossover fans. So that was the first time he ever spoke publicly about what would become the Peace Corps. And two weeks later, he gave another speech in San Francisco at the famous Cow Palace. Grateful Dead played a pretty good show there in 1974. I remember. I think the Almond Brothers did, too. Yeah, I'm sure you were there drinking beers at age 18. And after that second speech, two weeks later in San Francisco, he said, hey, basically, let me know how you think about this.

And he got 25,000 letters in response saying, I would do that. Wow. So one of the first things he did when he gained the presidency was to sign an executive order saying, OK, now there's officially a Peace Corps. It was on March 1, 1961 that he wrote the executive order. And it was placed into the budget, the 1962 budget. And Congress passed the budget officially enacting the Peace Corps by default. 50th anniversary. Yeah, this year. It is, isn't it? I didn't even think about that. Yeah, they had some, you know, the graphics all over the website that didn't sink in that I was looking at all day. The big cake with 50 candles. Yeah. And then shortly after that, well, a little while after that, Nixon, who JFK soundly beaten that presidential debate,

the televised one, said, well, I've always hated JFK, so I'm going to take his little pet project and just put it over here. And Jimmy Carter came in and went, hold on a minute. And he made it its own independent federal agency with an appointment by the president. And it's part of the foreign aid budget, usually about 1%, right? Yeah, this year, and last year, I believe $400 million, which is not chump change. Not only is it not chump change, they asked for 373 million and they got 400 million. Oh, wow. Yeah, I didn't know that federal agencies got more than they asked for in the budget. Well, Bush, W and Obama have both pushed for expansion of the Peace Corps. I think Bush wanted to double the number of

volunteers. He wanted to double the number of CIA agents in the field. We'll get to that in a little bit. Why does Obama want to double it? I would assume everyone has pure intentions here, Josh, but okay, maybe not. All right. It's been a resounding success over the last 50 years. There have been 193 countries serve Chuck, I believe. There have been more than 200,000 volunteers total. Yeah. 18 directors. The guy who's directing now, Aaron S. Williams, he is the fourth director to have been a Peace Corps volunteer back in the day. I figured they all were. I would have, too. One of the more famous ones who wasn't was Paul Coverdell. Oh, yeah. Remember the statue just behind us? Yeah. Yeah. It says Peace Corps

somewhere on it. Yeah. You know what I like about the Peace Corps site when you're trudging through it is when you see like an Aaron Williams or whoever, they have their service in parentheses next to their name. Yeah. Like Dominican Republic, 67 to 70 was where he was. Right. Pretty cool. Cool. Probably the most famous Peace Corps volunteer is Chris Matthews from Hardball. Was he really? Yeah. He did Swaziland, 68 to 70. I thought you were going to say Evangeline Lilly of Lost Fame. Oh, yeah. I guess she's, but I know Chris Matthews. I'm not familiar with the other lady. She may be the hottest. Which one was she? Was she like the main female lead? Kate, yeah. Okay. Very pretty lady. Although she was Canadian, she must have gotten

her citizenship because you have to be American. Yeah. That's a good point. Huh. Something's fishy that we may have just uncovered in this podcast. Or maybe she just flashed her smile and they're like, who? Right. We'll sign up. We don't care where you're from. The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff.

Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the I heart radio Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. People who don't know Bruce have to understand two things. One is he's built like something Michelangelo is carved out of a piece of marble. True. This is true. And number two, he's the first person to show you that at every party at every dinner. Take a shirt off. Shirt comes off like before dessert. I'm Bruce Bozzi. You may not know me yet, but you already

know most of my launch dates by their first names and voices alone. That was George and Julia. But believe it or not, my podcast guests see me as more than just a piece of meat like my thoughtful friend Scarlett Bruce Bozzi. I love you so much. And I love meeting minds with you. What we do on my new podcast table for two is what everyone does when they're at lunch with an old friend. We tell stories. We definitely gossip. James Corden winds up kind of ripping off your set. There you go. And we always go deep. Listen to table for two on the I heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. So the purpose of this, as you said, you assume everybody's intentions are good. And I think that that's a nice thing to assume that the purpose

of establishing the Peace Corps is threefold. It's a type of foreign aid, right? And we have huge, enormous foreign aid packages in the in the in the way of like surplus food and just straight up money, supplies, equipment, weapons, whatever, building things. But Peace Corps is it's unique in that it's a supply of foreign aid in the form of know how and hands on get it done. It's like the Toyota tundra of foreign aid. Give a man a fish, Josh, and you'll feed him for a day. You know what they say? Yeah, it's based on this, right? Teach him to fish. He'll eat for a lifetime. Yes. If he gets good at fishing. Should we say what their three part official mission statement is? Yeah, help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women,

helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the people served, and to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of the Americans. That's a bureaucratic mission statement. If I've ever heard what it is, and I just read something on NPR from a couple of years ago called the Peace Corps Blues. Each country has their own director and the former director and Cameroon said that he thinks one of the things we're failing on now is that a lot of people in these countries don't realize that it's actually a US government program. Like they know they're volunteers, but I think they think it's some great nonprofit. Like a mission group? Yeah, so that kind of fails that one aspect of the mission

statement in his eyes that these countries, one of the big deals is for these countries to know, hey, this is the US government coming over here and helping us out. It's your uncle Sam. It's exactly. Who you now owe a favor to. He has some other problems, but I'll with the program now, but I'll go over those later. So right now they have programs in 76 countries, but overall I think 193 countries have had programs at one time or another, including countries that don't exist. The first two to join the program, the interested countries, as you mentioned in the mission statement were, let me see if I got this right. Tanganyika, Tanganyika, which later got together as Zanzibar to form what we now recognize as Tanzania.

Sure. You knew that? Oh, yeah. And Ghana was the other two who JFK mentioned in his speech in University of Michigan. So at the very least, a widespread impact. We'll talk about measuring the impact later, but let's get down to new gritty, right? I think just what we said already has caused some people to be like, where do I sign up? Josh and Chuck are endorsing this, so let's just skip to the end. Well, the first thing you should know if you want to sign up is that you're going to be committing to 27 months of service of volunteerism or a tour. You're going to be living for free. They're going to provide you living accommodations while you're there and give you a small stipend to spend money, which evidently though is more money than most

of the people you'll be helping have. Yeah, that's like that old thing where if you have 100 dollars, you can live for like 10 years in Peru or something like that. Yeah, exactly. And when you come back home, they're going to give you $6,000 to get you back going. They don't want to leave you broke because you haven't had any real work for 27 months. So they give you six grand to get you going again. Put that down payment on the apartment. Yeah, to get you back in the swing of things. Exactly. And by the old thing, of course, I mean the strength of the dollar. Yes. So when you are applying, Chuckers, you start out online. Apparently you can do it in writing if you'd like. If you're like an Amish kid who wants to sign up or traditionalist.

But for the most part, you do this application online and I looked at it and it is extensive. Oh, I'm sure. All of your education background, any criminal history, how much you like to drink. Really? Oh, yeah. Any military service because one of the first things they try to root out is whether or not you have any intelligence background. And if you did, sorry. I wonder when you fill that out for the drinking if you just put like a lot. Well, yeah. If you're like, I don't know. There's even a section where they say like, well, let us just define what we mean by problem drinking. How many drinks per week is one of those deals? How many sexual partners do you have a night? Eight things that you lie to your doctor about. Right. There's also any financial obligations

you might have, e.g. student loans or mortgages, car payments. Basically, they're like, you can't just use us to escape your creditors. So they want to know not only like what you have but how you're going to arrange to pay them and any kind of documentation. You need references. I mean, this is like the first application and it's very extensive. Well, they want to weed out as many people as possible right off the bat. Right. And if your application is selected, right, they will... You're pretty lucky, first of all, I think. Yeah. I would imagine it's a fairly low percentage because there's just so many

red flags that they're looking for. So many alcoholics. Right. So many problem drinkers is what they call it. That if you raise one, they're going to be like, no, there's 10 other people who are applying who don't have that red flag. So if you make it through the initial application process, they're going to ask you to come in for an interview. And they weed out more people here. Basically, what they're trying to figure out mainly is if you are likely to complete your term of service. What they don't like is people that have to leave. I'm sure that's highly discouraged to leave the Peace Corps during your tour. So they want to know if you're in a serious relationship.

They want to know stories about your childhood where you've motivated others to complete tasks. They want to know how you... Medical. Yeah. Any medical conditions. I think that's in the initial application. Yeah. But it's sort of like the army in that you can be denied because of medical conditions, obviously. Right. One of the interview questions I saw was, tell us about a rule that you have trouble following. And the correct answer for that is the rule I have trouble following is the rule that asks me to stop when I've done just enough, the bare minimum. That's the right answer. Yeah. Would you modify your appearance to fit in with

the local culture? Like would you shave your mohawk or take out your piercings or whatever? How will you stave off boredom? The correct answer to that is an iPod full of stuff you should know. Exactly. Yeah. That's what it sounds like. So there you go. There's all your crib notes for the interview. Yeah. And if you pass the interview, it gets really exciting from that point because if you get an official invitation, it's pretty neat. You get 10 days to decide and it's fairly vague. Send some guy there. He's like, come on. Come on. Get your answer. Because basically they want to know if you're in for the Peace Corps, not if you're in to go to Indonesia and teach English. Right. Or surf. Or surf because, you know, exactly. There might be

other reasons. Yeah. So what they do is they give you 10 days to decide and they leave it fairly vague. They give you a, probably like a, probably not even a country, probably like a continent. Right. Like Asia. Yeah. Where we're going to send you. And they do detail a little bit about what the job you'll have, but they basically want to know, are you in for the Peace Corps, no matter where we send you. And if you say, yeah, then you're going to get your departure date. And then that's when you're going to get some more specific information. The guy who's like, come on, high fives. He's like, all right, I'll be back in like a couple of weeks with another lighter. No, you're going to Turkey. And then he goes, uh, yeah. Sorry, no surfing in Turkey.

Although there probably is. You think? On the boss first. Surfing Turkey. Yeah. All right. Surf Turkey, man. You get a little orientation appointment and then you get sent off to that country for a three month training period. Yeah. If you're 18, if you're a U S resident, no upper age limit, you can be no dependent. Really, really old and still go to the Peace Corps, I guess. If you pass everything, no dependence. I just noticed that I didn't realize, I guess they're like, yeah, we want you to not just abandon your family. That's a nice move. Yeah. And you have to have a high school diploma. Yes, Josh. And you do need that diploma and you also can be married, but it's a pretty small percentage. Think about 3% are married couples. Right. Or is

it 7%? Yeah. 7% married. 96. 93% single. I think it waffles. So, um, yeah, 1% is undecided. And that they will send you with your married partner. They can. There are some assignments where they'll send both of you to the same place to work together, but apparently those are kind of few and far between, but you can't put in for your girlfriend or boyfriend. No, you can't at all. And you both have to be accepted fully as Peace Corps volunteers who could be sent to different corners of the earth. I think they like to help people out. I'm sure they do. Um, but you can't have any kids. No. And you can't take your pets? No, which is not even a little field mouse. Not a surprise at all. You can't take your pets. So if you have pets, like you got to look at your

life, you know, if you are a homeowner with pets, then you probably shouldn't volunteer for the Peace Corps. No, you can volunteer here at home. Join them. I don't know. But if you are single and you're living in Brooklyn, you don't have any cats and you got time to kill in a heart that wants to serve the world. Yeah. And you know about, um, I don't know, repairing motor bikes in Indonesia or you speak a foreign language. These are all things like these hobbies. They really get into that. And it's not like when you put down your hobbies for a college education or a college application, no one really cares about that. I hate to break it to you. Yeah. But, uh, the Peace Corps does. They really do in the Peace Corps. If you

have skills as a, as a gardener, they want to know about that. Or if you were like a landscaper or something like that. Yeah. And what, what they're going to say, here are all of our programs, choose, and you're going to choose. And then they're going to be like, okay, no, this is where we really need you. And they will send you where they need you ultimately based on your skills, your background, your hobbies. You can always get sent where you might like to go. And if you have, know that language, that's a big leg up in that direction, I think. But I think you should be prepared to know that they, they may send you wherever. Yeah. That's part of it. But you're doing this, uh, for the love of helping others. And really it doesn't matter because there's

only one race, the human race. I just think that's really exciting. Yeah. To not know where you're going to go and to be, I wish I would, I would join, I would go back and do it all over again. I would, I would do it different. I would join the piece for a couple of years. You know what I always think of when I think of the Peace Corps, I think of, um, Julie Haggerty and the, the lead guy from airplane. When they went and told him, yeah, she has like a Tupperware party and he's teaching him basketball and Harlem Globetrotters. Right dancing. That was, uh, that was different. I was thinking of the disco scene when he was, yeah, that's different. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that's what I think of when I think of Peace Corps. I think of the Tom Hanks movie, Volunteers.

I never saw that one, but that's where he met his wife, Rita Wilson. Oh yeah. I guess so, huh? Yeah. I never saw that because I always hated the Tennessee volunteers. So I refused to see that movie in case it helped them in any way. Yeah. I still do. Right. Oh, Josh, packing. Yes. They only allow you to take two bags for 27 months, which doesn't sound like a lot. Well, not only that, there's a weight limit. Yeah. 80 pounds, right? Uh, aka 36.287 kilograms for our non-imperial measurement friends. So what they suggest is take things that you cannot get elsewhere. And then when you get there, you can buy some of the other things that don't, don't bother packing a crock pot because you can get a crock pot and Benin. Yeah. Or can you?

Well, there's going to be some other cookware that you can find. Stoneware, perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. That's just stupid. That's going to take up everything. But they said, bring, you know, bring some good old fashioned American undies and rain gear and hiking boots and stuff like that that you probably can't get in these other countries. Yeah. So you want to, you want to blow your weight on the, the essentials that you're not going to be able to find anywhere else. Maybe that iPod. They said you can bring a laptop, but one thing you're not guaranteed is electricity. Yeah. There's a, there's a pretty common misconception that it's like all thatched huts and no municipal water supply, no electricity. And that's not true at all. The no thatched hut

thing is not true at all. The no municipal water supply or no electricity thing, that's extremely true in a lot of cases. Well, so is the thatched hut here and there. Okay. But you can volunteer to go to those places. You can. You can also be sent to those places. But you can also say, I want to go to a place that has no running water and no electricity and I want to help there. Um, but there are a lot of assignments where even if you say, no, I don't want that, they'll be like, yeah. Yeah. I think they call those people the hardcore. Yes. Of the Peace Corps. Yeah. We're like, you know what? I signed up for this, send me to the edge of the cliff. Here's my iPod even. That's crazy. A lot of a lot of these people are teach in these in like local schools though

that, you know, they have power and water and they're more, it's not as third world as you might think it is in many cases. Yeah. I would imagine in a lot of cases, it's like, um, some of the places we went in Guatemala, they didn't have anything resembling a municipal water supply. Yeah, true. It was just like, there's a pond over there. But it was a primitive. Like, no, I mean, there were buildings and structures and people wore clothes and things like that. It's not like, you know, living with the Yanomamo. Exactly. So what's day-to-day life like Josh, if you're a Peace Corps volunteer? Well, day-to-day life is actually a lot looser than you would think. Basically, they give you an assignment like say, we want you to teach

agricultural techniques, modern agricultural techniques, or maybe sustainable agricultural techniques to these people in Guam. Great. Would Guam even qualify though? It's a U.S. territory. I would think it'd be outside of the U.S. foreign policy scope. Let's just say someplace in Africa then. Let's go again with, um, Tangayaca. Okay. Tangayica. Yeah, Tangayica. Um, and you go and you say, okay, well, this is, here's some ideas for how I'm going to teach these people sustainable agriculture in Tangayica. Uh, and, um, you get there and they're like, there is no Tangayica anymore, jackass. It's all Tanzania. And you go, well, it still applies. So here's what I'm going to do. And your day-to-day, your hours, um, how you interact with people, what you teach them

probably, it's a lot up to you. There's nobody looking over your shoulder. Like they pretty much just give you a parachute and drop you off. Yeah. Say, see you later. Good luck. That's not true. You do go alone though. And depending on how remote you are, you may be the only American face you see for a while. Although in other places, there might be other volunteers that, you know, within the town, but you're still technically sent alone. One of the things I think we skipped over is you are allowed to receive friends. Your friends can come visit you on their own dimes. I didn't know that. I didn't either, but they can come hang out with you if you want. Yeah. If you need to see a friendly face or whatever. You can get packages. You can get

packages. You can go travel at your own expense. You can go to the capital city. You can go wherever there's wifi and load up on your stuff you should know episodes. That's right. You can do a little sightseeing, whatever you want. Again, you're setting your own hours, but I think for the most part they imagine that if you are the kind of go-getter who volunteers for Peace Corps, you're not just kind of like lay around all day. True enough. Although that's that same guy mentioned earlier, Robert Strauss, who was the director, former director in Cameroon, said he does feel like these days some volunteers use it as quote employer of last resort and that some recruits use it as an extended spring break from college. I could see that. And I think that's

rare, but he says that is a problem and he wants the standard to be what you talked about. Well, you know, that's Peace Corps problem. Their process is not rooting them out. Yeah. You know? It needs to be like, are you a pothead? Yes? No. Right. There's your rooting out system. And depending on if you were a pothead, it would depend on where they would send you. Yeah. Like just how bad of a pothead. Exactly. You mentioned packages too, Chuck. You can get packages, but our good friend, Grabinowski, who wrote this, he says that there are such a thing as quote corrupt male workers who pilfer your packages sometimes. It could take forever. So he recommends that you have friends and family start sending you packages and letters before

you even leave the US so that when you get there, you'll get some stuff in the first few months and it'll keep you from being so homesick. I would send myself a bunch of stuff. Yeah. You know? I wouldn't count on my family to do it. 80 pounds. Because they'd be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I wouldn't get any packages to like the end of year one if I left it to my family. It's not true. That's not, I don't know. I didn't get a lot of college packages. Let's just say that. I didn't either care packages. Yeah. I was like, do you even know what that is? I want you to send me one of these. And I basically just walked my dad around the store like, put this in there. Put that in there. Yeah. It's getting a little heavy. Yeah. I mean, we can take the canned goods

out. Right. Yeah. But of course, you know, I went to school 60 miles from where I lived. So yeah, if I would have gone like a cross country, I might have got more care packages. Maybe you just keep telling yourself that. Yeah, exactly. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our

government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. People who don't know Bruce have to understand two things. One is he's built like something Michelangelo's card out of a piece of marble. True. This is true. And number two, he's the first person to show you that at every party at every dinner. Maybe take a shirt off.

Shirt comes off like before dessert. I'm Bruce Bozzi. You may not know me yet, but you already know most of my launch dates by their first names and voices alone. That was George and Julia. But believe it or not, my podcast guests see me as more than just a piece of me like my thoughtful friend Scarlett. Bruce Bozzi. I love you so much. And I love meeting minds with you. What we do on my new podcast table for two is what everyone does when they're at lunch with an old friend. We tell stories. We definitely gossip. James Corden wound up kind of ripping off your set. There you go. And we always go deep. Listen to table for two on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. So Chuck, there's some advantages when she return

your tours over. There's some advantages to being a Peace Corps volunteer. Yeah. It doesn't hurt any resume. No. It shows a lot of stick tuativeness and get up a dude. And beyond the fact that it proves your commitment as a human to a task, which is huge. You also get the inside scoop on getting a government job if you're interested in that kind of thing. Yes. Like you get you're available to lists that other people might not see. You're privy to information. You're also given priority, hiring priority over somebody who may even have better qualifications than you but wasn't a Peace Corps volunteer. Sorry, sucker, which is one of the reasons our government functions like it does. So what is this done, Chuck? How do you measure the success of something like the three points

of the mission statement? You said Strauss criticized one of them. Let's talk about the accomplishments. Well, that's one of the problems is it's tough to measure that in any sort of sort of statistical way. Yeah. So the only way you can really measure it is to talk to the volunteers themselves. And usually when you talk to them afterward, they're like, you know what? I learned pretty quick that I was going to have to kind of reset my goals and make them a little smaller in scope. Like going from I want to help the world to I want to help this village. Yeah. Which is good. And that's helping the world. Yeah, because there's 7,000 people doing that in villages all over the world. So combined, collectively, it seems to be doing that. Yeah. But it is tough

when you have a $400 million program, even though it's a scant fraction of the budget, you still have to show metrics, I imagine. And it's pretty tough in this case. Yeah. You know? Yeah, I guess. But I mean, like you said, there's no quantitative way to spell it out because you can't. I mean, I guess you could go pull people where there have been Peace Corps volunteers and ask them, you're like America more or less now. Yeah. And if it's more than awesome. True. There you go. Quantified. There's a check right there. They do say that most volunteers come back feeling like they gained a lot from it for sure. So that's one of the three, right? Yeah. There you go. At least at least one third of it is

accomplished. There are also a lot of criticisms as I think we've kind of leaked out here there of Peace Corps, which is, you know, that's any, any noble experiment is going to result in criticism. There's always going to be poo pooers, people who, you know, don't put their money where their mouth is, but yet have plenty of time to point out all the problems with something. Yeah. Me. True. So what are they? Uh, well, sadly, should we go ahead and get to the crime thing? Sure. One of the criticisms is that there has been crime committed by and against Peace Corps volunteers over the years. Yeah. And that the Peace Corps hasn't done a very good job of backing these people. In some allege,

they've even tried pretty hard to cover up a lot of this stuff. Yeah. There was, um, it was, I think, the last year, this year, um, in Washington, there was a bit of a stir when Congress was basically forced to start inquiring into how the Peace Corps handles reports of, say, like sexual violence against volunteers. Yeah. Um, a group of volunteers was organized by a former volunteer named Casey Fraze, and she started, um, first response action, which is basically like it's a group of former volunteers who were subject to sexual violence and who were mistreated by the Peace Corps when they returned. Yeah. A lot of them reported basically it being implied that it was their fault. What had they been drinking? What were they wearing?

Had they been like sleeping around? Right. Basically, were they asking for it? Right. Which is not what you do to your people. No. And, uh, statistically, uh, every year on average, 22 Peace Corps women report being victims of rape or attempted rape. And, uh, more than 1000 from 2000 to 2009, uh, reported sexual assaults. And, you know, a lot of these go unreported still, so that number may be higher. And that's, we're not trying to poo poo anything, but that's really sad. And, you know, Obama and the new guy, Aaron Williams, have said that they need to take this way more seriously and make it a more victim-centered approach, take a more victim-centered approach to this. One of the reasons that that's going on, apparently, is because there's a clause from the

1965 Peace Corps Act that says if you're a Peace Corps employee, you may as a Peace Corps employee, do you know that? No. She worked at HQ. No way. Yeah. Was that in D.C.? Yeah. You can't be, you can't work there for longer than five years. And the whole point is to keep the, keep the place young, keep the ideas fresh, keep it, you know, really, um, um, rolling with the punches. But one of the, one of the problems with that is that it has no institutional memory. Right. If no one's been there longer than five years, there are some who are grandfathered in, but if no one's been there for longer than five years and your director comes aboard like every three, four, five years, maybe, um, there's no memory on how to handle big problems like this,

so things can very easily be brushed under the carpet. And sadly, Josh, there have been, by my count, three murders of Peace Corps volunteers. Uh, one just in 2009, Kate Pusey was murdered in Benin. And, uh, this one drew a lot of attention because Kate was, uh, essentially ratting out a local employee of the school she was working at who, uh, she believed was, uh, sexually assaulting the girls at the school. She wrote the Peace Corps office and somehow this got back to him and he tied her to a porch and slitter throat. And the parents were pretty upset that this was leaked. And, uh, although I don't think they, like, verified if the Peace Corps leaked it, surely they wouldn't do anything like that, but they're pretty upset

that it wasn't as confidential as it should have been and that it led to her, uh, murder. And then most famously, um, was in the 1970s, Deborah Gardner was stabbed to death by another volunteer in Tonga in 1976. And he is still walking the streets of Brooklyn today. Dennis Priven. Yeah, I've read a New Yorker article on this. It was really interesting. So what, there was a series of legal quirks that, that led to him basically getting acquitted? Yeah, what happened was she was very pretty and he liked her very much and she did not return the affection. And one night after a party in the town where there were some other volunteers, she got a little too drunk, apparently fell down a couple of times on the dance floor and one of

her ex-boyfriends who was there took her back to her hut and, you know, put her to bed. Five days later, uh, Priven comes into her hut and stabs her 22 times and it was, um, supposed to go a little different. He had like a pipe and a knife and like cyanide and it was supposed to be, he was supposed to like knock her out and torture her, but she like woke up when he got there and fought him off and it just led to like, you know, a brutal stabbing. Well, he was trying to pull her out of the hut when people saw him. He fled on a bike. She was able to name her attacker before she died and, um, they, uh, had a trial in tango where he was, um, with the American government said he has schizophrenia and we are going to, if you let him go here, we're going to, uh, commit him to an

institution in Washington state when we get back. And, uh, problem is when they got back to Washington state, you, they didn't accept, you know, like you couldn't commit someone at that point. Huh. So, it was basically not a ruse, but it was, uh, they got him out of the country and then basically, there was no recourse. They couldn't try him in America and they couldn't commit him involuntarily and he went, you know what, I don't want to go. I'm going back to New York and that's what he did and that's where he still is. So had he been diagnosed with schizophrenia? Um, I think that he had by one doctor there, but then later on he did volunteer to go to this hospital and get tested and they said that he suffered from a, uh, from psychosis in the moment. I can't remember what

they called it, but basically went nuts that night, but he's not schizophrenia. It doesn't have schizophrenia. Wow. He's walking around New York still, huh? Yeah. Wow. They wrote a book about it and he, he keeps a pretty low pro, but I would imagine he's got a pretty good job. He worked for Social Security as like a $80,000 a year computer guy. Wow. So it's really sad. Yeah. But that is the exception. We don't want to paint a negative picture here, but, um, they have, they have called them the Peace Corps to clean up their act for sure when it comes to crime. Yeah. And the Peace Corps, for its part, says we do not, uh, place Peace Corps volunteers in unsafe environments. That's what Aaron Williams said. Yeah. But he also said, we need to, we need to handle like any

victimization that does happen way better than we are. Um, Chuck, Josh, there's also the CIA allegations. I don't know much about this. So for basically, since it's inception, just the value of having 7,000 kids being placed in local environments, gaining the trust of people, interacting with other nationals from other countries, uh, in a third place, a neutral setting. Yeah. Just that the intelligence value of them by default is, is incalculable. But the, from the outset, the, the two have been intended to be separated, right? Peace Corps has nothing to do with intelligence. Like if you have an intelligence background, sorry, you can't be in Peace Corps. Right. If you're in Peace Corps, you have to wait four years before you can get a,

any kind of intelligence assignment in the military. Okay. Um, so that on paper, they're very much separate, right? But everybody, including people who live in these countries that are being served by Peace Corps have always assumed Peace Corps volunteers are often asked to do intelligence field work. Yeah. And in 2008, some kids came forward in Bolivia and said, Hey, while we were down there, the government told us to, to start, you know, keeping reports and filing reports on Venezuelan and Cuban nationals who were living and working down there. Really? They wanted to know all about these people. That's intelligence field work. And was that proven? Yeah. Well, yeah. The, the US, uh, the Peace Corps said that this was, uh, an error in that

it was in violation of Peace Corps policy, but basically that, yeah, enough of these, these Bolivian volunteers came forward that they couldn't say that it wasn't true. Wow. So, yeah, it was a kind of thing. So apparently it, it has happened at least once. Um, and it's not like wet work or anything like that. I don't think the Peace Corps volunteers have ever been asked to, like grease a, a dictator or anything like that, but wet work. I've never heard of that. Yeah. That's, that's like hands on assassinations. Oh, wow. Yeah. What does wet mean? I imagine blood and gore tissue wet from blood. Yeah. Wow. So, um, those are the criticisms. Again, though, Chuck, I think we should say that my hat is off to Peace Corps and the volunteers for the

work that they do. Absolutely. And, and if you're a female Peace Corps volunteer, be really careful. We encourage you to, to be very mindful because, you know, you're alone in these countries and bad things do happen sometimes and, um, just be vigilant and take care of yourself. Oh yeah. And I think that that goes for all Peace Corps volunteers. Sure. Women are a little more susceptible to that kind of crime, obviously, but, uh, yeah. Yeah. Got anything else? No. I think that's it, man. Happy 50th Peace Corps. Yeah. Hats off to you and, uh, thank you to all of our listeners who are Peace Corps volunteers or have been Peace Corps volunteers and who have written us to say thanks for being there. We hope, uh, well, we, we thank you back for taking us along on your trips. That's

pretty cool. Kennedy's children. That's what they call them. Really? Or they used to. I don't know if they still do. Kennedy's illegitimate children. Well, that's a whole different batch. So, uh, okay, that's Peace Corps. If you want to know more about it, you can, uh, type in Peace Corps in the handysearchbar at howstuffworks.com and that will bring you this fine, fine article. Um, and I said handysearchbar, right? You did. Dude, it is time for listener mail. That's right, Josh. I'm going to call this from an Irish, uh, listener and I think I've said before, I love me some Irish and Scottish people. Uh, you mean I wrote in Irish part of the other night? Were there any Irish people there? Yeah, there's always at least a couple. So, uh, like

I said, I love, I love me some Irish and Scottish. They're great folks. I've had some good friends from that part of the world. And so I'm going to read this now. Um, as a longstanding recruit to the stuff you should know, Army, I always expect to hear something new and interesting when I listen to you guys. Though I never expected to be singled out and spoken to directly, breaking the tenuous podcast reality barrier, but that's exactly what happened yesterday. A little relevant detail to begin with, my name doesn't invite nicknames. Uh, John being too normal and Keline awkward to manipulate into anything else. The best that 14 years of school could give me was the nickname JK, which is stuck for most of my life. So anyway, I was stuck in traffic

and Dublin the other day and the government watch list podcast was coming to an end. I was being, uh, I was beginning to think about how Orwellian Irish slash global society really is. It started to give me that weird feeling that someone who I couldn't see was watching me or that people were talking about me. Then Josh decided to confirm this paranoia and said, if you want to know more about the terrorist watch list and probably end up on the watch list yourself, JK, I genuinely panicked, convinced that the US government was after me. Apparently my reaction to a foreign government pursuing me is to break sharply and almost cause an accident in the middle of the city. I came back to reality and kept driving sheepishly avoiding

looking in my rear view mirror at the angry driver behind me. So thanks and kudos. And, uh, if you read this out loud, I'd love to give a quick shout out to Luke and Andrew, two other members of the Irish battalion and great friends. So Luke, Andrew and John in Ireland, thank you for writing in. Go eat some shepherd's pie and drink a beer for me and me and Josh. Yeah. Thanks a lot, JK. Uh, JK, um, if you want to let us know about a time we've spoken to you directly, or if you want to tell us about your Peace Corps time, that's pretty cool. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join How Stuff Works staff as we explore the most promising and

perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. Cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Where were you in 92? Bouncing your butt to Sir Mixolot? Wondering if you, like Billy Ray Cyrus, could pull off a mullet? Now iHeart has a podcast all about it. I'm Jason

Launfier, and on my new show, Where Were You in 92, we take a ride through the major hits, one hit wonders, and shocking scandals that shaped the wildest 12 months in music history. You know, the president came after me. Everybody, Time Warner was madness. Music was magic. And I had completely burned that to the ground. I realized I'm the forbidden fruit. So listen and follow Where Were You in 92 on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.