Why the hell would you want to do that?

A lot of people have asked me over the course of the past year, "Why join the Peace Corps?" It's the reason why I am sometimes hesitant to bring it up in conversation. Whenever I mention the Peace Corps, I feel like it eats up 15 minutes of conversation in which I'll learn very little new knowledge, and I'll be bombarded with, "I've been within two time zones of a third-world country," or "My third cousin was in the Peace Corps a few years ago. She thought the food was weird."

Every once in a while, though, I do get some interesting reactions. Adriana, a friend of mine from Boston University, has for two years now called me a pansy for joining the Peace Corps. "If you want to do something good for the country," she says, "join the Army."

If you hadn't guessed yet, the type of people who are inclined to joining the Peace Corps have very little overlap with the people who are inclined to join the military. In my mind, the basic difference is how you want American power to be projected around the world. We have a president who gives a country with no capability of attacking us 48 hours to turn over all the weapons that they don't have before he invades, but takes his time ordering substantial relief efforts for a tsunami. Well I've protested the war and I've auctioned myself off for tsunami relief—I didn't go for much money, but my intentions were good—and I think that those instincts are what drive me most to be a Peace Corps volunteer.

The legendary comedian Bill Hicks was musing more than a decade ago about the spectacular missile technology of Operation Desert Storm. "Couldn't we feasibly use that same technology to shoot food at hungry people? Know what I mean? Fly over Ethiopia. 'There's a guy who needs a banana!' The Stealth Banana. Smart Fruit!"

If that doesn't make sense to you, maybe you should consider joining the military.

Lest I be accused of not supporting the troops, which as of last week was punishable by death in 15 states, I don't want to bash the military. That's not what I'm about. Hell, I partied with my buddy Pat and all of his ROTC friends on St. Patrick's Day, and they all seemed to be good folks. But this probably won't be the last time that I criticize the way America is using our military these days, and I guess these early blog entries have to set the tone.

So that's why I didn't join the Army. But why did I join the Peace Corps? Well it started with a heart attack.

My dad had a heart attack back in the fall of 1999, in Silver Spring, MD (the rest of the family was living in Los Gatos, CA). A co-worker of his, Stephen Keese, drove him to the hospital and saved his life. A year later, as I was preparing to interview for colleges, my dad—who made a full recovery—arranged a mock interview for me with Stephen, who interviews for Harvard. At the end of our interview, Stephen, a returned Peace Corps volunteer (RPCV) who had served in Brazil, made me promise to at least consider the Peace Corps.

I went to Boston University with my conversation with Stephen lodged in the back of my mind. Over the next couple years, it became more and more clear that this was an opportunity to do something that very few people get a chance to do, and that I would only have a certain window in my life in which to do it. And of course, as you can infer from my description of the current government, I'm desperate to represent the U.S. abroad in a more positive light than what people see in the news every day.

This leads me to an interesting quandry. How can I so often say that I'm disappointed with the government when it's the government that is paying my way for the next two years, training me in a new language, and covering the cost of my housing? The analogy I make is if a person whom you've never thought much of wishes you a happy birthday or gives you a thoughtful gift. It makes you second-guess your opinion of that person, but chances are, given a few more months, you'll start to see that person's flaws again, and that one warm memory will fade. So my living on a government program for two years will quickly be forgotten in the sea of WMDs, underfunded city schools, privatized Social Security benefits and institutionalized right-wing religious bigotry.

But in the mean time, it's good to just concentrate on one of the few things that I think the government is doing properly, and just say Thank You.