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Making a Difference: a Volunteer's Story of the Peace Corps Experience, an Interview with George Breznay by Amy Bachman

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Making a Difference: a Volunteer's Story of the Peace Corps Experience, an Interview with George Breznay by Amy Bachman Making A Difference: A Volunteer's Story of the Peace Corps Experience, An Interview with George Breznay By Amy Bachman AP US History Mr. Haight Febmary 9, 2005 TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of Purpose Table of Contents Biography Table of Contents Historical Contextualization Table of Contents Interview Trmiscription Table of Contents Interview Analysis Table of Contents Appendix Table of Contents Works Consulted Table of Contents Statement of Purpose The purpose of this Oral History Project is to show the impact of the Peace Corps through the experience of Peace Corps volunteer, George Breznay and give background on the founding of the Peace Corps and the sixties era. This project explains why the Peace Corps was founded and who the people were who made it happen. The interview with Mr. Breznay provides insight into the life of a volunteer and the reasoning behind joining the Peace Corps. The interview also provides a personal story of his own felt impact. Most importmitly it is hoped that through these documents the impact that the Peace Corps has had on Third World countries, America and the volunteers themselves is seen. Biography of George Breznay George Breznay was bom in 1941, in Ashley, PA, which is a small town in the foothills of the Pocconos mountains. He was raised in this town with his older brother and his parents. His parents grew up in the same area. His Father was the principal of his highschool and superintendent of the school district. George had a happy childhood and was a very good student. He attended Harvard University where he majored in mathematics. After college George went to Harvard Law School. During his graduate school years, George and five other friends considered joining the Peace Corps and applied together after they graduated in 1966. He got married to Barbara Fendrich in 1966 after his training for the Peace Corps at UCLA. George served in Ethiopia for two years, from 1966-1968. In Ethiopia he was a legal advisor to the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs. He worked as a researcher on research projects for the Ethiopians. He also taught some classes at the University on constitutional law. George was involved with the Ethiopian Parliament and worked on rewriting the parliamentary rules of procedure and he also got involved in constitutional issues. Aside from legal work in Ethiopia, George assisted in creating water projects and other community projects. After his service, George traveled around Europe with Barbara, whom he met when he joined the Peace Corps. They came back to the United States and moved to New Jersey near his wife's parents. They then moved to Manhattan in New York City, and George took ajob at the LeBoeuf, Lamb, Leiby & Mcray law firm, where he stayed for four years. His first marriage ended in 1973, and George moved to Washington, D.C. George met and married his current wife, Susan Phibbs and began working at the Economic Regulatory Administration, a predecessor to the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. He currently is the Director of the Office of Hearings mid Appeals in the Department of Energy. George is also the Vice President of his local community organization. The Palisides Citizen Association. George has three children, ages 24, 26, and 38. He enjoys playing tennis, reading, playing piano mid traveling. George also plans to return to Ethiopia someday. The Peace Corps Era: Spreading Peace, Love and Understanding John F. Kennedy promised in his Inauguration Speech, "To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery . We pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves "(4 Stossel). This speech epitomized the spirit of the Peace Corps and the sixties era. The Peace Corps' underlying goal mid intent is expressed in the famous line, "to help them help themselves." The Peace Corps, founded by President Kennedy on March 1, 1961, began as a way to give both purpose and memiing to the youth of America and give aid to third world countries. Its three goals, as stated in the Peace Corps Act were: 1. Help the people of the Third World countries by providing them with trained men and women, 2. Promote a better understanding of Americans to host countries and 3. Promote a better understanding of people in Third World countries to Americans. The organization was formed in a mere six weeks by Kennedy's brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, and now serves in 138 countries. 178,000 volunteers have served overseas since the first volunteer in 1961 ("About the Peace Corps"). The Peace Corps was America's response to the destruction of World War Two, and the increasingly consumer minded, self-absorbed way of life that took hold in the post-wm boom. It served as a connector between America and the Third World, and intended to create a mutual understanding between the volunteers and citizens of the Third World. Kennedy, Shriver, and many others galvanized the spirit of the sixties into an organization, the Peace Corps, which would change the way Third World countries viewed America mid how we as Americans viewed ourselves. It is important to understand the formation of the Peace Corps, its goals mid its hopes for impact to truly understand the groundbredcing, peace-loving era that was the sixties. The idea behind the Peace Corps was not completely revolutionary; in America and around the world, voluntary aid to those less fortunate existed in vmious forms. In the early 1800's Christian evangelists went to foreign countries to preach the Gospel but also to build schools, educate doctors and nurses and to teach new skills (Rice, The Bold Experiment 1). In the 1900's there were many world aid institutions that reflected the miti-imperialist movement against colonization and war. In America in 1901, after the U.S. conquered the Philippines, an anti-imperialist movement began to grow. The leader was William James, who wrote mi essay called, "The Moral Equivalent of War." James called for an army of young people who would help people who, "have a life of nothing else but toil and pain and hardness and inferiority imposed upon them"(Albertson Rice Birky 6). James stated that the youth should fight against the injustices of nature. He believed that this national service program would make the world a better place. These movements and ideals of service to other people are early examples of the humanitarian belief that inspired the Peace Corps. In the 1950's many small private voluntary service organizations began, which created a demand for a large orgmiization such as the Peace Corps. In the early 1950's Harris Wofford, who was a founder of the Peace Corps, helped to form the International Development Placement Association, which sent some college graduates to Third World countries to teach and to do community development work. The American Red Cross, the Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere, mid many more, all were voluntmy service organizations which had assistance programs in the Third World ( Rice The Bold Experiment 4-5). Sargent Shriver, the first director of the Peace Corps specifically notes the significance of these organizations when he said, "it was the success of the these private efforts which led to the development of the Peace Corps"(Rice, The Bold Experiment 6). The Peace Corps was founded in a time when the United States was the most powerful country in the world, and the Peace Corps was created to prove the title that many people gave America, the moral leader of the world. The idea that America is the greatest country has been around for a long time. As early as the 1600's with John Winthrop's, "City Upon a Hill," America has proclaimed its destiny to be a leader to the world, that all nations should look to America for guidmice. After World Wm II, American had grown into a huge power with a growing military and economy. America became known as a very productive country since American products were spreading across the globe. Historian David Potter in 1954, asserted the view that Americans were all well-educated, pampered and consumer minded. He stated that with the spread of Americanism to the world, "Winthrop's 'City Upon a Hill', became the 'billboard on the Hiir"( Hoffmmi 18). This raised the question both in eyes of the world and in Americans own minds about whether America could be the moral leader for the world, when their "morals" were not ideal. The U.S. foreign policy in the 1950's and in all of U.S. history, has claimed that all its endeavors were for moral, unselfish reasons. This reason being to spread democracy, or "m^e the world safe for Democracy" as Wilson put it on entering World War I. This responsibility to help the world by spreading American values has been around as long as America has. This was illustrated in the 1890's by the poet Rudymd Kipling urging America to take up, "the white man's burden." In 1959, Eugene Burdict and William Lederer wrote a book called the Ugly American. This book criticized American foreign service officers as snobbish, out of touch with the locals, and ignorant to the culture of their host countries. It showed America as selfish mid insensitive to problems of the world. The heroes of the book were the Asimi officers who lived with natives and learned from them. The Ugly American did though have an optimistic view. which was that America can save itself from the mechanical bureaucratic machine that it was.
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