Mad No More

This post is a follow-up to my post of 14 August 2005: Mad Max on the Peace Corps “Military Option” http://cheekymax.blogspot.com/2005/08/mad-max-on-peace-corps-military-option.html.

Today I received the following e-mail, which contains actual good news.

Dear Peace Corps Community:

This past Friday, President Bush signed into law the "National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006".

Included in this legislation is a provision supported by the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) that removes references to Peace Corps in the "National Call to Service" (NCS) military recruitment program.
[emphasis by Max]

The NPCA wishes to express its sincere thanks to Senators Chris Dodd (CT) and Ted Kennedy (MA) and Armed Services Chairman John Warner (VA) for introducing an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act to de-link Peace Corps from the NCS program.

We also wish to thank House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter (CA) and Ranking Member Ike Skelton (MO) for advancing the legislation by agreeing to the Senate amendment.

A special thanks also to Congressman John Kline (MN) for introducing House legislation to address this issue, and to the bi-partisan list of 38 other House members who showed support for this measure (go to the thomas.loc.gov website for the entire list), including RPCV Congressmen Mike Honda (CA) and Sam Farr (CA).

We are also grateful to a bi-partisan group of former Peace Corps directors who provided advice and support on this effort, including Carol Bellamy, Joe Blatchford, Richard Celeste, Nick Craw, Kevin O'Donnell, Mark Gearan, Donald Hess and Mark Schneider.

Last and certainly not least, thanks to all our members who took action through letters, emails, faxes and phone calls. Your actions provided an important citizen voice for this change, and helped protect the safety and security of volunteers and Peace Corps' independence.

For more information on the NPCA and background on this issue, please visit our website at http://www.peacecorpsconnect.org .

With very best wishes,

Kevin F. F. Quigley
President
National Peace Corps Association