Letters
PEACE CORPS: Jim Martin ’65 in ThailandRegarding “The Toughest Job They Ever Loved” (Summer 2021).
Yup. In 1965, I joined the Peace Corps to avoid The War. Sent to a far northeast Thailand “hot spot” of communist insurgency. I was an interpreter with Thai Government/82 Airborne/Special Forces Counterinsurgency Program. In the accompanying photo, the Jeep was a Ford M151 from which, in a subsequent thrilling adventure, I was launched 100 feet into a rice paddy. Roadside witnesses described my flight as being like 007 James Bond in his Thunderball jet pack but spinning violently out of control. Underneath the Thai flag in the photo is my US Army ID. My name was read over Radio Hanoi (the closest big city) as a spy. Move along, Frodo.
Jim Martin ’65
Rochester, New York
Please don’t forget your brothers and sisters at the Eastman School of Music who also served in the Peace Corps. I was in Group Four (1964–66) and served as a music teacher at Maburaka Secondary School for Girls in Sierra Leone, which had a conductorless choir just waiting for the right volunteer. And my one-time locker-mate, Peter Salaff ’63E, the renowned violinist of the Cleveland Quartet, delayed what would be a celebrated career to volunteer in Chile.
I found so much joy and inspiration from the African adolescent girls and their willingness to learn. They showed tremendous generosity of spirit, having come to the school with very little besides themselves and a desire to better their English, complete high school, and perhaps go on to higher education.
I have kept in touch for over 55 years both by phone and sometimes in person with one of those students who went to college in the US and subsequently became a citizen here.
My Peace Corps experience was definitely one of the best of my life. It made me see what was really important—both in terms of what it means to live in a true democracy and also doing without the materialism of American life. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a teacher when I left Eastman, but by the time my tour was up in Sierra Leone, I was sure of it.
Leigh Hamilton ’64E
Winooski, Vermont
The story about the Peace Corps was a nice recollection of the service in the Peace Corps of many graduates of the U of R. I only wish the article had included mention of 1968 graduate Sandra Lee Taplin Smith among the early members of the Peace Corps noted in the introduction.
Sandy entered the Peace Corps after graduation with her husband, Fred Smith ’67. After training, they were assigned to El Alto, Bolivia, about 13,000 feet above the city of La Paz. Tragically, she died there while helping with the construction of a school and instruction in sanitation and other projects.
She reportedly suffered a fatal brain injury brought on by work in the high altitude.
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