From Marine Corps to Peace Corps

I just read this article from CNN and I really enjoyed it.  I really appreciated the comparisons between the two organizations despite them being quite different in many respects.  My brother, Alex and I are not so different from one another... :)  

From Marine Corps to Peace Corps

By Will Aurigemma, Special to CNN

May 27, 2013 -- Updated 1337 GMT (2137 HKT)

Editor's note: Will Aurigemma served as a Marine communications officer from 2006 to 2010 and a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic from 2011 to 2013.

(CNN) -- While lying on a thin mattress a few months ago, nursing the symptoms of dengue fever, I watched a huntsman spider leap off of the wall of my wooden shack and onto a hapless cockroach, which the spider dragged away and devoured.

I was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in the rural eastern part of the Dominican Republic. But the spider's ambush -- which gave new meaning to the word "insecticide" -- brought me back to another remote corner of the globe, Afghanistan, where I had served in my other beloved corps: the Marine Corps.

Ambushes -- by Taliban insurgents rather than hairy spiders -- were regular occurrences in southern Afghanistan. As a Marine officer, I made two deployments there, the second of which was spent testing, distributing, and fine-tuning equipment designed to foil the remote-control bombs the Taliban used to ambush us.

Then, in 2011, my active service ended, I turned in my rifle and I joined the Peace Corps, where I spent two years building composting latrines in Dominican communities that lacked access to basic sanitation. I completed my service this month and returned to the United States (I got over the dengue fever just fine).

When you join the Marine Corps or the Peace Corps, much less both, you often have some explaining to do. So, on this Memorial Day, permit me to reflect here on the reasons people serve and to describe some of the common threads between these two special American institutions.

You might be surprised to hear that the goals of the Marines and the Peace Corps, and the ideals of the volunteers who join them, overlap. You might also be surprised to learn that the Peace Corps has its own legacy of sacrifice, with more of its volunteers killed on the job than Central Intelligence Agency officers.

Marines operate as a team, in a strictly defined hierarchy. Peace Corps service is largely an individual effort, and volunteers can go for months without being heard from by staff. Peace Corps training includes learning to teach kids simple science experiments. Marine Corps training includes learning the proper technique for choking someone to death.

The essence of the Peace Corps mission is to promote understanding between American volunteers and the people they serve. The Marine Corps mission is to win our nation's battles

But to say the two organizations are opposites would be erroneous. The book that inspired President John F. Kennedy to launch the Peace Corps was the 1958 novel called "The Ugly American." I was actually assigned to read it by the Marine Corps, since its practical advice on quelling insurgencies was correctly deemed relevant to the counterinsurgency wars we were now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I saw Marines approach problems in Afghanistan as though they were characters in that novel -- or Peace Corps volunteers. Rolando, a young infantryman in our area of responsibility, won over local farmers by spontaneously shedding his equipment and helping them dig irrigation ditches one day while on patrol. Rolando, who'd taught himself Pashto using an MP3 player, chatted amiably with the local men he encountered. The respect he showed them helped to win their support in our fight against the Taliban.

While nation-building under fire certainly isn't a Peace Corps mission, I saw enterprising Peace Corps volunteers make a deep impact on the communities where they were invited to serve. Dory was assigned to work on a waste-management project in a Dominican migrant farm worker community. It soon became apparent to her that this project would fail.

Rather than move to a different community or continue slaving on a doomed effort, she identified a more serious problem that she wouldn't have seen if she hadn't gotten to know this community in the first place.

Numerous locally born kids were refused access to education because of their Haitian descent, denied a basic right that they were legally owed. Dory learned to help people negotiate a discriminatory government bureaucracy, ultimately winning documentation for dozens of community members and helping them achieve access to public high schools and a shot at a better living.

The Marines and Peace Corps volunteers with whom I served demonstrated more ingenuity, perseverance, and guts than any other group of people I've known. They also possessed a surplus of something that is vanishing from many other parts of American life: humility.

Countless Marines I know had put off careers in business, finance and law to play small, almost anonymous parts in tedious and dangerous places. Sometimes the greatest personal achievement was looking out for fellow Marines by training them extra hard or jolting them from their sense of complacency in the final weeks of a deployment.

Those sorts of achievements don't always make for sexy copy on a resume, but they are the achievements that can be savored the longest because they resulted in lives saved.

Similarly, many of the Peace Corps volunteers I served with gave up good jobs -- as engineers, teachers, IT professionals -- to leave home for a couple of years and find the enduring fulfillment that comes from leaving your comfort zone and improving the lives of strangers you have grown to know better than your neighbors back home.

While nothing compares to the risks our servicemen and women take in combat, the Peace Corps isn't exactly a walk to the local playground. Since its inception in 1961, the Peace Corps has lost at least 287 volunteers to disease, road accidents, crime, and other hazards in their host countries. That's more than twice the number of fallen CIA officers, whose sacrifices are properly commemorated by stars etched into Memorial Wall inside their headquarters.

Kennedy, shortly after taking office, spoke of an "immense reservoir" of American men and women "anxious to sacrifice their energies and time and toil to the cause of world peace and human progress."

To see many of the best people from that reservoir -- the ones who stopped dreaming of their potential to serve and took real action -- take a look at those volunteers in the Marines and the Peace Corps. I really believe you can find the best of America´s youth serving in each of these organizations. And neither organization squanders that resource.

Find The Thing You're Most Passionate About, Then Do It On Nights And Weekends For The Rest Of Your Life

Here is another article from The Onion that could not have come across my path at a more opportune time...
I know I don't want to be stuck on a mind-numbing path just to do something that I think is good for me (despite what my heart says)...

Find The Thing You're Most Passionate About, Then Do It On Nights And Weekends For The Rest Of Your Life 

Commentary
Opinion
ISSUE 49•12
Mar 20, 2013
By David Ferguson

I have always been a big proponent of following your heart and doing exactly what you want to do. It sounds so simple, right? But there are people who spend years—decades, even—trying to find a true sense of purpose for themselves. My advice? Just find the thing you enjoy doing more than anything else, your one true passion, and do it for the rest of your life on nights and weekends when you’re exhausted and cranky and just want to go to bed.

It could be anything—music, writing, drawing, acting, teaching—it really doesn’t matter. All that matters is that once you know what you want to do, you dive in a full 10 percent and spend the other 90 torturing yourself because you know damn well that it’s far too late to make a drastic career change, and that you’re stuck on this mind-numbing path for the rest of your life.

Is there any other way to live?

I can’t stress this enough: Do what you love…in between work commitments, and family commitments, and commitments that tend to pop up and take immediate precedence over doing the thing you love. Because the bottom line is that life is short, and you owe it to yourself to spend the majority of it giving yourself wholly and completely to something you absolutely hate, and 20 minutes here and there doing what you feel you were put on this earth to do.

Before you get started, though, you need to find the one interest or activity that truly fulfills you in ways nothing else can. Then, really immerse yourself in it for a few fleeting moments after an exhausting 10-hour day at a desk job and an excruciating 65-minute commute home. During nights when all you really want to do is lie down and shut your eyes for a few precious hours before you have to drag yourself out of bed for work the next morning, or on weekends when your friends want to hang out and you’re dying to just lie on your couch and watch TV because you’re too fatigued to even think straight—these are the times when you need to do what you enjoy most in life.

Because when you get right down to it, everyone has dreams, and you deserve the chance—hell, you owe it to yourself—to pursue those dreams when you only have enough energy to change out of your work clothes and make yourself a half-assed dinner before passing out.

Say, for example, that your passion is painting. Well, what are you waiting for? Get out there and buy a canvas and some painting supplies! Go sign up for art classes! And when you get so overwhelmed with your job and your personal life that you barely have enough time to see your girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or wife, let alone do anything else, go ahead and skip classes for a few weeks. Then let those paint brushes sit in your room untouched for six months because a major work project came up and you had a bunch of weddings to go to and your kid got sick and money is tighter than you thought it would be and you have to work overtime. And then finally pick those brushes back up again only to realize you’re so rusty that you begin to question whether this was all a giant waste of time, whether you even want to paint anymore, and whether this was just some sort of immature little fantasy you had as a kid and that maybe it’s finally time to grow the fuck up, let painting go, and join the real world because, let’s face it, not everyone gets to live out their dreams.

Not only does that sound fulfilling, but it also sounds pretty fun.

Really, the biggest obstacle to overcome here—aside from every single obligation you have to your friends, family, job, and financial future—is you. And I’ll tell you this much: You don’t want to wake up in 10 years and think to yourself, “What if I had just gone after my dreams during those brief 30-minute lunch breaks when I was younger?” Because even if it doesn’t work out, don’t you owe it to yourself to look in the mirror and confidently say, “You know what, I gave it my best half-hearted shot”?

The New York Times: The Stories that Bind Us

A friend recently passed along this article from The New York Times.  I found it really interesting and wanted to share...

March 15, 2013

The Stories That Bind Us

By BRUCE FEILER

I hit the breaking point as a parent a few years ago. It was the week of my extended family’s annual gathering in August, and we were struggling with assorted crises. My parents were aging; my wife and I were straining under the chaos of young children; my sister was bracing to prepare her preteens for bullying, sex and cyberstalking.

Sure enough, one night all the tensions boiled over. At dinner, I noticed my nephew texting under the table. I knew I shouldn’t say anything, but I couldn’t help myself and asked him to stop.

Ka-boom! My sister snapped at me to not discipline her child. My dad pointed out that my girls were the ones balancing spoons on their noses. My mom said none of the grandchildren had manners. Within minutes, everyone had fled to separate corners.

Later, my dad called me to his bedside. There was a palpable sense of fear I couldn’t remember hearing before.

“Our family’s falling apart,” he said.

“No it’s not,” I said instinctively. “It’s stronger than ever.”

But lying in bed afterward, I began to wonder: Was he right? What is the secret sauce that holds a family together? What are the ingredients that make some families effective, resilient, happy?
It turns out to be an astonishingly good time to ask that question. The last few years have seen stunning breakthroughs in knowledge about how to make families, along with other groups, work more effectively.

Myth-shattering research has reshaped our understanding of dinnertime, discipline and difficult conversations. Trendsetting programs from Silicon Valley and the military have introduced techniques for making teams function better.

The only problem: most of that knowledge remains ghettoized in these subcultures, hidden from the parents who need it most. I spent the last few years trying to uncover that information, meeting families, scholars and experts ranging from peace negotiators to online game designers to Warren Buffett’s bankers.

After a while, a surprising theme emerged. The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: develop a strong family narrative.

I first heard this idea from Marshall Duke, a colorful psychologist at Emory University. In the mid-1990s, Dr. Duke was asked to help explore myth and ritual in American families.

“There was a lot of research at the time into the dissipation of the family,” he told me at his home in suburban Atlanta. “But we were more interested in what families could do to counteract those forces.”

Around that time, Dr. Duke’s wife, Sara, a psychologist who works with children with learning disabilities, noticed something about her students.

“The ones who know a lot about their families tend to do better when they face challenges,” she said.
Her husband was intrigued, and along with a colleague, Robyn Fivush, set out to test her hypothesis. They developed a measure called the “Do You Know?” scale that asked children to answer 20 questions.

Examples included: Do you know where your grandparents grew up? Do you know where your mom and dad went to high school? Do you know where your parents met? Do you know an illness or something really terrible that happened in your family? Do you know the story of your birth?

Dr. Duke and Dr. Fivush asked those questions of four dozen families in the summer of 2001, and taped several of their dinner table conversations. They then compared the children’s results to a battery of psychological tests the children had taken, and reached an overwhelming conclusion. The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned. The “Do You Know?” scale turned out to be the best single predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness.

“We were blown away,” Dr. Duke said.

And then something unexpected happened. Two months later was Sept. 11. As citizens, Dr. Duke and Dr. Fivush were horrified like everyone else, but as psychologists, they knew they had been given a rare opportunity: though the families they studied had not been directly affected by the events, all the children had experienced the same national trauma at the same time. The researchers went back and reassessed the children.

“Once again,” Dr. Duke said, “the ones who knew more about their families proved to be more resilient, meaning they could moderate the effects of stress.”

Why does knowing where your grandmother went to school help a child overcome something as minor as a skinned knee or as major as a terrorist attack?

“The answers have to do with a child’s sense of being part of a larger family,” Dr. Duke said.
Psychologists have found that every family has a unifying narrative, he explained, and those narratives take one of three shapes.

First, the ascending family narrative: “Son, when we came to this country, we had nothing. Our family worked. We opened a store. Your grandfather went to high school. Your father went to college. And now you. ...”

Second is the descending narrative: “Sweetheart, we used to have it all. Then we lost everything.”

“The most healthful narrative,” Dr. Duke continued, “is the third one. It’s called the oscillating family narrative: ‘Dear, let me tell you, we’ve had ups and downs in our family. We built a family business. Your grandfather was a pillar of the community. Your mother was on the board of the hospital. But we also had setbacks. You had an uncle who was once arrested. We had a house burn down. Your father lost a job. But no matter what happened, we always stuck together as a family.’ ”

Dr. Duke said that children who have the most self-confidence have what he and Dr. Fivush call a strong “intergenerational self.” They know they belong to something bigger than themselves.

Leaders in other fields have found similar results. Many groups use what sociologists call sense-making, the building of a narrative that explains what the group is about.

Jim Collins, a management expert and author of “Good to Great,” told me that successful human enterprises of any kind, from companies to countries, go out of their way to capture their core identity. In Mr. Collins’s terms, they “preserve core, while stimulating progress.” The same applies to families, he said.

Mr. Collins recommended that families create a mission statement similar to the ones companies and other organizations use to identify their core values.

The military has also found that teaching recruits about the history of their service increases their camaraderie and ability to bond more closely with their unit.

Cmdr. David G. Smith is the chairman of the department of leadership, ethics and law at the Naval Academy and an expert in unit cohesion, the Pentagon’s term for group morale. Until recently, the military taught unit cohesion by “dehumanizing” individuals, Commander Smith said. Think of the bullying drill sergeants in “Full Metal Jacket” or “An Officer and a Gentleman.”

But these days the military spends more time building up identity through communal activities. At the Naval Academy, Commander Smith advises graduating seniors to take incoming freshmen (or plebes) on history-building exercises, like going to the cemetery to pay tribute to the first naval aviator or visiting the original B-1 aircraft on display on campus.

Dr. Duke recommended that parents pursue similar activities with their children. Any number of occasions work to convey this sense of history: holidays, vacations, big family get-togethers, even a ride to the mall. The hokier the family’s tradition, he said, the more likely it is to be passed down. He mentioned his family’s custom of hiding frozen turkeys and canned pumpkin in the bushes during Thanksgiving so grandchildren would have to “hunt for their supper,” like the Pilgrims.

“These traditions become part of your family,” Dr. Duke said.

Decades of research have shown that most happy families communicate effectively. But talking doesn’t mean simply “talking through problems,” as important as that is. Talking also means telling a positive story about yourselves. When faced with a challenge, happy families, like happy people, just add a new chapter to their life story that shows them overcoming the hardship. This skill is particularly important for children, whose identity tends to get locked in during adolescence.

The bottom line: if you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family’s positive moments and your ability to bounce back from the difficult ones. That act alone may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many generations to come.

“This Life” appears monthly in Sunday Styles. This article is adapted from Bruce Feiler’s recently published book, “The Secrets of Happy Families: How to Improve Your Morning, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smart, Go Out and Play, and Much More.”

A version of this article appeared in print on March 17, 2013, on page ST1 of the New York edition with the headline: The Stories That Bind Us.

Guitar Odyssey 4

Guitar Odyssey is one of my favorite nights of the school year here in Doha as it is a great way to get people together for a great cause.  I am always excited to see what musicial talent comes out during the night!

This was the fourth year for Guitar Odyssey and I have had the pleasure of attending all but one of them.  This night is in support of the Shahen Scholarship Fund.  Mike Shahen was a former principal at ASD and sadly passed away a few years ago due to Lou Gehrig's Disease.  I never knew Mr. Shahen, but I think it is quite remarkable how the school community continues to help support his family.  This year Guitar Odyssey 4 raised 25,730 QR or $7,049.31 USD for the Shahen Scholarship Fund. 

Here are a few videos from the night (please excuse my obnoxious laughing and hollering...it gets progressively worse).  As you will see, it is a very fun night with many good laughs:

Who knows what Guitar Odyssey 5 will have in store for us...
Until next year...

Student Quotes #3

I think it's that time of year again...
Time for some fun quotes from the kids!  One reason why I love my job! 

Here are the previous posts on this matter: 

• Student Quotes #2
• Student Quotes

"Cleaner than a Mexican banana." -1st grader

"They are in love." -1st grader in regards to the two bathroom passes being knotted together.

"Mayans you know are half people and half aliens." -1st grader

"The Mayans that are living in Africa made a promise to return one day." -1st grader

"Do I have to write the flick?" -2nd grader

"I have to fart a little bit." 2nd grader

"My dad's farts are the worst in our house." -2nd grader

"Your hair is a mess." -4th grader on my hair one morning.

"The 'S' word is stupid and the 'F' word is no friends." -1st grader

"I don't know why I am so good at writing." -1st grader
 "Dude! You are good at writing!" -another 1st grader

Student 1: "Ms. Houston who did your state vote for?"
Me: "My state is Michigan and it voted for Obama!"
Student 2: "I think India also voted for Obama..." -5th graders

"Christopher Columbus was the first American." -3rd grader

"I just want to go home and eat cookies and play video games." -3rd grader

"There are Y Usted and Y tu because Y Usted is for big people and Y tu is for small people." -3rd grader

"I didn't get a chance to vote, so I told my dad to vote for Obama." -4th grader

"My brain is all ooloo blah blah because I couldn't play what I wanted at recess." -1st grader

"Why are you wearing pumpkin clothes?" -2nd grader on my outfit for the day.

"You always have the best classes." -2nd grader

"If they both make it back alive, that would be really great!" -2nd grader on his dad's trip to Nepal.

2nd grader:  "Why are you dressed like that today?"
Me:  "Dressed like what?"
2nd grader:  "Like you are going to work."
Me:  "Where do you think I am?"
2nd grader:  "In Spanish class."

"Oppan Christmas style…Hey it's Christmas time, oh oh it's Christmas time!" -1st grader

"Same, same, but thobe." -10th grader

"No touchies!" -1st grader

"I am mal (bad) because I got hit in the weenie during recess." -2nd grader

Qtel Marathon

On January 26, 2013, the first-ever Qtel Marathon took place.  As quoted by the website, "it was a smash hit success, with more than 1,200 people participating and scores of families and friends cheering them on."

I wouldn't say it was a smash hit, but it was organized fairly well for a first time event.  I also did not see many spectators on this early morning.  Nevertheless, I enjoyed the course along the water for the 10K and the weather was great!  The 10K course was a bit long at 10.6 kilometers, but after figuring my time for the 10K distance, I realized I ran a PR for this distance.  This was a great way to redeem myself from my prior 10K race as it did not go very well.   

Three races actually took place:  a half marathon (21.1 km), a 10km race, and 1km fun run for children under 18.  The races took place along Doha’s scenic Corniche, starting at the Museum of Islamic Art.

You can see the race results here:  Qtel Marathon Results

I won an iPad! 
I have never won anything like this and just for running a race! 
Very cool!

It is always great to share a day like this with some
great friends and colleagues.

Peace Corps Week 2013

Peace Corps Week 2013 just ended and this year it was fantastic to be able to celebrate with almost all of the RPCVs that work at the American School of Doha.  Each person brought a dish to share from their country of service.  It was wonderful to listen to all of the stories and share in all of the laughs!  It certainly was a fantastic reminder of why I joined Peace Corps at age 23 and why it's still one of the highlights of my life!

Jason (Kenya), Nick (Nepal), Matt (China), Jeanne (China),
Katie (Honduras), Lisa (Ghana),
Becka (Romania), and Kari (Morocco).

ASD Cross Country in New Dehli

I was very fortunate to be able to help and volunteer with the high school cross country team.  It was really great to be able to get to know these great student athletes.  This year, the final tournament was in New Delhi, India.  I was so grateful to be able to travel with the team and watch them run in their two races.  I had forgotten how much fun I have being out on the courses and cheering the runners on.  I love to find the obscure, hidden places along the course.  It made me remember how much I loved running cross country when I was in high school.  It was also my first opportunity to travel to India and I am very excited to go back and see more of New Delhi in late March!

Being studious in the Dubai airport.

The girls are ready to go!

Waiting to board the flight to New Delhi.

Jam in the bus on the way to the school. :)

Monkeys!  We passed them on our way from the hotel to the school.

I spy with my little eye a baby mono.

We don't get this in Doha!

The AES campus.  Waiting for all the runners to arrive.

Day 1 at a biodiversity park.  Walking the course.

Part of the park.

Making our way up one of the big hills in the course.

A beautiful morning to run!

The JV girls warming up and ready to race!

One last stride before the gun goes off.

The Varsity girls warming up.

Nice view of some of the course.

Mindy with some of the JV boys and girl.

Aaron with the Varsity boys.

Aaron and the poo truck.

The entire team after day one of running.

Getting to explore a little bit after the races on day one.
Spanish in New Delhi...woohoo!

Lots going on.

Walking around a few ruins.

Enjoying the afternoon sun.

Peek-a-boo!

So much going on and some many colors...

Some of the ruins.

Back at the AES campus.  It was a wonderfully cool and rainy day!
We walked to the course from the school.

Day two at a very different looking park from the day before.

JV girls racing.  I really wanted to race this course!

JV boys racing.

Varsity boys racing.

So proud of these two eighth grade girls.
In our conference, eighth graders
are eligible to play JV sports.