Land of Smiles

Before Bush and Iraq there was Nixon and Vietnam. It's 1969. The Vietnam War has turned into a meat grinder 250000 protesters are marching on Washington to confront a defiant President Nixon holed up in the White House and Alden Maytree fresh out of Catholic seminary has passed his pre-induction physical. Just before Uncle Sam drafts him he gets a surprise call. Instead of killing commies in Vietnam how about spending two years next door in exotic Thailand the Land of Smiles as a Peace Corps Volunteer? But when he arrives in Bangkok he discovers he can't escape the war and clashes with Peace Corps the U.S. Embassy and the CIA. <I>Land of Smiles</I> is a memoir of one young man's coming of age during the Boomer generation's war-and the painful lessons he and America both learn as they try to save the world. </P>