Escaping Vietnam War By Joining the Peace Corps

Janessa Murphey, Student Writer

 

At 23 years old, Michael Murphey was faced with the fact that he was going to be drafted into the Vietnam war with no choice. He had previously attended ROTC courses for the army his freshman and sophomore years of college and knew how much he hated being in that system. “It was always yes sir, no sir and we had to act like we were polishing their shoes constantly or we’d be punished” says Michael. 

He did not believe the Vietnam War should be fought and wanted nothing to do with being drafted but the government did not care and instead was ready to recruit him in 1966. However, in 1965 he had graduated college with a BS in building construction that gave him the opportunity to join the new organization ,Peace Corps, instead since they needed more volunteers with his degree. This opportunity lead to 2 and a half years of a new life. 

When Michael was finally out of being drafted and settled to begin his volunteer work, he asked to be sent to either Costa Rica, Thailand, or Colombia. What he got was nowhere near what he had asked. He was accepted to Iran because they were looking for construction workers who could do community development and city planning. 85 volunteers in total and only 75 made the cut since they deselected some of the candidates for various reasons. The remaining volunteers trained for 3 months in Utah and then had a week off to go home and prepare for the trip. 

Michael’s group #18 was the first to be trained by a private company because they expanded the peace corps and felt they needed to experiment to see if the private companies could train better than the government and that created the future of the Peace Corps. However, his group protested to have them stop deselecting people by writing letters to the congress which was later successful. The new legislation stated that now after 3 months of training the volunteers had their own decision to go to the assigned country, live their, and then after a month, decide whether they wanted to stay for the 2 years required. 

Once it was time, he was the only volunteer sent to work in the city of Qazvin. Michael was assigned to work closely with the Mayor and helped him draw plans and do field work in the construction with projects that were in play. He helped the Mayor’s master builder in various projects including, remodeling the middle school, rehabilitating the main park of the city, and replacing the central fountain in between the traffic circle at the entrance of the town. His biggest accomplishment was discouraging and eventually stopping the Mayor from the destruction and replacement of the ancient 3000 year old Bazaar.

Michael had to attend meetings and meet with architects to draw plans for each project. Some were larger and longer than others like the reconstruction of the main park which he brought out a friend from Tehran for 2 weeks to help him with the construction. They kept some things and changed others because the two architectural designs were very different. That project took about 2 months in total to complete. Michael stated, “The feeling of completing a beautiful project was something I will never forget for as long as I live.” 

Four trainees who were also working with the mayor to become one in the future and were studying english befriended Michael as they helped each other with their languages. The trainees were the ones who taught Michael how to speak and understand more Farsi while Michael taught them better english. The communication made it easier to complete projects much faster. You can imagine all the differences from the culture in the US to the culture in Iran. Michael enjoyed these customs and tried to live as similarly to their lifestyle while he was their as a guest. Living with a host Iranian family made it easier to adapt to all the cultural requirements. For example, when they would have a meal, everyone would sit on the floor and eat off of a dinner cloth. The Iranians were very lenient with the men which allowed Michael to not have to dress any differently than he would in the US. “We were also welcomed because our relationship with two contries were very good due to getting along with the Shah who was the president of Iran” explained Michael.

Within those 2 and a half years we only got one month of international leave where you were not allowed to go home so everyone decided to travel. Michael went west rather than east towards Europe, like most of the other volunteers. He hitchhiked on oil tanker trucks where he went to Afghanistan and Pakistan. After traveling in those two countries, him and a friend flew into India and covered all of the northern part of it. At the end of that month they stopped in Nepal which was his favorite place to see and experience. He told us how it really got you thinking about all the different customs in the world and how every place lives and thinks  differently.