Living Library

Peace Movement to Cold War to ESL teacher

The book starts with the 1967 March on the Pentagon and within 3 years takes us inside. Cold War chapters include one on work as a Senate aide, chasing down corrupt Pentagon officials and worrying about the Defense Production Act, defense preparedness and energy security and as a defense consultant, supervising work on, among other things, the continuity of gornmnt program and the Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars."). One chapter compares US politics in the 1970s and 1980s, when elected officials came to Washington to do the public's business and when both Houses of Congress were functioning legislative bodies, with the corrosive politics of today. Another chapter discusses his experiences on 9/11, when he saw the plane that flew into the Pentagon and then got a glimpse of the future of ever-increasing defense budgets and permanent war in the Middle East. A last chapter discusses the transition to teaching English as a Second Language and the differing challenges and rewards of that job.