Land of Smiles [Paperback]

A.A. Maytree (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 27, 2008

Before Bush and Iraq, there was Nixon and Vietnam. It's 1969. The Vietnam War has turned into a meat grinder, 250,000 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. Land of Smiles 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.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

A. A. Maytree spent three years in Thailand as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1969?1972.

Product Details

• Paperback: 284 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (February 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595469922
• ISBN-13: 978-0595469925
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,537,943 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars BUY THIS BOOK!, June 28, 2010

By 

Lawrence F. Lihosit - See all my reviews

This review is from: Land of Smiles (Paperback)

A. A. MAYTREE IS THE PEN NAME of Michael Schmicker. He must believe that few things are harder to put up with than a good example, for he seems to have broken every Peace Corps rule that I ever heard of. His memoir, Land of Smiles, will make current and former Peace Corps staff wince as they read about how he traveled clandestinely on C.I.A.-operated Air America, hung out in brothels, befriended world traveling vagabonds so stingy that they'd skin a flea for hide and tallow, experimented with drugs, moonlit as a night club singer, bootlegged rock music, rode a Triumph motorcycle, and even published under several nom de plumes to avoid Peace Corps' censorship. The irony is that the Peace Corps extended his service for a third year.
A seminary dropout, Schmicker had already forsaken the road to sainthood before applying. Heck, maybe the Peace Corps thought his education was a good Christian grounding. What they got instead was a young Keroauc, running as fast as he could to embrace life -- all of it, good and bad.
He was assigned to Thailand during a fever-pitch in the Vietnam War, the same year that Kerouac died, 1969. According to Schmicker, "the `War Corps' dwarfed the Peace Corps" with "over 45,000 U.S. Air Force personnel and 500 aircraft and another 5,000 military advisors, spooks, information spinners, and rural development specialists." This book is a collection of war dispatches from Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. Like a slightly mad Kerouac, the author describes his travels and adventures as a war correspondent interspersed with anecdotes about his day job as a Peace Corps Volunteer English teacher and later, film director. Thank God this book was not published when Schmicker first arrived home or I might not have had a program to serve in three years later!
Akin to Kerouac's literary work, this book moves fast and holds the reader's interest. Whether you lived this era or are a younger generation, Schmicker's adventures will enthrall. For those who would like to read the author's original articles from the front (in the complete format with photos), go to [...].