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[RC] Going back in time... - Smith, Dave

About 35 years ago (has it really been that long ago?!) I had the “opportunity” to step back about 200 years in time when Uncle Sam sent me and about a million other guys on an all-expenses-paid year-long tour of South East Asia.  While there are those who might wax nostalgically about the “good ‘ol days,”  I’m not one of them.  Believe me, living without electricity, air conditioning, refrigeration and just about every other “convenience” of modern American life, is no picnic. The squalor, ignorance and misery of such an environment is overwhelming.  Life under  such conditions is hard, very hard.  Disease and injury are your daily companions.  To live into your 40’s is a minor miracle.  I suggest that those who would like us to return to such times spend a year or so with the Peace Corps in a third world nation and really get a taste of it.  I will bet that when you return to the U.S., with all of our so-called superfluous technology, you will do what so many of us did – fall on your knees and kiss the ground of the good ol' US of A.