Lessons From My Younger Brother

Farewells are rarely the most graceful occasions, but this one threatens to be particularly sloppy. Two days before my kid brother heads to Papua New Guinea for a two-year stint in the Peace Corps, I already miss the hell out of him.

If you knew Josh, you’d feel the same way.

Wednesday morning, he hops a plane for the first of a series of flights and transfers and layovers that will eventually dump him and his 80 pounds of gear in the capital city of Port Moresby, 18 time zones and several worlds away.

The two of us spent last Friday crisscrossing the Valley, running last-minute errands before he leaves. We exchanged most of the eight pocketknives he got at a recent going-away party and searched for as many waterproof pieces of clothing as possible, as he’s been repeatedly warned that the Papuan humidity wrecks most things.

As long as I can remember, this adventure, which would overwhelm most people, has been Josh’s singular dream, defying the stereotypes of his generation--and mine--as a pack of latte-gulping, chain- smoking, money-grubbing, boomer-bashing slackers.

In fact, I’d like to believe that Josh represents more of what’s good about this country’s young people than most choose to see. Images of flannel-wearing whiners or hip-hopping thugs fill newscasts and newspaper columns, but the private images in photo albums and on bedroom walls tell a more honest and a more complete story.

My favorite picture of my brother and me was taken a few years ago during a vacation to Walt Disney World in Florida. The two of us ham it up for the camera, wearing a couple of explorers’ caps we picked up at one of those stores that are meticulously decorated to look like an exotic outpost.

Most people look at the photo and see a couple of dorks on the loose, and that’s half-right. But I see a brother whose faith in the good and the honest and whose determination to make the lives of others better makes me appreciate how noble a human being can be.

And it frustrates me that so few of us--myself included--achieve that potential.

Unlike the generation that preceded us--the generation that flocked to the Peace Corps by the thousands during the 1960s and 1970s and in equal numbers flocked to Range Rover dealerships in the 1980s and 1990s--Josh helps others not because it’s the fashion, but because it’s just what good people do.

Last year, more than 7,000 good people like Josh were stationed in 94 countries with the Peace Corps. That’s the highest number since 1974 but less than half the 15,500 who volunteered in 1966, when the agency was at its zenith and the nation still recalled John F. Kennedy’s admonition to “ask what you can do for your country.”

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Although its numbers have declined, the Peace Corps, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, is more selective than ever. Of the 10,000 who apply each year, only about one-third are accepted as volunteers. The average age has jumped, from 22 in 1969 to 29 last year, as the organization looks for more applicants with special skills.

The average Peace Corps volunteer is no longer the French literature major with no hope of finding a job in the real world, eager for an expense-paid introduction to reality in some green, exotic land. Instead, volunteers are more likely to be specialists in conservation or construction or business or medicine.

Josh is a mathematician, assigned to teach at a secondary school.

I was one of the 100,000 or so who each year request information about the Peace Corps and then, after reading the voluminous application, quickly drop the notion in favor of microwave popcorn, flush toilets, a regular paycheck and a weekly fix of “Friends.”

Selflessness only goes so far.

But it goes further in Josh than in most.

Born five years after me, Josh was my “little” brother until I was about 20. Then--several pounds heavier and several inches taller than me--he became my “younger” brother. Our folks divorced when we were kids so we relied on each other more than most siblings.

Someone once observed that we were two halves of the same person, each compensating for the other’s shortcomings. Both of us can write, but I’m better. I muddled through math, but Josh excelled. I enjoy sports, but Josh was a three-letter varsity man in high school and an All-American college diver. At 22, while still a senior at UC San Diego, he took over as head diving coach and was named NCAA Division 3 Coach of the Year after his divers took three of four national titles.

Not having Josh around will be like losing half of myself--in many ways, the better half. The half that makes people feel instantly at ease. The half that knows no enemies. The half that believes people are basically good.

Proud does not begin to describe how I feel about my brother. Friends who have been regaled with tales of him often remark that no person can live up to the stories I tell. But none have been disappointed when they meet the man.

And those who know him tell the same kind of stories. Josh will never tell them himself. Like the time he was at the home of a friend whose family cared for a toddler born to a crack-addicted mother. Unable to walk and difficult to discipline, the child’s prospects for adoption were grim.

The foster mother wondered aloud who would take on such a responsibility. Josh looked at her and said seriously: “If I was older, I would.” She never doubted him. Neither has anyone who heard the story.

Despite what we see and what we read, there are good people left. I’m lucky enough to have one of them for a brother. And although I miss him already, I know this is the beginning of a great adventure for him.

Would that I--and all of us--could be more like him.