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The Perennial Wanderer

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For the average American, life outside the borders of the United States is often only seen thru images and news reports from a biased media base. These one-sided views are too often misleading and do not convey what life is really like for people living in less developed nations. This is certainly not true in the case of Steven Orr, who perhaps has one of the most diverse backgrounds among foreign aides. In his book, The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World, Orr takes his readers on a wild and vivid trip through numerous different nations, of which he has operated in a great many of throughout his time overseas. Mr. Orr has held various positions, in many different organizations such as, the Peace Corps and the Red cross, from which …show more content…

This preparation Orr relates was pretty grueling and almost cost him his life during a rappelling incident. Bouncing back from this ordeal, Orr started his first assignment in the Republic of Panamá, where he worked with other volunteers at a school and met a teacher named Emilio, who he quickly bonded with. While in Panamá, the author traveled around other parts of Latin America. During this stay Orr, met with a representative from the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID) about working in Vietnam. From his time in the Air Force and time spent studying prior to Vietnam war, Orr’s anti-war Semitism grew and Orr decided he needed to see Vietnam for himself, seeing as they were recruiting prior service peace corps volunteers he had no problem being accepted. Orr got married and shipped off to Vietnam working for USAID. While there, he was involved in bombing incident, during which he was wounded by shrapnel. Orr was involved in another fiasco during his time in Vietnam, this was the Tet Offensive of 1968. After the events, Orr started another journey working for Family Planning International Assistance (FPIA) during which Orr worked in many different positions in this organization and where he learned vital management skills. After leaving FPIA, Orr went to work in El Salvador as a consultant, during his stay there he is involved in a rather daunting ordeal. Orr along with other foreigners are taken hostage by the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMNL) who were fighting a bloody civil war in that country during this time. Orr and the other hostages were released without being harmed by their captors. In this part of the book, Orr elaborates on how the media messed up their reporting and how they did not report the correct details. Following this ordeal, the author

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