Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2020-023
William Shaw served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand from January 1966 to March 1968. He did construction work as part of a community development program, first in Satun province near the Malaysian border, and then for the last 9 months, in the Nakhon Phanom province in the northeast on the Mekong River near the Laos border. He was reassigned there because a lot of money was pouring into the region during the Vietnam War since it was near the Ho Chi Minh Trail where active bombing was being conducted. After his service, Shaw became a Peace Corps trainer in Hawaii, where he met his Thai wife who was a Peace Corps language instructor. Because of his excellent Thai language skills, he also served as a State Department escort interpreter for Thai officials visiting the U.S. After retirement from a 25 year career in the information technology business, Shaw and his wife lived in Songkhla, his wife's hometown in southern Thailand, for 15 years while he taught English and business classes. To this day he maintains his close ties with the remaining members of his Thailand 12 group. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, September 10, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).