"To me, the experience in the CCC was the opening of my world, which, until that time had been limited and poor in so many ways. My parents died when I was six and (my) grandparents raised me and died not too many months before I went into the CCC. The camp life not only helped me physically but also psychologically. What a wonderful opportunity and blessing it was for young men in those lean years."
--Walter L. Mallory, CCC Alumni, in the book "Roosevelt's Forest Army: A History of the Civilian Conservation Corps," by Perry H. Merrill, 1981.
Today, unfortunately, we don't have a Civilian Conservation Corps. We do, however, have the largest prison-industrial complex in the world--endless rows of prison cells waiting for our disadvantaged youth.
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