In his op-ed piece “Hone U.S. message of freedom” (BDN, July 3), Sen. John McCain described a Department of Peace and Nonviolence as a cabinet position.

There is presently a bill before Congress, HR 808, to establish such a department. This historic measure will augment our current problem-solving techniques, providing practical, nonviolent solutions to the problems of domestic and international conflict.

Domestically, the Department of Peace and Nonviolence will develop policies and allocate resources to effectively reduce the levels of domestic and gang violence and child and spousal abuse. Internationally, the department will advise the president and Congress on the most sophisticated ideas and techniques regarding peace-creation among nations. It would create a peace academy patterned after our military academies to educate a professional corps of public-diplomacy experts who speak the local language and whose careers would promote American values, ideas, culture and education. It would recruit the best and brightest not just from the ranks of Foreign Service but from business, academia and the media.

The Peace Corps would be an important part of our foreign aide program. The academy would train a cadre of professionals capable of assisting a nation or area to reestablish its civil and or economic base resulting from whatever catastrophe befell it.

This piece of legislation will pass from bill to law only when a wave of citizen interest rises up and makes itself heard in the halls of Congress. Visit the Web site to learn how you can help and to read the bill itself. Visit www.thepeacealliance.org.

John C. Ferriday

Sedgwick