In the past 25 years, nearly 50 United Nations soldiers have been killed on peace-keeping duty along Arab-Israeli cease-fire lines. Servicemen who have spent time baking in the tin-roofed shacks that serve as U.N. observation posts do not recommend the job highly. Up to 200 U.S. civilians will probably be manning surveillance stations in the wastelands of the Sinai before too long and Israeli officials are reassuring: they insist that the biggest problem is likely to be sheer boredom.
Whether the hazard be death or ennui, where will these "civilian volunteers" come from?...