Archive - 2011

1
Larry Leamer (Nepal 1965-67) Comments on Sarge & ABC 20/20
2
The Peace Corps & ABC 20/20 – part 1
3
Sargent Shriver dies
4
Review of Patricia Taylor Edmisten's A Longing for Wisdom
5
Murder of Kate Puzey
6
A Writer Writes
7
Morning in America
8
Why did you join the Peace Corps?
9
“Once in Afghanistan”
10
The Ouagadougou Peace Corps Doctor
11
Review of Gene Stone's The Secrets of People Who Never Get Sick
12
Review of The Nightingale of Mosul by Susan Luz (Brazil 1972-75)
13
Thomas Tighe in Politico Playbook
14
David Brooks Column Quotes Peace Corps Doctor
15
Waiting for Stan Meisler's History of the Peace Corps

Larry Leamer (Nepal 1965-67) Comments on Sarge & ABC 20/20

 [This blog was posted this morning by RPCV writer Larry Leamer on Huffington Post website. Larry’s most recent book is  Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach.] Sarge’s Dream When I joined the Peace Corps in 1964, Sargent Shriver was my hero. I was stationed two days from a road in the mountains of the Himalayan kingdom and I never met the director of the Peace Corps. But he inspired me. He was “Sarge” to all of us, and we often talked about him. He visited Nepal once, this exuberant, inspiring presence who believed that the only thing higher than Mt. Everest was the human spirit. He thought people were capable of anything, even me. We just had to do it. When I started my trilogy on the Kennedy family in the late eighties, I got to know Sarge, and I realized it was not easy being married . . .

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The Peace Corps & ABC 20/20 – part 1

As many of you did, I watched the ABC 20/20 program last Friday night that included a segment entitled “Scandal Inside the Peace Corps: Investigation into whether the Peace Corps puts women into dangerous situations.”  I felt a great deal of sympathy for those involved – Katie Puzey, who was murdered March 12, 2009 in Benin, her family, and the RPCV women who stepped forward to tell their stories of being attacked while serving overseas. And to see Katie smiling out from the past in a homemade video shot by her cousin who visited her site only months before the brutal murder was breathtakingly sad. I also felt very sorry for the Peace Corps’ new deputy director, Carrie Hessler-Radelet, who endured endless 20/20 questions: “What did the Peace Corps Administration know? When did they know it?” Carrie was unable or unwilling to answer anything. It appeared by the end of the long interrogation that . . .

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Sargent Shriver dies

TODAY the beloved architect and first Director of the Peace Corps Sargent Shriver died. Peace Corps Worldwide invites you to leave your comments and remembrances of Sarge. For those living in the Washington, DC area, Peace Corps Headquarters has a book of condolences available for the public to sign for Shriver’s family. It is located just within the entrance to the building at 1111 20th Street, N.W. (Photo by Rowland Scherman)

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Review of Patricia Taylor Edmisten's A Longing for Wisdom

A Longing for Wisdom: One Woman’s Conscience and Her Church by Patricia S. Taylor Edmisten (Peru 1962–64) iUniverse, Inc. $13.95 117 pages 2010 Reviewed by Paula Hamilton (NPCV) PATRICIA S. TAYLOR EDMISTEN’S BOOK resonated with me — as I think it will with other Catholic women searching for their place in the Catholic Church of the 21st century. Like her, I was born into a Catholic family, educated in Catholic schools through college, have numerous friends who are priests, and love my Church. Also like her, I struggle with the dictates and the behavior of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, especially in their refusal to understand that we, women and the laity generally, are the Church. The author articulates her views through numerous genre of literature:  memoirs, poems, stories, passages of scripture, and essays, many written earlier in her life. They express a unifying theme: a growing discomfort resulting . . .

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Murder of Kate Puzey

We posted this news on March 25, 2009 on this site. Our PeaceCorpsWorldwide reporter in Benin emailed this Wednesday morning that 4 suspects have been apprehended and brought before the court for further questions relating to the murder of 24-year-old PCV Catherine “Katie” Puzey. The suspects are 1 Nigerian and 3 Beninese. Kate, a Georgia native and a graduate of William and Mary College, had been teaching English since July 2007 in the village of Badjoude, approximately six hours north of the capital city of Cotonou. As of today, there have been no official changes. The newspaper reported on Tuesday that 4 suspects have been apprehended and brought before the court for further questioning in connection with the murder. Of the three Beninese, two are part time trainers for the Peace Corps and the third is one of Peace Corps Benin’s Associate Peace Corps Directors (APCDs). The APCD and one of the trainers are brothers, . . .

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A Writer Writes

Hope in the Midst of Tragedy: Reflections on Tucson by Collin Tong (Thailand 1968–69) THE TRAGIC EVENTS LEADING TO THE JAN. 8th rampage near Tucson, Ariz., that left six killed, and 14 wounded, and Representative Gabrielle Giffords, 40, in critical condition, left me shaken. Twenty-nine years ago, on Jan. 28, 1982, my older brother lost his life in the same manner, also by a deranged gunman, who happened to be his client.  It was deeply ironic, yet nonetheless tragic that Roland, a civil rights attorney who devoted much of his life to serving others, in East Harlem and then San Francisco, should lose his life in the act of helping others. At the time of his death, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy penned this letter to me:  “The news article describing your brother’s long record of service to others in need was brought to my attention by Jerry Tinker on my . . .

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Morning in America

After the Arizona shooting–and you may have heard this on NPR News last night–a friend said to Mark Shields (the friend’s name, I think, was Ginsberg) that in Tucson a Republican Catholic judge went to see his friend, a Jewish Democratic congresswoman, and when the shooting started, a young Mexican-American was first to help the Congresswoman, and later her life was saved by a Korean/American doctor, and all of the events were reflected and commented on by an African-American President.

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Why did you join the Peace Corps?

People are still asking that question as we approach the half century of the agency. Back in May of 1966, Joseph Colman, who was then the Acting Associate Director of the Peace Corps for Planning, Evaluation, and Research, published a paper in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. I tracked down a copy of Colman’s paper that reports on several studies of motivation for joining the agency. One was done in 1962 of 2,612 applications’ replies to a motivational question on the application form; another in a 1963 interview study of why people who apply later decline a specific invitation to enter training; and the third was a 1964 interview study of college seniors and their interest in the Peace Corps. Colman’s paper concludes [not surprisingly] that Volunteers can be successful in the Peace Corps with a variety of motivations for joining.   In 1960, before . . .

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“Once in Afghanistan”

RPCVs of Colorado are sponsoring an Anniversary Film Series to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps. Tonight the film is “Once in Afghanistan.” The website for the Colorado Returned Peace Corps states: Synopsis:  Returned Peace Corps Volunteers recall their experiences as female members of Afghan male vaccinator teams in the late 60s.The women vividly recall trying to convince the women to be vaccinated and their dependence on the Afghan counterparts and the people in the villages. Their stories and photographs go behind the walls where people of completely different backgrounds could recognize one another in spite of their differences. In a world in which messages of hate travel faster than ever before, this is a message of understanding. There are materials available on line that helps to understand the context of Peace Corps/Afghanistan.  These include: Walter P. Blass was the first Peace Corps Director in Afghanistan and this . . .

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The Ouagadougou Peace Corps Doctor

 Yesterday I wrote about Peace Corps Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, a research psychiatrist, who wrote (among other books) The Insanity Offense and who had been a Peace Corps doctor (Ethiopia 1964-66) and married to an RPCV, Barbara Boyle (Tanzania 1963-65). Fuller was quoted in an op-ed piece in the New York Times. That reminded me that back in 2001 Peace Corps Doctor Milt Kogan, who served in the Republic of Upper Volta from June 1970 to June 1972, sent me a copy of the 169 page, double spaced, typed, diary that he had kept of his experience in country in the early Seventies. He was the Peace Corps Physician in care of 70 Vols in the nation now known as Burkina Faso.[ It was renamed by President Thomas Sankara in 1984 to mean “the land of the upright people” in Mossi and Dioula, the major languages of the country.] Milt arrived in country . . .

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Review of Gene Stone's The Secrets of People Who Never Get Sick

The Secrets of People Who Never Get Sick by Gene Stone (Niger 1974–76) Workman Publishing $23.95 www.secretsofpeople.com 212 pages October 2010 Reviewed by Robert E. Hamilton (Ethiopia 1965–67) IF YOU ARE INTERESTED in enhancing your own personal health but are not a zealot about it — that is, you are not a member of the “health nut choir” — read Gene Stone’s “Afterward” first. The zealots will buy and read this book for their own reasons. The rest of us, though, who drive cars but don’t read Road and Track magazine, who want to be healthier without purchasing a library of “how to” publications, will be particularly interested in Stone’s two observations in the “Afterward” which link the “health secrets” of the 25 people included in his book.  Stone says that his interviewees have been successful in staying healthy because they found an exercise or health practice which: (1) works . . .

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Review of The Nightingale of Mosul by Susan Luz (Brazil 1972-75)

The Nightingale of Mosul: A Nurse’s Journey of Service, Struggle, and War by Susan Luz (Brazil 1972–75) and Marcus Brotherton Kaplan Publishing 2010 243 pages $25.95 Reviewed by Susan O’Neill (Venezuela 1973–74) I PICKED UP THIS BOOK WITH TREPIDATION. The title seemed grandiose; the legend above it trumpeted: “From the daughter-in-law of George Luz Sr., one of the original Band of Brothers.” The blurbs on the back came from Brothers in that Band, a documentary producer specializing in WWII, and a Brigadier General. I thought, We’re selling patriotism here. As a Viet Nam veteran, I’m allergic to patriotism. So I was prepared to scoff. And when early pages featured faith in God’s will and prayer, my scoff-alert heightened. As a former Catholic, I’m allergic to Catholicism. Those disclaimers given, I will say that I was pleasantly surprised. This book, the autobiography of a woman who has lived life double-time in . . .

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Thomas Tighe in Politico Playbook

Thomas Tighe (Thailand 1986-88; PC/HQ 1995-2000) is now CEO of Direct Relief International, biggest medical supplier to Haiti (directrelief.org): As quoted in Politico Playbook this morning: “One year ago tomorrow [Jan. 12] in Haiti — a country the size of Maryland — more people died in a matter of minutes from the earthquake than have been killed by all the natural disasters in the history of the United States. The scale of human tragedy caused by Haiti’s earthquake defies comprehension: 230,000 people killed, 1.3 million people displaced, and 194,000 injured. Those who survive now carry the hope and challenge of rebuilding a country. Of course help is still needed to get through and get better. The health challenges alone are steep and threatening, from the systemic level all the way down to very basic access to things like a health professional, medicines, IV solutions, and even soap. Long after the headlines . . .

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David Brooks Column Quotes Peace Corps Doctor

A New York Times op-ed column this morning (Tuesday, January 11, 2011) by David Brooks entitled “The Politicized Mind” focuses on Jared Loughner and the shooting rampage in Tucson and quotes from a book by  Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, a research psychiatrist, who wrote (among other books) The Insanity Offense. Torrey was a Peace Corps doctor (Ethiopia 1964-66) and is married to an RPCV, Barbara Boyle (Tanzania 1963-65). The Brooks column is generating a lot of ‘heat’ for statements such as “..the political opportunism occasioned by this tragedy has ranged from the completely irrelevant to the shame irresponsible” and slamming such noted liberals as Gary Hart, Keith Olbermann, Daily Kos, and the Huffington Post. Torry’s book is the calm center of today’s op-ed piece. Quoting from it, Brooks uses Torry’s research to show that about 1 percent of the seriously mentally ill (or about 40,000 individuals) are violent. They account for about half the . . .

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Waiting for Stan Meisler's History of the Peace Corps

Next month Stan Meisler’s book on the Peace Corps When The World Calls: The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years will be published by Beacon Press, but you can order it now at www.amazon.com (be the first RPCV on your block to own a copy!) We will also have a review of the book next month done by Robert Textor who was an early consultant to the Peace Corps, and editor of one of the first studies about the agency, Cultural Frontiers of the Peace Corps, published in 1966 by MIT Press. Meanwhile….For those who don’t know, Stan Meisler…was a reporter for AP who came late to the Peace Corps.  “I was not there at the madcap, exciting, glorious beginning. I started my work at Peace Corps headquarters just after the election of Lyndon B. Johnson to a full term as president, a year after the assassination of . . .

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