Archive - 2012

On this Peace Corps Birthday I thought I’d tell again one or two of the early stories about the agency.      A lot has been written, especially last year, about those days when the Peace Corps attracted the best and the brightest, or so they claimed. One document stated the agency’s  staff was composed of “skiers, mountain climbers, big-game hunters, prizefighters, football players, polo players and enough Ph.D.’s [30] to staff a liberal arts college.” There were 18 attorneys, of whom only four continue to work strictly as attorneys in the General Counsel’s office and the rest [including Sargent Shriver] did other jobs. Also, all of these employees were parents of some 272 children. In terms of staff and PCVs, the ratio was quite small. Figures from WWII showed 30 people were required to support every soldier in the front lines. After the war, peacetime ratio was one person in Washington to every four overseas. The Peace Corps was . . .

Military trial in Peace Corps rape case begins Trial for Navy SEAL support team sailor accused of raping Peace Corps worker in Uganda begins By The Associated Press NORFOLK, Va. (AP) ‘ A former Peace Corps worker who taught at a girl’s school in rural Uganda has told a military jury that a sailor who does construction work for Navy SEALs raped her in his hotel room in the country’s capital. The 27-year-old woman testified Monday that her sexual encounter with Petty Officer 2nd Class Camaren Walker started out as consensual. But when his condom slipped off twice, she wanted him to stop. She says he raped her four times. During the military’s equivalent of a preliminary hearing in April, Walker’s attorneys suggested charges were brought because of political pressure. In opening arguments, one of Walker’s attorneys said the woman simply regretted her decision to have sex with Walker. The . . .

miguelito writes: with all due respect to all thr work done by rpcv/washington, i think nan gear of pc/washington, lorette ruppe, and dozens of other donors large and small would dispute the cllaim tht the 25th anniversary had no support other than the local returnees. simply not true!!! if you’d like a copy of the final accounting of funds and expenditures, please refer to the 25th memorial reoprt… venceremos… There is a comment by someone named ‘miguelito’ on my blog yesterday, replying to my item: “More from Mark Shriver’s book about his Dad” He/She was objecting to my remark, “This was the famous reunion organized by the Returned Volunteer of Washington, not by any national group of RPCVs, nor by the Peace Corps agency. The Peace Corps, as we know, never organizes anything for RPCVs.” ‘miguelito’ might not know the full history, and with the passing of time we have all forgotten key . . .

Mark Shriver writes in A Good Man — out this June from Henry Holt — that he applied to the Peace Corps in his senior year at Holy Cross College.  “After waiting months to hear — no one [in our family] from my generation had yet been accepted into the program — I learned that I would serve as an English teacher in Paraguay.” He then went with his Dad to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Peace Corps held under a enormous tent on the Mall in Washington, D.C.. This was the famous reunion organized by the Returned Volunteer of Washington, not by any national group of RPCVs, nor by the Peace Corps agency. The Peace Corps, as we know, never organizes anything for RPCVs. “Dad . . . gave a terrific speech with a rousing finale,” Mark writes.”I was sitting in the front row, proud of him and motivated to serve.” Mark goes on to . . .

Continuing for a moment on the theme of JFK and Peace Corps Volunteers, I happen to get hold of an early copy of Mark K. Shriver’s book on his father entitled, A Good Man, that Henry Holt is publishing in June.  My wife is a magazine executive and her staff is trained to give her copies of any book about the Peace Corps or Ethiopia that arrives at the office! Mark’s book has the subtitle of Rediscovering my Father.  Sarge, as we know, died in January 2011 at the age of 95.  And in the last years of his long life he suffered from Alzheimer. A story Mark tells in his book  is about the immediate aftermath of Kennedy’s death, and the gathering of world dignitaries in Washington, D.C. for the state funeral. Shriver more or less ran the wake and funeral and on the day of the Mass and burial the White House was jammed with heads of state. Angie Duke, then the chief . . .

Lee Tuveson (Nepal (1962–64) was nice enough to send me a copy of the address that John F. Kennedy made to 600+ Peace Corps Trainees in Washington, D.C. on August 9, 1962. Lee , who was in attendance, was headed off to Nepal with that country’s first group of PCVs,  and Marian Beil and I, who were there as well, were leaving after Labor Day with the first group of Volunteers to Ethiopia. Here are JFK’s remarks to us, but really, Kennedy’s comments were for all the PCVs who would join the Peace Corps in the years to come. It would be great now to get comments from other departing Trainees who were on the White House lawn that August afternoon, and from those PCVs who were at “send-offs” by other presidents, or by Peace Corps Directors, in later years. What do you remember? • Ladies and gentlemen: We are very glad to welcome you here to the White House. This occasion . . .