The Peace Corps

Peter Rush was in Cameroon from 1972-73 after graduating from Brown University with a BA in International Relations. He then earned a masters in Creative Writing from the University of Florida and has been a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, and a police officer. He is currently the CEO of a global management firm. We interviewed Peter received about his first novel. Peter, tell us a little bit about yourself and where you were in the Peace Corps.  I went to Brown and served in the Peace Corps in 1972-73. I was assigned to a little village in northern Cameroon which in the present day has been impacted by the Boko Harum group from Nigeria. In fact, many of the villages in my area have been destroyed. What was your assignment overseas? I taught at a GEG school (College Enseignment General)- teaching English (ESL) because Cameroon is officially bilingual English and French as . . .

Sargent Shriver’s Speech at the National Conference of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and Staff, Washington, D.C. September 20, 1986 Mine is an impossible task, to describe the challenge facing the Peace Corps is to describe the most profound problems facing the entire world, and the problems within each one of us which prevent us from fulfilling our potential to overcome those problems. In a mere speech, I am not able to fulfill an assignment of that magnitude. Forgive me, if, then, I say that you know as well as I that hunger, disease, poverty, fear and anxiety afflict more human beings now than ever in recorded history. You know we live face-to-face with total disaster and death through nuclear war. You know that all of us in the Peace Corps constitute merely a handful of persons seeking perfection in a world population of billions struggling for mere survival. “Oh! Lord, . . .

The Foreign Service Journal covers foreign affairs from an insider’s perspective, providing thought-provoking articles on international issues, the practice of diplomacy and the U.S. Foreign Service. Including the AFSA News section, The Journal is published monthly (January-February and July-August issues combined) by the American Foreign Service Association. The November issue focuses on Foreign Service authors. Mark Wentling (Honduras 1967–69, Togo 1970–73; PC Staff: Togo, Gabon, Niger 1973–77) new book, Dead Cow Road: Life on the Front Lines of an International Crisis is featured on on this page.http://www.afsa.org/sites/default/files/flipping_book/1117/index.html#38   A former U.S. foreign service officer, Mark Jacobs (Paraguay 1978-80) has published more than 125 stories in magazines including The Atlantic, Playboy, The Idaho Review, The S0uthrn Review, and The Kenyon Review. His latest publication is in the Hudson Review. http://hudsonreview.com/2017/10/other-mens-fields/#.Wfn13baZPsk    

I do not think it is altogether fair to say that I handed Sarge a lemon from which he made lemonade, but I do think that he was handed and you (The Peace Corps staff) were handed one of the most sensitive and difficult assignments which any administrative group in Washington has been given almost in this century.” –President Kennedy in a speech to the Peace Corps staff It was apparent to Shriver from the very beginning that he needed talented people who had wide experience in government work. The question was–how would he find them! He followed the principle that one good man would bring another. So Warren Wiggins got him Jack Young from NASA, a demon of energy and creativity who organized our management services. Presidential Counsel Ted Sorensen recommended Joe Kauffman. The Dean of the Yale Law School, Eugene Rostow, recommended Bill Delano. The “talent search” turned up . . .

The Peace Corps: A lot of bucks for very little bang? By Thomas M Hill, Visiting Fellow—Governance Studies Brookings Monday, October 16, 2017 Former Congressman Sam Farr (D-Calif.) is credited with having stated that the Peace Corps is “the American taxpayer’s best bang for its buck.” Certainly, it’s a sentiment shared by many returned Peace Corps volunteers who describe their experiences as personally transformative. However, at approximately $56,500 per volunteer per year, the Peace Corps is one of the most expensive civilian overseas programs funded by the federal government and nearly twice as expensive as the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. The program’s cost ($410 million annually) coupled with its inconsistent development track record and the agency’s insistence that it operate independently from U.S. foreign policy should raise questions for Congress about whether an entirely taxpayer-funded model is sustainable and a good use of limited resources. In 1971, Brent Ashabranner, the former Deputy Director of the Peace Corps suggested that . . .

Thanks to the ‘heads up’ from Andy Trincia (Romania 2002-04) From The Guardian, New Zealand US officials investigated Brown after he was accused of inappropriate behaviour at a party in Samoa and was alleged by one woman to have stared at her breasts Scott Brown: US envoy to New Zealand ‘counselled on standards of conduct’ The state department said: ‘We take allegations of misconduct seriously and we investigate them thoroughly.’ Photograph: @peacecorpssamoa Facebook/The Samoan Photographer Reported by Eleanor Ainge Roy in Dunedin and Julian Borger in Washington Thursday 26 October 2017 US Ambassador to New Zealand, Scott Brown The US ambassador to New Zealand has been “counselled on standards of conduct for government employees” after an investigation into his behaviour at a party in Samoa in the summer. US officials from the state department’s office of inspector general flew to New Zealand last week to interview Scott Brown, a former Republican senator, and reported their findings . . .

The main source of my personnel research in the early Peace Corps/Washington comes from Who’s Who in The Peace Corps Washington. Thanks to a ‘heads up’ from Peace Corps’ first photographer, Rowland Scherman, I now know this informative pamphlet was written by Peace Corps PR/Reporter, a former San Francisco newspaper reporter, Thompson “Jim” Walls. I met Jim and Rowland in 1962-3 when they were traveling around the world gathering Volunteer stories and photographing PCVs. They spent several weeks in Ethiopia on this historic trip and brought back to the US photographs of what the Peace Corps was doing overseas in these early years. Jim wrote the copy for this information pamphlet Who’s Who in The Peace Corps and Roland took all the photos. The agency and all of us who were PCVs and Staff are indebted to them.  Shriver Remembers First Staff Reading the biographies of all these men and women . . .

There are unfortunately few books about the early days of the agency, how it was formed and who was involved in those weeks at the Mayflower Hotel and in the original Peace Corps Office, the Maiatico Building, located at the edge of Lafayette Park and within sight of the White House. Who were the people who built the agency? Harris Wofford’s book, Of Kennedys & Kings Making Sense of the Sixties (1980) devotes a chapter to the Peace Corps. The Bold Experience: JFK’s Peace Corps by Gerard T. Rice (1985) tells of the political maneuvering to create the agency, as does to a certain degree, All You Need Is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s by Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman (1998). However, Come As You Are: The Peace Corps Story by Coates Redmon (1986) a press writer at the Peace Corps in its first days, gives the background . . .

  Gival Press has announced that Tyler McMahon of Honolulu, Hawai’i has won the 2016 Gival Press Novel Award for his novel Dream of Another America. McMahon will receive a cash prize of $3,000. The novel will be  published in the spring of 2018. — JC Advance Praise “So gritty about every least detail, so frank about its people’s needs, Dream of Another America might at first seem the furthest thing from a dream. Yet Tyler McMahon has worked this desperate material into a headlong tumble of jeopardy and escape, sweeping up a remarkable array of souls—mostly Central American—in a spell so vivid it seems straight out of the deepest recesses of the unconscious. As his protagonist Jacinto makes his way north to Los United, McMahon puts the reader too up against the worst monsters of that odyssey, now baking in the desert, now clinging to a train. The novel’s likewise unsparing about . . .

  This is the language (and tone) of rejection letters being sent to would-be candidates for Peace Corps positions. In this case, it took a year for the rejection letter to arrive. Where is the human agency that we once worked for in DC and overseas? If this is the way the current Peace Corps Agency treats staff, how do they respond to PCVs? And they didn’t even have the decency to add the name of the person sending the letter! Well, maybe it’s Alexa who is now sending out the Need Not Apply letters from Peace Corps Washington. — JC • This is in regards to your application for the position of Country Director: Your application for the subject position has been reviewed and evaluated. We regret to inform you that after a thorough review of your application and supporting documents, your application does not show possession of the . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Mark Wentling (Honduras 1967–69, Togo 1970–73; PC Staff: Togo, Gabon, Niger 1973–77) “Near where I now live in Bamako is where the old Peace Corps/Mali office was. The sign still hangs on the front wall of this office. Security concerns forced Peace Corps Mali to close its operations in late 2015. For the same reasons, Peace Corps Niger closed in 2011, and last month Peace Corps Burkina Faso closed. There are now no Peace Corps Volunteers in the inland Sahel Region in Africa. Really sad for me as these are some of my favorite Peace Corps countries. These three countries were among the oldest Peace Corps programs, having existed 45 years or more ”

Thanks to the ‘heads up’ from Joanne Roll (Colombia 1963-65) A small but mighty team of staff members have answered the call to serve as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Surge Capacity Force to support communities affected by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. Front: Jason Steele; Middle: Tiffany Tai, Elyssa Musaraca, Angela Hamilton, Lori Frola, Ashanty Cruz; Back: Bhoj Rai, Nicholas Leichliter, Dylan Bilbao, Sarah Timpy, Stephanie Wade On September 9, the Department of Homeland Security requested assistance from all federal agencies in the activation of DHS’s Surge Capacity Force. The Peace Corps was asked to send volunteers from among our employees to mobilize immediately and serve for 45 days in hurricane affected areas. The agency moved swiftly and eleven individuals were identified and mobilized immediately.  Four more volunteers from headquarters — Melissa Howe-Boudrye, Thomas Geraghty, Colin Jones, and Rachel Teter — are expected to deploy in the . . .

Review by Xan Brooks The Guardian September 1, 2017 Adapted from the Kent Haruf novel, Our Souls at Night is your classic Hollywood weepie, so immaculately played that it confounds crass preconceptions. It arrived in Venice saddled with a premise that could hardly sound more cloying, together with an unfortunate title that has had hardened British hacks giggling like schoolboys at the back of the class. Critics get their first sniff of Our Souls at Night! Two thumbs up: Our Souls at Night! But Ritesh Batra’s film comes cynic-proofed. It won me over from the very first scene. Louis (Robert Redford) is a widower who lives on the sleepy fringes of small-town Colorado, where he is unable to get much shut-eye of his own. He’s always up before the sun comes up, with the radio on and the newspaper open, just another lonesome old man living an Edward Hopper existence. . . .

I’ve heard that the Peace Corps has decided to get involved in the relief effort caused by the recent hurricanes. But not with Volunteers like the Crisis Corps (Response) where Volunteers worded with the communities affected by these hurricanes. Peace Corps has sent staff and managers, mostly from HQ, to be “detailed” to the Department of Homeland Security. They will work with Homeland and be paid by Homeland. I believe they will all work in DC. Does this give new meaning to the Peace Corps . . . flexible? This has not yet been covered by the press. . .Peace Corps working alongside Homeland Security! What would Sarge say?

The National Peace Corps Association has discussed the new political appointees to the Peace Corps and notes that we still do not have a nomination for Peace Corps Director.  None of the appointees profiled here are RPCVs. Since 2007, when then President Bush appointed RPCV Ronald Tschetter Peace Corps Director, each Director has been a RPCV. John Coyne notes Carol Bellamy (Guatemala 1963-65) and that Mark Schneider (ElSalvador 1966-68) both were RPCVs and had the directorship. There is an interesting article in Government Executive suggesting that the deadline for temporary appointments to leadership postions in the federal government is approaching in November. Many vacancies remain. Currently, the Peace Corps Director is a temporary appointment.  Her leadership team is dominated by temporary appointments.  At the Peace Corps Connect Gathering last August, Ashley Bell suggested that we might have a Deputy Director before we had a permanent Director. Read the article about November deadlines, . . .