Kennedy's Kids Then, Obama's Kids Now
I marched in the inaugural parade yesterday, and there are three moments that will stay with me forever.
The first recollection happened around 3 PM. Someone had just read on her Blackberry that something was wrong with Ted Kennedy. The Peace Corps volunteers, carrying majestic 10-foot flags from 139 countries spontaneously started huddling together - in part because we were freezing, but also because Senator Kennedy's health was heavy on our minds. We stopped complaining about the cold and our thoughts went to thinking the parade would be canceled. Some wanted to know if we would still be on TV. Then, another former volunteer was on the phone with his dad who was watching CNN, and said that Barrack and Michelle Obama were on Twelfth Street. We started getting into position, excited. Next from blocks away we heard cheering that shook the ground - the president and first lady were just minutes away from the viewing station. The first of three moments I will remember from yesterday happened shortly after this. Harris Wofford showed up wearing a Peace Corps cap, with his two grandsons, one of whom was wearing the AmeriCorps red jacket. I looked back and saw some of the older Peace Corps volunteers point at Harris and tear up and it was because decades ago Harris, who was the special director to Africa and personal advisor to President Kennedy, had come to their villages, trained them, shown them the way. And he was here again to show us the way through this cold.
The kids from a middle school marching band in the contingent in front of us, picked up their trombones and started playing a tune I recognized but now can't remember. As the kids played, Harris, who was carrying the Peace Corps banner, began dancing. Not just moving back and forth - he started spinning around and dancing with Peace Corps volunteers. That is the first moment that I'm thinking about today.
The second moment came when we actually started marching. As we turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue, people from all over America were looking at us. I've never quite experienced anything like that. I started waiving back and smiling. You couldn't help it. Then, person after person started raising their fists and cheering, "Peace Corps!!" and "Thank you!!" One person even said, "More Peace Corps. Yes we can." There was a woman jumping up and down crying. The Peace Corps contingent walking in unison, a sea of flags perfectly horizontal in the 20 MPH wind, was hope. Then, three men in yellow jackets and red backpacks came running up to us and added even more hope. I recognized two of them - Mark and Tim Shriver. Tim was wearing black sunglasses. I couldn't believe how much his smile reminded me of Sarge. So positive and bold. They waived to the Peace Corps volunteers with one hand on Harris' shoulder. Their jackets were bumblebee yellow - they were marching with the Special Olympics, which Tim Shriver leads. I wanted to say hello but I felt shy and held on tighter to the Peace Corps banner.
That wasn't the second moment I am thinking about today. The second moment came later when the Shrivers (the third man was Tim's son I think, maybe Mark's son), ran back to take their positions in the Special Olympics contingent. We turned another corner and I saw Mark Shriver, who was now standing with the children in Special Olympics group about 100 meters ahead, looking back at us. The expression on his face was full of so much emotion. Because of my angle, I could see it very clearly. He was overwhelmed by the sea of flags. The Peace Corps was marching again. That look was the second moment I'll remember from yesterday. I think Mark wanted to remember the image of the flags in his mind forever. It was an image of how one person had changed the world and the inner world of all of the marchers - and it was his own father.
The Obamas and Bidens were in a giant heated white cube with a poster on it that said "President of the United States" in cursive letters. It was getting a bit darker, and the crowds were getting bigger and bigger as we approached the viewing station, louder too. Then it happened - the third moment I will never forget from yesterday's parade. This one also has to do with Harris Wofford. As we came closer, I saw the new President and First Lady and the Bidens. They looked so beautiful and happy. When they saw us, they seemed warmed. But then, President Obama saw Harris and he started pointing excitedly and telling Michelle and Joe Biden and then they started pointing too and telling others in the room that Harris was there. The new President looked at Harris Wofford with his characteristic smile, only the look was different, more peaceful and nostalgic. I wonder if he was remembering traveling around the country with Harris during the campaign hearing Peace Corps stories. Whatever he was thinking, the President was emotional. He was completely fixated on Harris. I wish I had seen Senator Wofford's face but I was so focused on the glowing cube and Obama's smile and trying to absorb what it all meant.
Then, they all saw the sea of flags and they leaned forward to see all of us, and I really don't think they were expecting we would have such tall flags. I knew that we were now Obama's kids being ushered in by Kennedy's kids. I knew then that President Obama is going to do something great for the Peace Corps.
I knew because of the look he gave us.
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Rajeev, your energy and passion for Peace Corps radiates forth even in the midst of a chilly winter evening. Keep up the great work to gain attention and resources for this country's greatest service opportunity.
This was a great article by Rajeev, and I think that this generation of Peace Corps Volunteers, and all future ones, can play an even more powerful role in meeting Peace Corps' Third Goal "to bring the world back home." Obama's kids who now live and comunicate in the digital world of the 21st Century, can share their Peace Corps experience contemporaneously, without having to "wait" for completion of their years of service to tell their story. Many Volunteers are already doing this, but Peace Corps leadership in an Obama administration must begin to embrace the power of modern technological tools.
We must empower every Volunteer in their pursuit of the third goal mission from the day they begin service in their Peace Corps communities. Through the power of more readily available information and communication technologies we can now dramatically transform the last of the three goals from a rhetorical after-thought to the position of preeminence that it truly deserves.
I am 65 yrs old. I have always respected and been attracted to the Peace Corps. I LOVED seeing them in the parade with the flags of all nations served. Nursing school, marriage, children, divorce, single parenting superceeded my long held desire to join.
Now, I am my own person. I keep "threatening" to "join the Peace Corp" to the dismay of those who think they still need me here.....I am thinking about it.
I urge you to do it and wish you the best of luck. Thank you for your comments!
Dr. Maurice Albertson, one of the founding designers of the Peace Corps, passed away Sunday, January 11, 2009.
Maury Albertson was my good friend and mentor. I worked alongside him countless hours in his nonprofit organization, "Hydrogen Now!".
He shared his stories of helping to design the Peace Corps, as well as his adventures around the globe, designing water projects and working with all types organizations that truly improved the world. He believed we were put on Earth to do good, and he wholeheartedly embraced that belief with his everyday actions.
I would encourage you to share this news with anyone you may know who was at any time a member of the Peace Corps; for it would not have existed without Dr. Albertson. The world is a much better place because of his generous and selfless donations of his time, energy and knowledge in solving the problems of humanity. He once told me that he thought his job was simply to "stir the pot", and
stimulate people to action. As a great motivator and inspiration, he stirred the pot for thousands and thousands of people.
One of his goals was to form an international Peace Corps, where countries from all over the world would contribute their resources to solving the world's problems. He also formed Village Earth, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sustainable village-based development. You can find more information about Dr. Albertson on the Village Earth website at
http://www.villageearth.org/Maury.html.
Bob Willis
This was a wonderful story and thanks for sharing, you have me all teary eyed.
I marched with the AmeriCorps Alumni Association in the parade. It was the first time AmerICorps Alums have ever been invited to march in an inaugural day. We are so proud that national service was powerfully represented by Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and AmeriCorps Alumni.
On Tuesday President Obama called on the spirit of service to inhabit us all: "What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, hat we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task. This is the price and the promise of citizenship."
Peace Corps and AmeriCorps embody this spirit of service. Now is the time to help President Obama double the Peace Corps, expand AmeriCorps, and bring about greater citizen involvement in our communities and world. Tuesday was an historic day for celebration, but now the work begins to build and renew the ethic of service in America.
As a Peace Corps applicant, who's thought about the Peace Corps for years, is actively involved, and had been in the process for a year...this article sends chills down my spine! I know someone who was able to walk in the parade for Peace Corps The Gambia. Its simply amazing. I'm out of country teaching at the moment, and while I watched the inauguration online, I would have loved to have been there in person, and seen the Peace Corps in the parade.
The Peace Corps is something that is *only* two years of our long life, but is something that will forever change us and those we serve, and we will forever remember everything about our experiences. Not only will we remember, but those we serve will remember for the rest of their lives.
Even though I'm not yet in the Peace Corps, the organization and all the volunteers simply bring endless joy and excitement to my heart.
I really look forward to seeing how Obama will work with the Peace Corps, and hopefully help the organization in someway, something it seems we all wish....
FABULOUS article
Rajeev, you mentioned the Obama "look" of recognition and not knowing what he might be thinking but guessing it was the connection to the Peace Corps stories he must have heard when campaigning. I think you're right because for all of us who were in the Peace Corps those stories--be they wild, funny, touching, scary or sad--are indelible and powerful and just as much a part of our nation's storytelling DNA as the stories of our literary greats. In fact, your comment about stories got me to thinking that the Peace Corps or some publisher should gather these stories online or in book form to share widely. I think such a gathering "place" in the mind could do much to open the world to American readers who may want more than quick, travelogue views of, say, Sri Lanka, Peru (where I was in '63-'65), Ethiopia or Fiji. Such stories would connect us to other people abroad--real, memorable people, not just pictures and surface details of an exotic place where "natives" still live. We and other aid workers abroad have amazing, moving tales to tell--sort of the anti-cruise ship view of who really inhabits the planet. More than journalism, our stories connect us to humanity.
Anyway, I hope we all still keep telling them, especially to the likes of President Obama.
The Peace Corps was the brightest star at the end of a fading parade. It made me get out of my chair and clap as though I was there, and you could hear me. This book idea is brilliant, and so very much needed to fuel the fires of service that President Obama hopes for. PCV was a stroke of genius when it was formed, and PCV's led to America's perception around the world, that we care about other countries. In fact it may be THE reason America's past perception was so enhanced. A book could certainly give credit where credit is due, to the BEST of America's foriegn diplomats and your lasting affects on the countries we served. I say "we" because I've only been able to watch you, but I know you did your job. Now I'd like to read your stories and see your faces and the faces of the ones you inspired. Thanks to all of you!
What a great story. And one that, once again, points out how the Peace Corps isn't just something we do overseas. Special Olympics, teaching, social work, and others - returned volunteers return to the States to serve again and again.
And that's not all! I think about the family members who came to visit me in my country of service, Guatemala, and how their eyes, like mine, were opened to a larger, more connected, world. Wouldn't it be great if even more families and communities could experience that?!
Thanks Rajeev for taking us with you down Pennsylvania Avenue!
Rajeev, thanks for sharing this! Keep up all the great work you do.
Rajeev, you made us all feel that we were walking down Pennsylvania Avenue too, and how important it is that the Peace Corps have a renewed place in American life. Thank you. And thank you for all you do to make this version come true.
OK, I am not making this up. This morning I was walking to a meeting with the head of the UNAMA (UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan) in Bamyan, and I was looking around thinking, "What a great place this must have been to be a PCV!" (Not only is it breathtakingly beautiful, even with the Buddhas now gone from their niches; there is such need for development workers.) Now I am reading Rajeev's bit and, also (ever) weeping for hope and fear and joy. (Note the irony, if you can call it that, that I have access to Internet in Bamyan, but not many children/youth have access to school, and many people still do not have access to basic health care -- especially in the snow-filled winter.)
Anyway, I just hope the gods and goddesses and powers that be are looking favorably on President Obama because he sure has a lot of people counting on him to help the world get right again. I know a lot of Afghans are counting on him, for sure!
Thank you for sharing this piece. I cried. Man this will never stop, the crying, I mean.
It is like being hopeless for so long, and all of a sudden, so much is possible again.
Thank you.
I have been touched by many things about this inauguration. Yet, reading this is somehow hitting even a deeper core of gratitude. I've worked with a number of nonprofits, but never the Peace Corps; still I think there is a larger something about service work here, the slow arc of emergence, and the beauty of when so many divergent and previously invisible energies converge and CREATE. Thank you, Mr. Goyal, for offering this personal story and the immediacy with which you shared it.
I missed the exchange of looks with Obama, & the PCVs. By the time that came along, I had 2 young children or I would have joined, as my younger cousin did.
I did do service in AmeriCorps*VISTA though in my 61st & 62nd year of life.,
It was heart warming to see them marching too.
Promise of things to come.
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