Peace and love go hand in hand, which helps explain the four-decade marriage of David and Bernadette Miron.
The Mirons are one of several Ponte Vedra couples who can trace their personal histories together through a stint in the Peace Corps.
Last Friday night, as Tropical Storm Fay lashed the coast, almost two dozen former Peace Corps members gathered at the Miron house to reminisce and to talk about ways the corps veterans can help revitalize the program.
The menu, designed to please the pallets of veterans who once served in more than 20 different countries, included Liberian chop, puleo (a dish from coastal Kenya), guacamole, Honduran black beans and rice, nyebbeh from Gambia, pupusas from El Salvador, potato salad from Belize, and desserts like panipopo from Western Samoa, Hawaiian wedding cake, obleas from Colombia, and carrot cake — from Publix.
The event that brought the Peace Corps vets out into the storm was the official local kickoff of the "More Peace Corps" campaign and a visit by National Peace Corps Association Advocacy Coordinator Jonathan Pearson, who was on hand to tell them about the campaign’s goal to double the size of the Peace Corps by the 50th anniversary of the corps in 2011.
"He delivered a terrific briefing," wrote David Miron in an e-mail. "We toasted our hardiness and good luck."
The Miron’s have had exceptional luck. They met before shipping out to Columbia in 1963 to help build a school and to introduce a new technology to the country’s school system. They married before they came home two years later.
"David and I both went to Columbia from 1963 to 1965. We were with an educational television group," said Bernadette Miron in a phone interview. "We sort of got their educational television going."
The Mirons were married in Ibague (pronounced ee-ba-gay), in the central highlands of Columbia. Like the memories of their Peace Corps experience, the Mirons’ marriage has lasted more than 40 years.
The Mirons certainly aren’t the only couple who found love serving the corps in some far-away land. They aren’t even the only couple in Ponte Vedra that did.
In 1962 Frank Cotter, then a widower with 3 children, was doing work for the Peace Corps in Washington when, according to Miron, Cotter was asked to travel to St. Lucia to evaluate the work corps volunteers were doing there. He met nurse Malinda DuBose, and when her tour in St. Lucia ended, he pursued her. They married, had a child of their own, and the rest is history.
Miron says another local Peace Corps volunteer, doctor Paul Young, met his wife Pam while both served with the corps in Belize. The More Peace Corps campaign is designed to help make good on what Miron said was one of President John F. Kennedy’s goals when he started the Peace Corps in 1961 — to have 1 million returned Peace Corps veterans by the end of the decade. Unfortunately in the past 47 years only 190,000 people have served in the corps — many of them during that first decade. Only 8,079 volunteers currently serve.
The campaign’s first goal is to have 100 house parties by Sept. 6, to show support for the initiative. Ponte Vedra was "the first of the 100 house parties to kick off this campaign" said Miron., who believes the Peace Corps has a lot to offer the world — and Americans.
The Peace Corps’ mission has three simple goals: Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
Miron thinks the Peace Corps accomplishes one other important mission: Preparing its veterans for the future. After he returned from Columbia, Miron worked as a presidential appointee in both Johnson and Nixon administrations, then had a successful career in the private sector as a management consultant.
"It definitely helped me in my career," he said.
And after four decades together, it’s probably safe to say the experience helped his marriage as well.
mpettus@jcpgroup.com
September 7th 2008 - 7:25PM