June 14, 2003 - Washington Post: Sargent Shriver: A Champion of Life

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By Admin1 (admin) on Saturday, June 14, 2003 - 1:45 am: Edit Post

Sargent Shriver: A Champion of Life





Caption: A recent photo of the Shrivers taken at the Press Conference announcing that the 2007 Special Olympics will be held in Shangai. Sargent Shirver is shown on the right. Eunice Shriver Kennedy, the founder of Special Olympics is shown in the Center. Timothy P. Shriver, president and CEO of Special Olympics, is shown on the right. His Excellency Yang Jiechi, ambassador of the People's Republic of China to the United States, is shown second from the right.

Read and comment on this story from the Washington Post on Founding Peace Corps Director Sargent Shirver. Mickey Kantor once put Shriver's remarkable career in appropriate perspective. Would not any of us, he asked, feel justifiably satisfied if, before shuffling off this mortal coil, we had accomplished any one of the following: founded and directed the Peace Corps; founded and organized Head Start; created the Job Corps; created Legal Services; created Volunteers in Service to America; served as president and chairman of the board of the Special Olympics, U.S. ambassador to France and Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States? Read the story at:

A Champion of Life*

* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.



A Champion of Life

By Mark Shields

Saturday, June 14, 2003; Page A23

After I read the letter from Sargent Shriver, I called Mickey Kantor. Kantor had been a poverty lawyer representing migrant farm workers in Florida in the late 1960s when he met Shriver. Over the past 35 years, the two men have become truly close friends. It was Kantor, the former U.S. trade representative and commerce secretary, who had told me of a recent 12-hour overseas plane flight with Shriver, now 87, as his seatmate: "In 12 hours, Sarge never once reminisced about the good old days or the past. Everything was about what we had to do -- today and tomorrow -- about the challenges all of us still have to meet."

Kantor had once put Shriver's remarkable career in appropriate perspective. Would not any of us, he asked, feel justifiably satisfied if, before shuffling off this mortal coil, we had accomplished any one of the following: founded and directed the Peace Corps; founded and organized Head Start; created the Job Corps; created Legal Services; created Volunteers in Service to America; served as president and chairman of the board of the Special Olympics, U.S. ambassador to France and Democratic nominee for vice president of the United States?

In addition to countless charitable and religious works, and five years as a naval officer on submarines and battleships in World War II, Sargent Shriver did all of the above. He has made a large difference in a great many lives.

The letter from Sarge brimmed with his trademark joy. He called himself "the luckiest man on the earth," a statement of gratitude he has made in every conversation I have ever had with him since 1972. He fiercely loves Eunice, his wife of 50 years. Love and pride fill him at the mention of any of his five children -- Timothy, Maria, Mark, Bobby and Anthony -- and his 15 grandchildren.

But the message was serious and straightforward: "I have symptoms of the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. . . . This disease means one thing and one thing only: My memory is poor. It's a handicap, and it's a challenge." Not so much as a syllable of self-pity. Instead, as always, he looked to the future when he wrote of continuing challenges "to search for the pathways to peace . . . to overcome the horrors of poverty and neglect in this country and around the world."

From where does this exceptional sense of mission and of purpose and philosophical acceptance come? Columnist George Will may have found the answer: "Shriver's most interesting facet," he once wrote, "is his religious seriousness."

He attends daily Mass, and he carries with him a well-used rosary. But his religion goes far beyond the devotional he reads. His faith, which he lives, is reflected in the Gospel of St. Matthew in the parable: "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me." To which the listeners respond, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison and visit you?"

And the answer, which has inspired and energized Sargent Shriver well into his ninth decade: "Amen, I say to you whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."

Sarge was wrong. He is not the luckiest man on the face of the earth. That distinction is shared by all of us whose lives he has touched.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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