2007.02.26: February 26, 2007: Headlines: COS - Dominican Republic: Business Gazette: Kirby Jones had been living in the slums of the Dominican Republic’s capital city, Santo Domingo when a rebel faction staged a coup against the Dominican Republic’s sitting government
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2007.02.26: February 26, 2007: Headlines: COS - Dominican Republic: Business Gazette: Kirby Jones had been living in the slums of the Dominican Republic’s capital city, Santo Domingo when a rebel faction staged a coup against the Dominican Republic’s sitting government
Kirby Jones had been living in the slums of the Dominican Republic’s capital city, Santo Domingo when a rebel faction staged a coup against the Dominican Republic’s sitting government
For Jones, the decision to join Peace Corps was brought on by Kennedy’s ‘‘call to service,” the idea that young Americans could forge a new path in Cold War-era foreign relations. Jones also liked the idea of traveling to an exotic, faraway place. He wanted to do some good. Being eligible for the draft didn’t hurt either. ‘‘It was either the Peace Corps or join the Army,” he said. Jones chose against the military, opting instead to join a government-run organization that promoted peace. As it happened, he found himself in the middle of a war zone anyway. Less than six months before his scheduled homecoming to the United States in 1965, a rebel faction staged a coup against the Dominican Republic’s sitting government. ‘‘You walked outside, and airplanes were in the sky dive-bombing, and people were running around in the streets with guns,” he said. ‘‘Friends of mine got killed, and their bodies were in the street.” As American forces arrived to quash the fighting, Jones said it was not his home country’s military that protected him in the end. It was the armed rebels — his neighbors and friends, men with whom he played baseball.
Kirby Jones had been living in the slums of the Dominican Republic’s capital city, Santo Domingo when a rebel faction staged a coup against the Dominican Republic’s sitting government
Week highlights memories of the ‘toughest job you’ll ever love’
Volunteers from Montgomery County ask what they can do for their country
by Audrey Dutton | Staff Writer
As one of the Peace Corps’ earliest volunteers in 1963, Bethesda resident Kirby Jones worked on urban development in the northern slums of Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic’s largest city. He helped the residents build a school within their own community, that remains in operation today. Jones has returned to his former Santo Domingo neighborhood more than a dozen times since his Peace Corps service.
Jones was sent to urban Santo Domingo in 1963, as part of President John F. Kennedy’s then-new project called the Peace Corps. Jones was 22, fresh from college’s safe cocoon, and idealistic — or, as he would say later, ‘‘wearing my T-shirt and blue jeans to save the world.” At the time, a revolution was simmering right under his nose.
Jones, now a 64-year-old U.S.-Cuba trade consultant living in Bethesda, was among masses of early Peace Corps volunteers who settled in Montgomery County after returning to the United States. Along with their Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia counterparts, they make up the largest cluster of former Corps volunteers in the United States. Their numbers grow each year; in 2006, Maryland sent 226 volunteers to third- and second-world countries, for a total of about 5,000 since the 1960s.
Current and former Peace Corps volunteers will celebrate the program’s 46-year anniversary during events this week — including an American University panel discussion Thursday night — as part of Peace Corps Week.
For Jones, the decision to join Peace Corps was brought on by Kennedy’s ‘‘call to service,” the idea that young Americans could forge a new path in Cold War-era foreign relations. Jones also liked the idea of traveling to an exotic, faraway place. He wanted to do some good. Being eligible for the draft didn’t hurt either.
‘‘It was either the Peace Corps or join the Army,” he said.
[Excerpt]
Jones chose against the military, opting instead to join a government-run organization that promoted peace.
As it happened, he found himself in the middle of a war zone anyway. Less than six months before his scheduled homecoming to the United States in 1965, a rebel faction staged a coup against the Dominican Republic’s sitting government.
‘‘You walked outside, and airplanes were in the sky dive-bombing, and people were running around in the streets with guns,” he said. ‘‘Friends of mine got killed, and their bodies were in the street.”
As American forces arrived to quash the fighting, Jones said it was not his home country’s military that protected him in the end. It was the armed rebels — his neighbors and friends, men with whom he played baseball.
‘‘In fact, shortly thereafter, the leader of the faction announced on the radio that the only Americans — and the only foreigners — allowed in some parts of the city were Peace Corps volunteers,” Jones said. ‘‘It proved the Peace Corps worked; we were viewed as part of the community.”
[Excerpt]
Jones said the basic Peace Corps experience of parachuting into a country with ‘‘no parents, nobody looking over your shoulder” still forces young Americans to grow up quickly, though he said Peace Corps jobs require more specific skills now, like agriculture or small business training.
Jones left Santo Domingo in August of 1965. In the years since, he settled in Bethesda, and his life continued on the path set by the Peace Corps. Now he runs a trade consultancy firm that draws on his decades-old relationship with Fidel Castro. He credits the Peace Corps with changing his worldview and redirecting his life.
‘‘Often, I’ll turn on the faucet in the kitchen and remind myself, ‘Isn’t it great to be able to turn on a faucet?’” he said.
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: February, 2007; Peace Corps Dominican Republic; Directory of Dominican Republic RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Dominican Republic RPCVs
When this story was posted in March 2007, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: Business Gazette
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