My Hometown, Peace Corps Micronesia and Veterans Day
By Kit Porter Van Meter 11/10/2023
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On this Veterans Day, 2023, the memory in my heart is from 1967 when I, a Peace Corps Volunteer living on a typhoon devastated island, received the annual Christmas gift box sent to home-town military overseas.
So this year, On October 20, 2023, I commemorate my birthday and the upcoming Veterans Day by visiting family graves in the Ashburnham, Massachusetts cemetery. I reflected on my 79-years and the world’s complex imbalance between peace and war. I then went to the Cathedral of the Pines in New Hampshire, a special place designed to remember a son and others lost in WWII and “to honor the military service and sacrifice of American men and women”
I am from a military family. My grandfather was a major in WWI & a colonel in WWII. My mother was a lieutenant (JG) in the first US Naval Reserve WAVES from 1942 to 1944. My father was a chief aviation pilot in the US Navy, had a 24-year Navy career, that included surviving the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack and, flying in the Pacific and flying transport planes during the Korea War.
But, I had chosen a different path and in August 1967 was sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer with a two-year assignment to the island of Rota in the Northern Mariana Islands of Micronesia, at the time administered by the US government as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. The US took on this responsibility from the UN when Japan lost control of the islands after WW II. In 1967 as I joined the Peace Corps, I had high school classmates fighting in Vietnam.
In my new home in the Marianas and Micronesia, evidence of WWII persisted in the islander's war-related poor health, tragic family stories of bombed buildings and rusted planes. I visited the site on Tinian, a neighboring island, where the Enola Gay took off to bomb Japan.
On this birthday trip to Ashburnham, I stopped at the town green to visit a memorial, new to me, with names listed for participants in WWII, the Korean Conflict & the Vietnam War. I found the name of my mother, Jeanne Schoonmaker and her brother, David Schoonmaker on the WWII memorial. My grandfather, Oliver James Schoonmaker, was listed on the bronze tablet placed on a boulder dedicated on Armistice Day in 1922. My mother is part of the dedication ceremony, the girl on the right in the photo. My father, Oscar Forrest Jarmon, is not included because he did not live in Ashburnham when he went in the military.
Peace Corps is not recognized, but we were living in Ashburnham when I was born in October 1944 in the Chelsea Navy Hospital. Some locations are considering memorials and Peace Corps Park is being established in Washington DC, but, important to me is that in 1967 “the home folks” remembered me, working on an island in the Pacific and honored my service. The Community Guild sponsored the Ashburnham Newsletter “Sent free to all the residents of the town serving in the Armed Forces of the United States” and they sent me the Christmas box sent to the “local boys in the armed services,”
I wrote my parents Jan 8, 1968,
Your package just arrived and along with it packages from others and the Home Folks. We were surprised to receive The Home Folks package and corny as it may sound, very pleased. From being on the receiving end (a place I never expected to be) it made us feel very close to Ashburnham plus the fact that it was filled with so many nice and useful things - everything - something we can use. I know someone went to a lot of trouble to put it together so well... Christmas left us in a low mood…and for the first time feel really depressed. At least we have Heresy bars and cigars to enjoy and a tape to listen to.
Never, have some socks, safety-pins, handkerchiefs, candy, playing cards and much more had so much meaning.
In past years, I had worked at the annual Country Fair to raise money for these boxes. I recall helping with the booths, ever the kissing booth. I never considered that I would be a recipient. My home-town accepted and understood what I was doing. My thank-you was printed in the newspaper:
“The Ashburnham Newsletter has received two additional letters of thanks for Christmas boxes. One was from Mr & Mrs Gregory Porter, who are with the Peace Corps on Rota in the Mariana Islands….”We received your very nice package and felt proud to be included on the list. It made me remember the many country fairs in Ashburnham. Our home here was destroyed in a typhoon, and efforts to build a new one have been going slowly, but we are putting the roof on now and hope to move in next week.”
The other letter was from a soldier stationed in Vietnam.
The next year, I donated a craft item to the fair. The press article says:
“Ashburnham - Plans are complete for the 17th Annual Country Fair … Proceeds will be for the benefit of local boys in the armed services, 20 of whom are in Vietnam. A special “Home Folks Message Booth…will provide, for a nominal fee, an opportunity to write on special paper with special ink to any friends or relatives in the armed forces… Gifts have been received from … Mr & Mrs J Gregory Porter with the Peace Corps in Rota, Mariana Islands…"
On an October 20, 1968, audio tape, I say:
"We get the Ashburnham newsletter once a month. We enjoy that very much. Between the Ashburnham newsletter and Mrs. Kubik we get all the extraneous news. Mrs Kubik sends us mostly clippings. We really appreciate these. A lot of times they tell us about things we otherwise wouldn’t know about. The Ashburnham newsletter tells us about all sorts of extraneous things."
In September 1969 we returned to Massachusetts after completing our two-year Peace Corps service. Waiting in the pile of mail was greg’s draft notice. It was justl three months before his 26th birthday, the then cut-off date for being drafted. However, a tropical skin condition caused him to fail the physical.
References
- Peace Corps Volunteer, January 1968, vol VII, no 3 page 21. Photo Kit Porter, PCV, near typhoon damaged home,
Peace Corps 7th Annual Report, June 30, 1968, cover & page 35
Peace Corps Goes to Paradise, cover & page 4
Ashburnham Newsletter, no 218, Feb 1968. P 4&5
Letter from Kit Porter to Jeanne & Oscar Jarmon Jan 8, 1968
Ashburnham Newsletter, no 63 Aug 1953
newspaper clipping, THANKS EXPRESSED
newspaper clipping, 17th Country Fair Set for Ashburnham by Maria L. Clapp
Kpv collection Audio Inventory kit013, October 20, 1968
So this year, On October 20, 2023, I commemorate my birthday and the upcoming Veterans Day by visiting family graves in the Ashburnham, Massachusetts cemetery. I reflected on my 79-years and the world’s complex imbalance between peace and war. I then went to the Cathedral of the Pines in New Hampshire, a special place designed to remember a son and others lost in WWII and “to honor the military service and sacrifice of American men and women”
I am from a military family. My grandfather was a major in WWI & a colonel in WWII. My mother was a lieutenant (JG) in the first US Naval Reserve WAVES from 1942 to 1944. My father was a chief aviation pilot in the US Navy, had a 24-year Navy career, that included surviving the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack and, flying in the Pacific and flying transport planes during the Korea War.
But, I had chosen a different path and in August 1967 was sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer with a two-year assignment to the island of Rota in the Northern Mariana Islands of Micronesia, at the time administered by the US government as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. The US took on this responsibility from the UN when Japan lost control of the islands after WW II. In 1967 as I joined the Peace Corps, I had high school classmates fighting in Vietnam.
In my new home in the Marianas and Micronesia, evidence of WWII persisted in the islander's war-related poor health, tragic family stories of bombed buildings and rusted planes. I visited the site on Tinian, a neighboring island, where the Enola Gay took off to bomb Japan.
On this birthday trip to Ashburnham, I stopped at the town green to visit a memorial, new to me, with names listed for participants in WWII, the Korean Conflict & the Vietnam War. I found the name of my mother, Jeanne Schoonmaker and her brother, David Schoonmaker on the WWII memorial. My grandfather, Oliver James Schoonmaker, was listed on the bronze tablet placed on a boulder dedicated on Armistice Day in 1922. My mother is part of the dedication ceremony, the girl on the right in the photo. My father, Oscar Forrest Jarmon, is not included because he did not live in Ashburnham when he went in the military.
Peace Corps is not recognized, but we were living in Ashburnham when I was born in October 1944 in the Chelsea Navy Hospital. Some locations are considering memorials and Peace Corps Park is being established in Washington DC, but, important to me is that in 1967 “the home folks” remembered me, working on an island in the Pacific and honored my service. The Community Guild sponsored the Ashburnham Newsletter “Sent free to all the residents of the town serving in the Armed Forces of the United States” and they sent me the Christmas box sent to the “local boys in the armed services,”
I wrote my parents Jan 8, 1968,
Your package just arrived and along with it packages from others and the Home Folks. We were surprised to receive The Home Folks package and corny as it may sound, very pleased. From being on the receiving end (a place I never expected to be) it made us feel very close to Ashburnham plus the fact that it was filled with so many nice and useful things - everything - something we can use. I know someone went to a lot of trouble to put it together so well... Christmas left us in a low mood…and for the first time feel really depressed. At least we have Heresy bars and cigars to enjoy and a tape to listen to.
Never, have some socks, safety-pins, handkerchiefs, candy, playing cards and much more had so much meaning.
In past years, I had worked at the annual Country Fair to raise money for these boxes. I recall helping with the booths, ever the kissing booth. I never considered that I would be a recipient. My home-town accepted and understood what I was doing. My thank-you was printed in the newspaper:
“The Ashburnham Newsletter has received two additional letters of thanks for Christmas boxes. One was from Mr & Mrs Gregory Porter, who are with the Peace Corps on Rota in the Mariana Islands….”We received your very nice package and felt proud to be included on the list. It made me remember the many country fairs in Ashburnham. Our home here was destroyed in a typhoon, and efforts to build a new one have been going slowly, but we are putting the roof on now and hope to move in next week.”
The other letter was from a soldier stationed in Vietnam.
The next year, I donated a craft item to the fair. The press article says:
“Ashburnham - Plans are complete for the 17th Annual Country Fair … Proceeds will be for the benefit of local boys in the armed services, 20 of whom are in Vietnam. A special “Home Folks Message Booth…will provide, for a nominal fee, an opportunity to write on special paper with special ink to any friends or relatives in the armed forces… Gifts have been received from … Mr & Mrs J Gregory Porter with the Peace Corps in Rota, Mariana Islands…"
On an October 20, 1968, audio tape, I say:
"We get the Ashburnham newsletter once a month. We enjoy that very much. Between the Ashburnham newsletter and Mrs. Kubik we get all the extraneous news. Mrs Kubik sends us mostly clippings. We really appreciate these. A lot of times they tell us about things we otherwise wouldn’t know about. The Ashburnham newsletter tells us about all sorts of extraneous things."
In September 1969 we returned to Massachusetts after completing our two-year Peace Corps service. Waiting in the pile of mail was greg’s draft notice. It was justl three months before his 26th birthday, the then cut-off date for being drafted. However, a tropical skin condition caused him to fail the physical.
References
- Peace Corps Volunteer, January 1968, vol VII, no 3 page 21. Photo Kit Porter, PCV, near typhoon damaged home,
Peace Corps 7th Annual Report, June 30, 1968, cover & page 35
Peace Corps Goes to Paradise, cover & page 4
Ashburnham Newsletter, no 218, Feb 1968. P 4&5
Letter from Kit Porter to Jeanne & Oscar Jarmon Jan 8, 1968
Ashburnham Newsletter, no 63 Aug 1953
newspaper clipping, THANKS EXPRESSED
newspaper clipping, 17th Country Fair Set for Ashburnham by Maria L. Clapp
Kpv collection Audio Inventory kit013, October 20, 1968