BY NICOLE WHITE

 They are all grown up, those children of Operation Pedro Pan, the massive wave of Cuban children sent to the United States 40 years ago by parents afraid of the new Fidel Castro regime.

 They remember sitting on the airplanes, their faces pressed against the windows, leaving the only home they had ever known.

 They remember the hot tears, the feeling of panic when they realized they were making the journey alone.

 They remember the gut-wrenching realization that swooped over them when they realized they would never return to Cuba and their families.

 Four decades later, the tears flowed again -- as did the vows that they would do the same thing again -- as scores of Pedro Pan alumni gathered at Barry University in Miami Shores this weekend to talk about the journey that forever altered their lives.

 "It was a very painful process,'' said Jorge Viera, who fled Cuba alone at age 14.

 Viera, like many of the 14,000 Pedro Pan children who left Cuba between 1960 and 1962, thought his journey to the United States would be short. In 1961, there were plans to quickly overthrow Castro. But then came the Bay of Pigs.

 Those short-term plans became long-term agony for thousands.

 SCATTERED HOMES

 En masse, the children arrived in Miami, where they were housed temporarily in shelters set up in Kendall and Florida City. From there, many were sent to foster parents in Denver, New York and Louisiana. Others were placed in orphanages.

 Overnight, young girls and boys took on the responsibilities of adulthood.

 The truth is, says Elly Chovel, who at age 14 became a surrogate mother-of-sorts for her 12-year-old sister, Billie, it was a harrowing experience at first.

 The sisters were sent to live in Buffalo, N.Y. They were unaccustomed to the cold and snow, to a new language, to a new way of life.

 "I spent every day trying to overcome that feeling of emptiness and loss,'' Chovel said.

 For Viera, "It was like losing your entire family while they're still alive.''

 There were more tears as Viera, now vice president at Northern Trust Bank, read an essay he had written to his mother who remained in Cuba. He was 17 then, living in Spain after time with a foster family in New York.

 PAIN OF SEPARATION

 He wrote to his mother that he understood her pain, that while she put on a good face the morning she waved goodbye, he knew that inside she was dying from the pain of losing her son.

 It would be 22 years before Viera would be reunited with his parents.

 Monsignor Bryan Walsh, director of Catholic Charities for the Archdiocese of Miami, knows the stories of Pedro Pan all too well.

 It was the Catholic Church that stepped in to help place the 14,000 children in foster care or orphanages throughout the country when they arrived.

 Walsh thought they would be helping some 25 children. He never imagined it would mushroom to become one of the largest groups of children being sent unaccompanied to the United States.

 "There were times when I was ready to tear my hair out, it was just overwhelming,'' Walsh said. ``We always debated whether we were doing the right thing, but we always came back to the same thing -- how can we deny the rights these parents had to seek freedom for their children?''

 The work paid off.

 Walsh ticked off the success stories of Pedro Pan -- U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martínez; outgoing Miami Mayor Joe Carollo; Eduardo Aguirre, the Bush administration's pick for vice chairman of the Import-Export Bank; plus a slew of doctors, accountants, bankers and others scattered throughout the country.

 Walsh, who was honored by Barry University during a dinner Saturday for his work with the Pedro Pan project, was not surprised of their success: ``They are risk-takers, they had a willingness to sacrifice today for a better tomorrow.''

 Aguirre, who is expected to be confirmed in Washington this week, agrees.

 "Pedro Pan is a bittersweet moment in my life, but I wouldn't change a thing, because I like the person I am today,'' Aguirre said. ``I can look back on those years and see all the building blocks that brought me to a point in my life where things are working out really well.

 "No one could have envisioned this.''

                                    © 2001