Story and photos by Rick Haverinen
Fort Eustis Public Affairs Office
Perhaps the first step in beating the summer heat, or any other of life's pressures, is to confront it. Nearly 270 high school students from Junior ROTC programs up and down the Virginia, Maryland and Delaware coasts faced up to steamy temperatures and some of their phobias July 16-21 during the Junior Cadet Leadership Challenge Mountain 2010 at Fort Eustis, Va.
"It's a different experience and I'm out of my element," said Kimberly Coleman, 17, soon to be a senior at Caroline High School, "but it's exciting to be around people I don't know, and for us to come together as a group and to expand." Some of the high school cadets may have worn out their physical training muscles and blistered their marching and drilling feet from plenty of physical activity at the camp, but they also exercised their minds in classroom work and even relaxed during a boat cruise. The fear factor for the teenagers at the six-day camp could have come from climbing the high cargo net obstacle at the Fort Eustis Confidence Course, sliding while suspended beneath a single rope "bridge" six feet from the ground, or just from being tossed into a random platoon-sized mixture of new kids selected from 24 far-flung high schools.
"I was kind of shy at first," Coleman said, "but after I got in the barracks with the girls and we started talking, and I met the nice girl I was bunking with, I just love everybody now." Coleman said one successful group she worked with at camp was an all-girl enterprise. "When we went to the confidence course there was a bigger fellow on our team, and all the girls pushed him up on a pole," Coleman said, "and I thought that was really challenging to accomplish that. He got through the obstacle course. We all helped him."
"We've had kids who came in to join JROTC and other teachers were almost incredulous," said Lt. Col. (Retired) Robert Pyner, who runs the department at Caroline High School. "They couldn't believe that this person is a cadet. And they always say, 'That's your student?' I say, 'Yeah. He's great.' They get in there and they get this one period of consistency every day, and then they get involved in our after-school activities, and it takes them away from their other crowd."
Coleman said she would like to enlist in the Army after she completes high school and work in public affairs. Pyner has led the JROTC department at Caroline High School for 18 years. He said he keeps up to date with students after they have graduated via a literal open door policy. "One of the great things about teaching as long as I have, is that we're located in a school where we have a side door entrance," Pyner said, "and it seems like twice a week, cadets that I've taught in 1994, 2001, will come walking in with their kids. 'Just want to see if you're still here.' They always come back, from college or from the service. I guess we're making a difference. These kids don't forget and they always come back to see their instructors."