Military kids get a dose of wilderness

Published July 24, 2007
By Airman 1st Class Kali Gradishar and Staff Sgt. Connie L. Bias
92nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Seventy-one military children learned to pack animals and repel from rocks last week. The kids, who represented families of all Department of Defense services, attended the Blue Green Summer Youth Camp in Spokane, Wash., a camp designed to help children with deployed parents cope with separation stress.

"Four years ago, Fairchild paired with the Army National Guard, as well as the 4-H extension service, to kick off this program," said Melissa Still, community readiness technician at the Airman and Family Readiness Center at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash. This is the camp's fourth year, and it originally started as a reaction to the Global War on Terrorism, when children of Washington Air National Guard members were having "a hard time coping with and understanding what was going on; some children were very stressed and having difficulties," said Ms. Still.

Now the joint-service day camp gives priority to the children of deployed servicemembers of all services and components, allowing the children to meet others with similar experiences and work through some of their stress. For the last two years, some of the camp counselors have been teenagers of military families who can also relate to growing up in a military family, offering yet another level of support to the young military children.

Donna Kresse is the mother of two of those young counselors, and a camp counselor herself; she and her children Gunner, 15, and Hanna, 13, decided to volunteer as a family. Donna's husband is serving his first deployment with the Army National Guard, so she and her teenagers were able to relate first-hand to the campers. Learning to depend upon a support network is one of many skills they were able to share.

"The longest my husband has been gone before is three months for school," said Mrs. Kresse. "I don't think that any time a parent deploys is easy, but we're surrounded by family and friends, and I think that's huge. My children have a very strong network of friends, and I think that's the thing that will get them through."

Of course, Blue Green is not all about stress and separation anxiety - in fact, the opposite is true. The point is to have fun and build friendships, and these kids are having the time of their lives.

"This is a really fun time for these children," said Ms. Still, adding that the camp week included parachute games, learning to read a compass, swimming and a host of other outdoor activities. The campers also brought the fun inside the Funspot for a day, where they enjoyed mini golf, bowling and skating. "Hopefully, in the midst of all this fun activity, they're also learning some coping skills," said Ms. Still.

"The kids really bonded - it was nice to see," agreed Mrs. Kresse. "It's nice, at the end, to see them exchanging e-mails and phone numbers because they've made new friends."

With new friends, strong support and some survival skills on the side, these kids are ready to take on the world ... or at least a deployment or two.