VIPs View ‘Day in the Life' of YCA Cadets

One south Georgia YCA cadet said he started hanging around the wrong crowd, staying up all night, and ultimately dropped out of school since he could not get up in the morning. Another Georgia teen admitted that she simply became bored with school and felt like she was learning very little. And still another metro Atlanta cadet told how he and friend both with poor grades and lack of motivation chose the program. A decision that has changed all their lives.

Such stories were only a sampling of what more than eighty VIPs from metro Atlanta and the north Georgia heard when they visited the Fort Stewart-based Youth Challenge Academy on October 12, 2006. The visit, one of two VIP visits conducted each year by Georgia National Guard officials, is designed to acquaint business leaders, high school officials, juvenile counselors, law enforcement officers, corrections officers, judges and attorneys and appointed and elected government officials with a “day in the life” of more than 150 cadets of the 13-year old National Guard-sponsored youth program.

Guest were picked up at Dobbins AFB, GA, near Marietta, Ga., by a Savannah based C-130 Hercules aircraft and flown into Savannah where they were transferred to five waiting C-47 Chinooks helos for the day long visit to Fort Stewart and the Youth Challenge Academy. Other invited guests were flown by helicopters from Robins AFB, Ga., in middle Georgia while others arrived at the Academy in personal transportation.

Lt Gen David Poythress welcomed guests to the Academy and introduced Congressman Jack Kingston of Savannah, a long time Congressional supporter Georgia’s Youth Challenge Academy.

“Youth Challenge provides youth with a second chance for success,” said Kingston noting that he attended his share of several high school graduations, but “none will compare to the enthusiasm and energy experienced at YCA graduations.”

Speaking more like a father than a commandant about the more than 150 cadets under his care, Col Frank Williams, YCA Director explained the typical routine of a cadet from applying and acceptance into the program to the daily routine of early morning physical workouts, to academic classes to the regimen of cleaning up barracks and living within system of military discipline.

Guests were given tours throughout the campus and were encouraged to talk with cadets who were more than accommodating in relaying their personal stories of how they came to YCA and their goals upon graduation.

“It’s the best thing that has happened to me”, a metro Atlanta area cadet told three high school counselors. “I want to go on to college and then get my teaching certificate.” The cadet along with his colleagues are set to graduate in December.

“I’m planning on joining the Army when I graduate,” said another cadet who had just completed a rigorous rope course , “and then want to get into Special Forces.”

Underscoring the life changing impact of Georgia's Youth Challenge, one VIP, declared: “I can’t remember the last time I encountered such enthusiasm in youth this age.”