Military Officer - August 2007 - (Page 61)

week residential program followed by a one-year post-residential phase. The ﬁrst phase is conducted at a program’s residential facilities, located at a National Guard base, training center, or school campus. In the post-residential phase, cadets return to their hometowns to reenter community life, pursue higher education, or join the military. Program ofﬁcials stress that enrollment in the Challenge is completely voluntary, yet programs often receive many more applications than there are available slots, despite the fact that the Challenge doesn’t widely advertise. Perhaps that’s because there simply aren’t many places a high school dropout can go to get a better chance at life. “These kids get out into the community and realize that no matter how hard they want to work, without a high school degree it’s almost impossible to open those doors,” says Greg Sharp, president and executive director of the National Guard Youth Foundation. “In the last decade, the prison population has increased by 187 percent, and nearly 70 percent of those [prisoners] are high school dropouts. We offer them an alternative to a life of crime — help them get themselves straightened out and begin building a life plan.” One stipulation of the program is that prospective cadets must be between 16 and 18 years of age, because “those are the years you can really inﬂuence them,” says Sharp. “If you wait much longer, it becomes a matter of trying to get them out of the criminal justice system. There are plenty of those kinds of programs, but we’d rather be preventive versus slapping them in irons.” Physical endurance meets mental determination for these cadets. While the program is challenging for students, working together builds friendships and trust. For many cadets, those friendships give them the determination they need to stick with the program. Getting started Teens and their families learn about the Challenge by various means. Word of mouth is most common, and the programs have graduated more than 70,000 young people to date. The Challenge also maintains an extensive Web site with detailed information about the national initiative as well as each state’s programs. Others might ﬁrst learn of the Challenge from judges, who offer the program to young offenders as an alternative to a probationary term. When a prospective cadet reports for duty, one of the ﬁrst orders of business is to start rebuilding his or her conﬁdence. “Coming from the backgrounds they do, a lot of them AUGUST 2007 MILITARY OFFICER 61

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Military Officer - August 2007

Military Officer - August 2007 Contents From the Editor From the President Your Views MOAA Directory Rapid Fire Washington Scene Financial Forum Ask the Doctor Chapter Activities Cover Story: No Longer in Reserve A Different Path Weird Science Charge? Pages of History Faces of MOAA Member Books Information Exchange Advertising Index MOAA Calendar MOAA Scholarship Donors Sounding Taps MOAA Member Services Encore

Military Officer - August 2007

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