Cadets/510

I have been thinking for a long time how I was going to word this post.  This is about the single most important decision I have ever made in my life as almost everything that I value has come of it. 

In 1976/1977 I joined the cadet program.  Now make no mistake when I did it I had no illusions about a career as a soldier or airman. I had no aspirations to fly. I was chasing a girl I had become infatuated with that I had met earlier and figured if a haircut was all it would take to get close to her then so be it. Alas, Karen Greeley never saw me as a legitimate suitor. But my life was changed forever.

Understand I was a kid with baggage. My father and I had no real relationship at the time to speak of, (see earlier posts) and my Mother was starting to struggle with Multiple Sclerosis. She was up to her eyeballs with three teens and a toddler and a husband who had challenges of his own. She alone was trying to hold it all together. (And to her credit she was!) Add to that the fact I was ADHD and a bit of a wild child at school and on the street. I was doing all the wrong things with all the wrong people - some of whom are now dead, some in jail, and some suffering permanent brain damage from substance abuse.  I was skipping school and involved in other activities I will save for another day. If you had met me then,  you would have described me as a punk/hood/thug and you would be right. I was one.

Suffice to say when I told my mother I was going to join cadets all she likely saw was that I would be doing something that was supervised by adults and away from the hard crowd I was hanging out with. She couldn't get me there fast enough. I was fully supported in any and all cadet activities for my entire cadet life. That's important, but that is not why this post is so difficult to write.

What I found in the cadet program was unconditional acceptance and support from everyone I cam into contact with. My first night there myself and my friend George painted an entire room the wrong color! :-) It was supposed to be light green above the
molding and dark green below the molding... (You know a couple of enthusiastic kids with rollers can cover a lot of wall pretty quickly..) But when the guy overseeing the work finally came buy, he got mad, he got real mad...at himself. He looked at me and George and said "byes don't worry it's my fault" I was just stunned. No lecture and no attempt to lay fault at my feet as often happened at school, just acknowledgement he should have checked and it was okay. Better yet he told us to finish it the way we had started!

I never played sports in school. I was not overly athletic. When teams were picked I wasn't. At Cadets the teams were randomly assigned and if the teams were imbalanced they were switched as soon as it was noticed. The officers who did a lot of our sports just wanted you to play talent be damned. To learn about the games and how they worked. They made you see he fun in sports, the ability to be a leader and help others out. It was about communication, hard work, sportsmanship, teamwork. They turned me on the sports in a way I never was before. For that matter they turned me on to work like never before. I joined bands, drill teams, shooting teams. If cadets was on I was there.

And then my romance ended. I was rejected by the love of my life so I quit cadets. The Staff (Brian Earle) came to my house. He told my mother I was doing well. They saw promise in me. They wanted me back. I can tell you how my argument with my mother went that night. "Your going back to cadets to finish the year," "I don't want to." "Did I ask you what you wanted?" So back I went to finish the year.



I eventually ended up at a unit down the hall, different from the one I initially joined, and it was here again I found myself feeling welcome and accepted. 510 Lions was a special place. The staff and Officers were about the kids. Yes training was important, but the kids and what was good for them came first. The unit staff knew your name, they chatted with you about what you liked, didn't like, they helped you with your homework, they worked with you on your jump shot. They kicked your ass, shook your hand, and patted your back. They consistently showed you what you could be or do... and demanded you do everything in your power to meet it. They acceped nothing than your best in everything you did.  I loved it. Here unlike school and on the street, hard work, co-operation and effort made you a star and everyone could be a star. Everyone so long as you worked at it. Everyone could be part of the success and everyone could be successful.

And I became an Officer and staff member with 510, and tried to create the same environment for my cadets. Damn, what a great bunch of kids the squadron had when I was a young officer. Great kids. Kids with character. Kids unafraid to roll up their sleeves and do hard work. But I saw my work with 510 as so much more than just working with cadets. I felt as if they were my own kids. When they hurt I hurt, when they succeeded I shared their joy. It was a special time that I have attempted to recreate with varying degrees of success in every unit I have ever worked with. This home, this cadet family is what kept me alive and gave my life meaning and purpose until I finally got around finding my own purpose. To getting married having my own family. But my cadet family is still and will always be my family.

I see them (my ex-cadets) when I can, I visit them and we reminisce. We have coffee's and chat  - but now we share pictures of our kids, we talk about our careers, and our continued success and failures and our current situations. We talk about what we learned from each other.  We follow each other on social media and every once in a while I get a letter with new pics of someones kids, or a email saying "Hi I'm doing well." And I am so happy and proud every time it happens.

And I want the staff that worked with me when I was a cadet - the Gary Garland's, and Brian Earle's,  and Ferg Hartery's of the world to know ..... 

"Hi I'm happy, and I'm doing well,  and it's your fault .....because you cared about a little punk from Freshwater Road."

"Thank you for what you did for me, I tried to do it for others, and some of my cadets are now doing it for others as well."

"Thank you for my life "

And that's it. Sorta.  It's sorta what I wanted to say... but unless you have been part of something this close, this caring, and this special, it's hard to describe. A lot of my readers are cadets. They will read, they will smile and they will know.  And some of my readers who have been parts of teams ...they may have a similar experience and will relate. If you haven't lived it I am unsure if my words can explain it.

But as I grow older I surely miss it and appreciate it more everyday.

The people I have met in cadets  still shape me everyday. I was and am so lucky.