Did anyone do any of those strange military camps as a kid/teenager?

14 comments

1. Believe it or not, some kids have a calling to be in the military, and some benefit from the discipline. I will grant that they’re not for every child.

2. Are these things different than doing ROTC or whatever in high school?

   My wife did Sea Cadets in high school before joining the Coast Guard Reserves.

3. I willing went to a 911 camp 3 summers In a row as a kid.

   Had a random interest in the job of first responders for a hot second. So I went to the camp that focused on it.

   I can only imagine military camps exist for kids that have a interest in the military

4. There’s also always been [space camps like this](https://www.rocketcenter.com/SpaceCamp).

   Summer camps, scout programs etc. Some kids like that stuff.

5. I did JROTC two years In high school because I was interested in the military and thought some of the events were fun and a great way to make friends. There was a two week summer leadership course I wanted to go to but wasn’t able to which bummed me out a little.

   I would have been interested in something like this in middle school but I highly doubt my parents would have spent the money on it

6. We didn’t have any of these in my area growing up, just lots of bible camps that seemed to vary from “quaintly Flanders-ish” to “worryingly cultish.”

7. Others have assessed military camps in general, so in regards to NMMI and other military junior colleges, they are colleges that have arrangements to put cadets on a faster track to a commission in the real deal military. I have no idea of what that actually entails, but it’s not a camp for children, though it also has a high school.

8. What’s strange about it? Some kids are into it

9. “Why would people willingly go to this thing that is about something they are interested in”

10. I joined the Marine Corps on my 17th birthday mostly because I was trying to get away from a bad situation. I know that the MMA is mostly populated with children of former or current Marines or kids with trouble like I had and it is definitely not for everyone but for some it brings purpose.

11. That first one looks to be a military prep school, not a camp.

    I have a friend that went to a military prep school. His parents got transferred to another country and I was told that the school on base didn’t go up to a a higher grade so they shipped him back to military school in the US.

    I’m not sure if that was true or not because I would believe it if someone told me he went to military school because he was a screw up.

    After military school he went to college but dropped out after impregnating two women about 6 months apart from each other. On top of that, he joined the Marine Reserves because after 9/11, he wanted revenge. His cousin and I convinced him to stay in college and not go full blown Marine Corp. Didn’t really matter since he dropped out a year or two later.

12. So I went to Army Navy Academy in Carlsbad, CA and MMA was a legend in the boarding school circle. ANA was a school for kids looking to join the service and the shit we would here about MMA was that would be your next stop if you fucked up.

    ANA only took kids who wanted to be there and would thrive. MMA was the reform school that would smoke you fore every minor infraction.

    I lasted two years at Army Navy Academy but went back home due to my folks not being able to afford tuition amongst the dot com burst.

13. Air Force JROTC in high school. The more involved cadets were invited to attend summer camps that would usually last about a week. I attended one each summer plus an honors camp at a University the summer before my senior year. I don’t remember the exact details but you had to be one of the top performing cadets academically. It helped me get a full tuition and fees scholarship through ROTC at public universities in my state.

    I never attended the same camp twice. The first one I went to was designed to be more intense with a lot of the screaming and intimidation stuff you’re probably thinking of. We stayed in a big open bay room with all the boys in one room and all the girls in another, everybody staying in bunk beds, and I’m talking ~50 kids in one room. Some of the activities were on an Army post. We performed some land navigation by map and compass while being hunted by a soldier using an advanced laser tag system, did a ropes confidence course and otherwise had an experience that could best be described as the first couple weeks of basic, but not as bad.

    The next year was more relaxed and more like a military flavored week long summer camp. I don’t remember anything notable about that year. The last year I was selected to lead the cadet staff at a camp more similar to the second one. Hard to describe exactly what that means, because I was still a high school student and had to pay to attend this camp, so it’s not like we were truly staff.

    We had adult instructors who organized the day and led classes/activities, but the cadet staff was responsible for getting the younger cadets from location to location and making sure they had everything they needed and got them prepped. My job was to manage the other cadet staff, provide the schedule from the instructors and make sure the cadet staff handled whatever tasks we were assigned.

    I chose to do AFJROTC because I come from a military family and I was interested in joining myself. I learned early on that if I wanted to attend an ROTC program in college, I could get a full ride scholarship and those scholarships were easier to get with JROTC experience. I made friends in JROTC and the more I got involved to spend time with friends, the more opportunities to get involved there were. JROTC was great for me, and not nearly as intimidating or scary as people think. Except that first camp I went to. Only actual initial military training has ever competed with that for me.

14. Not me, but….

    I had a good friend in middle school and early high school that was the most wayward of youths. His path was going no where good.

    As a last resort his parents sent him to one of these schools and holy shit did he embrace it. Completely turned around. He want from a hellion to the most disciplined dude you can imagine, he went a tall chubby kid with scraggly hair and came back a jacked monster.

    He joined the marines, I think did a tour in the middle east, then last I heard he opens Toyota performance shop specializing in Tacomas and Tundras.

    There is 0% he would have done that well without that school.

    They aren’t for everyone, but some kids benefit *greatly* from that environment.