‘You’re sending me to hell’: Teen finds himself at Fort McCoy Challenge Academy
Tod Heldt of West Salem was once lost, but with the help of the Challenge Academy at Fort McCoy his future is promising.
Photo by Jo Anne Killeen
By JO ANNE KILLEEN | Staff writer
Taking the road less traveled can be a life-changing journey. For some of us, we are thrown onto a path not of our choosing. For others, we choose to blaze trails — either for ourselves or for others.
Tod Heldt, a 17-year-old from West Salem, chose a path that few choose for themselves. He has people in his face from 5:15 a.m. to 9 p.m. It’s a path where everything is regimented, where everything he has known has to be forgotten, where every action is scrutinized.
Heldt has enrolled in the Challenge Academy at Fort McCoy — a quasi-military boot camp for misfits, the misguided and the misunderstood.
The Challenge Academy is designed to take selected at-risk youth and to intervene early enough to prevent drug use and criminal behavior from becoming a lifestyle. The program focuses on eight core components: academic excellence; job skills; physical fitness; leadership/followership; health, hygiene and nutrition; life-coping skills; responsible citizenship/character development; and service to community.
Since eighth grade, Tod — also known as TJ — had chosen the path of a slacker. He was failing all his classes. Tod had a difficult time in the eighth grade: he was diagnosed with epilepsy, a nervous system disorder, and his parents were divorced. He failed eighth grade.
He went to live with his father and enrolled in the Onalaska school system. Unfortunately, according to his mother, Onalaska was ahead of West Salem academically and Tod suffered from what was effectively a two-year jump in class levels. Up to that point, Tod loved riding his bike, writing poetry and drawing. Once he started high school, he quit all those things.
“I was so stupid,” Tod said. “I never skipped class, but I wouldn’t do anything. I was into gangs, breaking the law, throwing eggs at cars, shooting BB guns at mailboxes, bashing mailboxes with baseball bats. I was high on marijuana. I got away with it all. Except the drug part, I got busted by my parents.”
A solution
His teachers and his parents tried to guide him. Ed Sye, a teacher at West Salem High School, mentioned the Challenge Academy to Tod. His parents felt it was just what he needed.
“You’re sending me to hell,” he said to his parents when they told him about the academy. Yes, they told him, but not as a punishment. They told him it was a way for him to find himself.
When he entered the Challenge Academy, Tod had 5 3/4 high school credits when he should have had 15. “We call students like Tod ‘in-school truants,’ said Mary DeWitt, admission specialist at the Challenge Academy.
According to his mother, Sue Proudfoot,
Tod wasn’t so much in trouble with the law as much as he was “a 17-year old thinking he was 30, more that kind of trouble. He started into Goth, a dark, dark world. He’d be talking about vampires. We blew it off, but we knew he needed help. He needed to be in a structured environment where he could learn who he was.”Sye is Tod’s mentor while he’s at the academy and for a year after he graduates.
“He himself felt lost,” Sye said. “He didn’t know what he could do. You sometimes have to get to that point that you ask yourself what do I have to do to get going.”
Yes, sir
Tod enrolled in the academy in January for the 17-month program, with 22-weeks in residence on Fort McCoy. When he graduates in June, he will still be enrolled, but he will be on his own. He will have weekly contact with his mentor and make periodic reports to the academy.
The first two-week residency period is called the pre-challenge. A cadet cannot speak except to say “yes, ma’am,” “yes, sir,” “no, ma’am” or “no, sir.”
Tod found it difficult those first two weeks.
“You have to learn how to make your rack,” he said, referring to his bed. “Make those military corners. And you can’t ask your bunkmate how to do it. It’s two whole weeks of keeping your mouth shut. It was pretty hard. I love to talk.”
Now that he’s been through it, though, he said it’s a piece of cake.
But he was frustrated by the first phone call he was allowed to make back home. “I was homesick,” he said. “After the first two weeks, we were allowed to make one phone call home — for five minutes. Do you know how fast that went?”
Orders
Now his whole life is scheduled. He is awakened at 5:15 a.m. for breakfast and physical training, then study hall or doing laundry or maintaining the barracks, all the time someone in your face telling you what to do. Then lunch where someone tells you whether you can sit or stand and when you can eat.
At any point, a platoon leader can order you to stand, sit, stand, sit, stand, sit, before finally giving a welcome order: “cadets, eat.”
Then it’s academic hall until 5 p.m., then dinner, then study hall, then back to the barracks to drop off the rucksack. Then drill team practice until 9 p.m. Then report for nighttime medications. Then bed.
While on campus, fraternizing with the female cadets is forbidden. “You’re not allowed to look at them, talk to them or be anywhere near them,” Tod said. It seems kind of hard to do when they pass each other in the halls and share the dining room.
Discipline can take many forms. For some, the discipline is to carry around the “punishment ruck.” Cadets call it the fun pack — a backpack filled with sand.
One cadet was carrying around a duffel bag filled with all his clothing along with all his other gear. Tod said the person left his locker unlocked, so he has to carry his clothes around with him all day.
Values
The Challenge Academy values are discipline, integrity, courage, honor and commitment. The 22-week residential phase is divided into phases named after each value. Each phase lasts four weeks. Cadets are also given additional privileges as they progress through the phases, as noted below.
Here’s a passage from the Challenge Academy Cadet Manual that explains how the phases work:
“Cadets earn the following privileges upon completion of a Phase. The Assistant Commandant of Cadets may withhold a Phase-line privilege if the platoon does not meet the Phase standard.
# DISCIPLINE PHASE: Boots may be worn when the platoon has passed all the Task Book tests. Platoons move into the new barracks when they pass inspection. Ten-minute phone calls begin at the end of the first week of the discipline phase.
# INTEGRITY PHASE: Platoons are awarded their guide-on at the start of the phase, or earlier if the platoon earns a streamer. The weight room opens for PT in week seven. Team sports begin.
# COURAGE PHASE: Cadets may sit on their bunks from 2030-2100 hours. Lying down and/or sleeping are not authorized.
# HONOR PHASE: Each platoon is authorized to use a barracks radio at the start of the Honor phase.
# COMMITMENT PHASE: Cadets are authorized an additional 5 minutes of phone call time.”
After 15 weeks at the Academy, things seem to be turning around for Tod, who said his platoon is in the Courage phase and will soon move to the Honor phase.
“This was the kick that I needed to get into reality, where I should be in the world,” Tod said. “I’m learning how to control my anger, I’m not lashing out. I see others with the same kind of background and see how they react.”
He’s learning to see the futility in staying angry. Most of all he’s learning to overcome himself. When asked to name one thing he has overcome since attending the Academy, Tod said, “I overcame the fear of rappelling down a 55-foot wall. I never knew I could do it. I was so scared. But I did it. Now I know I can accomplish things much bigger than me.”
Finding strength
Another accomplishment he said is that he’s “found the courage, the inner strength, to not run away and go home. I keep pushing myself to succeed.” Graduation will be a badge of honor for him, the setting and accomplishment of a major turning point in his life.
Tod has had two major setbacks since attending the academy. First, he received news from his mom that a friend died. The second setback was losing his rank as Cadet First Class.
When he obtained the ranking, he received two pins. He decided to send one home. He didn’t know that was against the rules. They took the pins (yes, they check the mail) and the rank away; he was demoted back to a regular cadet.
Tod was devastated by both events. He and two other cadets had to carry a huge log around for a day.
He still has a long way to go. DeWitt said this is the stage where the cadets “who have been faking it now have to face it. There’s a lot of character development going on now. They can see what they need to do to change and realize whether they do or don’t want to work at it.”
“It seems the most positive thing happened to TJ in a long time,” Sye said. “He’s got a new outlook on life and he’s looking forward to making changes instead of what others were forcing him to do. Now he’s being proactive.”
For example, he asked Sye to bring job placement information from Western Technical College programs the next time he comes to visit. “That’s some forward thinking,” Sye said. “(Tod’s thinking) not only am I interested in this program, but is there a job after I finish the training.”
Progress
From the outside looking in, most people see a highly structured environment with extreme discipline. When Sye asked him how he’s holding up, Tod told him, “Just fine — as long as you follow the proper protocol, this is easy.”
Sye said that is representative of the changes. “It’s like going to a job and they tell you how to dress. If you decide to fight everything, like Tod was before this, it’s a difficult row to hoe. He’s made tremendous progress; I don’t know how these things come to him. I was just thrilled to hear the positive ways he’s choosing to approach his life, rather than looking at everything as being negative. He sees a future now.”
No one is more surprised by the changes in Tod than Tod himself. “I’m astonished by how much I’ve changed, my attitudes,” he said. “I’ve learned so much, especially my vocabulary.”
An English paper he wrote recently surprised him.
“I wrote about my life, the drugs and the violence. About my past,” he said. “I also wrote about how I was going to change things. How I would help kids who are like me.”
His platoon made a visit to the Western Technical College campus last week and Tod said it really made him homesick. But he also saw himself in some of the kids walking around.
“I saw mirror reflections of myself,” he said. He doesn’t want to go back to those days.
“I think everyone here, myself included, is very proud of what he’s done to this point in time,” Sye said. “Knowing what I know, the discipline and challenges he’s had to face, I don’t know if I’d put myself in that position. But he made the commitment and put himself in the situation and I give him all the praise. He’s roughly three-quarters of the way, so I think he’s going to make it.”
Looking to the future
There’s no doubt in Tod’s mind that he’ll make it. His plans are to graduate with his company on June 16 in Stevens Point.
He plans to do job searching to pay his way through technical school. He has always wanted to be a firefighter. Soon, hopefully, he will have enough to move to his own place.
Believe it or not, Tod wants to come back to the academy to help future students. He loves the drill team, and he wants to come back to teach others how to drill.
“For kids that think you can’t deal with school and see your life going down the drain, this is the place to pick yourself up,” Tod said.
“This is where I needed to be. This is where I belong right now.”“On January 19, I took him up there (to the Academy),” his mother said. “The first time I got to see him was March 25. I left a boy there and now I have a young man. A very respectable young man. I’m very proud of him,” she said through her tears.
AT A GLANCE
# WHAT: Wisconsin National Guard Challenge Academy, a 17-month program that offers at-risk youths the opportunity to develop the strength and character and the life-skills necessary to become successful, responsible citizens.
# PROGRAM: Residential phase — 5 1/2 month long; high impact; quasi-military environment conducted at Fort McCoy; post-residential phase — 12 months after graduation with trained mentor; requires weekly contact and monthly reports.
# WHO: Young men and women between the ages of 16 years, 9 months, and 18
# WHERE: Fort McCoy
# HISTORY: In Wisconsin since 1998, national program since 1993 with 27 programs in 30 states
# STUDENTS: Must volunteer for the program and must be high school drop-out or habitual truant or cannot graduate with class; not currently on parole or probation for other than juvenile-status offenses, not awaiting sentencing and not under indictment, charged or convicted of a felony; mentally and physically capable of program participation; demonstrating a strong desire to change
# COSTS: Free to cadets: federal and state supported
# CONTACT: (608) 269-4605;
www.challengeacademy.orgCOMING SOON: Tod Heldt, a 17-year-old from West Salem, will begin a Weblog — or blog — about his experiences at the Challenge Academy, a 22-week program that serves as a boot camp for at-risk teens.
http://www.holmencourier.com/articles/2 ... cademy.txt-------------------
Is it any coincidence the author of this article herself uses program language and vocabulary on several occasions or is she an evangelical programmie spreadin' the good word???
Two points, one that they are allowed a 5 minute phone call home after two weeks, is it monitored, they don't really say?
Point two: It says the kids have to come voluntarily, but we all know how parents and courts have a way of getting a kid to "volunteer" and it can be ugly, so I wonder once they are there if they are allowed to leave at any time they wish?
