When I talk about CEDU, and remember stuff, the bad stuff takes second place to my friends. That is what I miss the most. Cause when you were there, there was no democrats, no Republicans, no big burning political issue, no bills, no fancy cars, Just you and your friends. Hell if there was a big argument, it wasn't about whether or not war is justified, it was about sports, or I guess sometimes about how tough someone was out in the real world. Friends would help you through tough times, and keep your head up when shit was going wrong. Raps were entertaining and fun sometimes, but sometimes they were a good place to get help from the kids. you weren't fighting your personal battles alone, there was always someone else who knew how you felt. Not necessarily any of the brothers keeper propheet junk, just another kid rising above his own demons and giving you a hand. There is so much bad talk here about CEDU ruining lives, well that is true, but through my own hard work I got my family back, and I watched people grow up too, with none of the force fed shit. Years later I turned my own back on my family, but that is for wholly different reasons. CEDU made me grow up, probably a little too fast, and I probably heard a few things I really didn't need to hear. I also heard a few things I needed to hear. A few of the staff treated us like the real world, I didn't like it at the time, but years later I can relate. Come on, no one here can tell me that every kid was an angel, I sure as hell wasn't, I did plenty of thigs that were as unacceptable there as it would have been out here. I got my ass chewed plenty of times. And there was times I took a bum beef, I haven't forgotten about the slights and bad times, but I can't look at some of my relatives that smacked me around as a kid without wanting to hit them with a pipe. It is life, I've had a few failures outside, but I've had an awful lot of success. And giving props where props are due, I think CEDU left me with a bad case of little mans. With every success I have I kick CEDU in the teeth. I don't forget how far down I was when I was there, I won't ever forget the feeling that I could not control my life when I was there, looking over your shoulder, living a fucked up life to please the man. Someday I want to look down on CEDU and all the things that they do, and piss all over them. Not every kid will be sucessful in life as nice as that would be. Some kids were just plain shitheads who were born to fuck up, and that's what they did. I'll never blame CEDU for that, I'll blame parents. Spoiling their kid rotten and never asking anything in return. Letting their kid run over them.....all this has nothing to do with CEDU. Having Flash backs, feeling like someone is standing over your shoulder, That is CEDU all the way however. But so many kids when I was there had to learn responsibility, and it is a motherfucker of a lesson to learn. Kids had to learn reward/consequence which is another hard hard lesson. Of course there were some kids that already knew that shit so it made CEDU a cakewalk in general areas. Unfortuneately instead of being yelled at to simply do chores, we had to jump right into thinking up disclosures, or staff found other ways to give us hell. It was a game, which so far the clock has not stopped at least for me. Shit, there was times you would be on top of your game, really kicking ass, bulletproof, and then the rules would change, the favorite rule change was bans. They would suddenly throw you into a situation where you were gonna screw it all up, they would put you on bans from your friends, "getting you out of your comfort zone" then it was bring on the work assignments, cause I will talk to my friends. I used to think it was a lot like war, but now I know better. More like Prisoners of War. Only difference is that when you are a POW, you know you are within the enemy. CEDU looked good on the outside, and the enemy would change from day to day. I had very few people that were steady at being at my throat.
DO NOT let this take away from our POWs, their trials and tribulations make our stays at CEDU seem like a warm spring day. The brave men and women in the armed forces that spent quality time in the stalags and labor camps, Bataan, China and Korea, Vietnam, Iraq. NONE of us here are fit to even carry their lunch, and that is no shit. But when you read POW stories, it seems as if CEDU has modeled their system after them.
