By DAVID CLOUSTON
Salina Journal
Caleb Dickey showed off the present he'd made so that his father could keep photos of Caleb as close as the sleeve pocket of his military uniform while serving in the Iraq war.
Creating a memo-book size album of photos is just one activity that the children of Kansas National Guard members enjoy at the annual Kids Camp taking place through Friday at the Guard's Kansas Regional Training Institute in Salina.
Camp this year, for Caleb, is more than a chance to be with peers who share the experience of having their mom or dad deployed overseas. It's also a way to relax from the stress of a family emergency.
His family's home in Quenemo, southwest of Ottawa, burned to the ground three weeks ago, taking most of their clothes and possessions with it. An electrical storm shorted out their freezer, sparking the blaze, the 12-year-old said.
His father, Donald, had to return home on an 18-day emergency leave, and the family just moved into a different house Saturday.
"We were moving into a new house and it was all crazy ... Now that I'm here, I can just relax and hang (out)," said Caleb, who also gave high marks to the camp's rigorous schedule.
"In this camp, you never stop to think about one thing. You just keep going and going and going," he said.
Kids Camp enables guard members' children from across the state to meet and make friends with peers. There are 91 children attending the camp, and more than half have attended at least once before.
Affected by deployment
Most of the children have parents who are either already deployed, are preparing to be deployed or have just come back from serving.
"They've been affected by deployment somehow," said Lt. Col. Scott Henry, one of the adult leaders of the camp.
Mimicking their parents' military orders, the children who sign up for the camp receive "mobilization orders" telling them where they should report and what the camp is all about.
"It's like a deployment for them," Henry said.
The adult support staff includes two military family life consultants -- counselors with private practices who do contract work, serving the military.
For children at the camp with emotional issues, the counselors can help soothe the anxiety and sadness a family separation might bring.
"When kids have deployed parents, you never know what's going to come out when they're talking," said Dezaree Harding, the guard's state youth coordinator. "Sometimes, they do really get upset."
The camp is open to all children of National Guard members ages 9 to 12. A similar teen camp also is available for ages 13 to 17.
Doing two tours a year
At camp, participants are divided into squads and take part in a variety of team-building games, sports, swimming, arts and crafts, demonstrations of military transportation, a night march and other activities.
This year's camp is being funded through the Sierra Club Foundation, which partners with the Armed Services YMCA to provide outdoor camping experience for hundreds of military children nationwide, as well as military families through its Military Family Outdoor Initiative program.
For 8-year-old Dusty Wulfkuhle, Topeka, his favorite activities of the camp, so far, have been crafts, marching, singing -- and experiencing the guard's tank computer simulation software.
His mother, Cindy, is with the 190th Air Refueling Wing out of Forbes Field, Topeka. She works for the wing's ground maintenance department.
The air guard deploys all over the world.
"They're on shorter tours, but they're more frequent," Harding said. "They can do two tours a year. For kids, it's saying hello and goodbye that many more times."
n Reporter David Clouston can be reached at 822-1403 or by e-mail at dclouston@salina.com.
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