At the Veterans of Foreign Wars annual youth camp, kids can ride around Camp Happy Valley in Humvees from the 261st Ordnance Company in Cross Lanes.
SCOTT DEPOT, W.Va. -- Several campers lined up around the 30-foot-high rope course at Camp Happy Valley earlier this week.
The campers, who range in age from 11 to 13 years old, seemed undaunted by the course's zip lines, platforms and swinging ropes.
Just before he took to the course, Joe Gorski, 11, received some unsolicited advice from his friend Gage Messer.
"It's not that bad," Messer said. "The only thing that could happen is that he breaks a few bones."
Gorski, Messer and the rest of the approximately 70 campers made it through the course with their bones intact.
The kids were at Camp Happy Valley this week as part of the state's Veterans of Foreign Wars annual youth camp, which started July 25 and concludes Saturday. Every year, children come to the camp from several surrounding states to learn the ways of military life, patriotism and the value of accomplishing tough tasks -- like navigating a rope course.
Organizers say the camp is faintly similar to military basic training -- minus pushups, yelling and shooting.
The campers woke up every morning at around 6 a.m. to do marching drills. They even marched from one place to another in an orderly single-file line while their counselor yelled a cadence call -- with a few exceptions.
"It depends on the counselor," Camper Christian Rollins said. "If you have a strict counselor, you march. If you don't, you walk."
The VFW camp is the only one of its kind in the country, and has been operating for 50 years, camp director Bill Lambert said. This is the first year the VFW youth camp came to Camp Happy Valley, which is owned and operated by the Salvation Army.
The camp spent its previous 49 years at Cedar Lakes in Ripley. The camp moved to Happy Valley because there is more space and more to do, Lambert said.
The campers are sponsored through their local VFWs. The cost to each camper is around $200, Lambert said.
The campers do a variety of activities each day. Along with the rope course, by the end of the week, the kids climbed a rock wall, scooted on pedal cars, performed skits around a campfire, and went on a geology tour.
SCOTT DEPOT, W.Va. -- Several campers lined up around the 30-foot-high rope course at Camp Happy Valley earlier this week.
The campers, who range in age from 11 to 13 years old, seemed undaunted by the course's zip lines, platforms and swinging ropes.
Just before he took to the course, Joe Gorski, 11, received some unsolicited advice from his friend Gage Messer.
"It's not that bad," Messer said. "The only thing that could happen is that he breaks a few bones."
Gorski, Messer and the rest of the approximately 70 campers made it through the course with their bones intact.
The kids were at Camp Happy Valley this week as part of the state's Veterans of Foreign Wars annual youth camp, which started July 25 and concludes Saturday. Every year, children come to the camp from several surrounding states to learn the ways of military life, patriotism and the value of accomplishing tough tasks -- like navigating a rope course.
Organizers say the camp is faintly similar to military basic training -- minus pushups, yelling and shooting.
The campers woke up every morning at around 6 a.m. to do marching drills. They even marched from one place to another in an orderly single-file line while their counselor yelled a cadence call -- with a few exceptions.
"It depends on the counselor," Camper Christian Rollins said. "If you have a strict counselor, you march. If you don't, you walk."
The VFW camp is the only one of its kind in the country, and has been operating for 50 years, camp director Bill Lambert said. This is the first year the VFW youth camp came to Camp Happy Valley, which is owned and operated by the Salvation Army.
The camp spent its previous 49 years at Cedar Lakes in Ripley. The camp moved to Happy Valley because there is more space and more to do, Lambert said.
The campers are sponsored through their local VFWs. The cost to each camper is around $200, Lambert said.
The campers do a variety of activities each day. Along with the rope course, by the end of the week, the kids climbed a rock wall, scooted on pedal cars, performed skits around a campfire, and went on a geology tour.
The campers also learned things like how to fold an American flag, how to stand at attention whenever a flag passes in a parade, and how to retire a flag.
"We teach the kids some patriotism," Lambert said, "They don't get it in school anymore."
The proper way to retire a flag is to cut it stripe by stripe, burn it, and then bury the ashes, said Lambert, who served in the Korean and Vietnam wars as a radio operator.
At the rope course, the kids lined up around the instructors and listened carefully to what they had to say. There were three important rules of thumb.
Rule 1: Follow directions
Rule 2: Be respectful
Rule 3: Follow directions
The chance to teach kids how to love the country is especially important to Joe Norris, the camp's assistant director.
"I'm not a religious person," Norris said. "To me, my country is my religion."
Norris received a Purple Heart in Vietnam when he was wounded by shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade. Norris wants the kids to know that they are affected by every choice that they make in their lives, no matter how small.
Anyone seeking information on next year's camp is asked to contact Bill Lambert at 304-550-4703.
Reach Zac Taylor at Zachary.Tay...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5189.
