By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer
KALAELOA — The shouting starts each day around 5 a.m. and the pushups are never far behind. The running, too: To the bathroom, to the laundry room (and back), to formation for calisthenics and stretching and shouting and a 30-minute run that starts on a street named Shangrila.
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| Platoon guide Aloilevao Saena inspects members of his platoon in formation before marching off to breakfast.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser |
By breakfast most of the students at the Hawai‘i National Guard’s Youth Academy are ready for school.
This isn’t the place for teenagers who can’t adjust to taking orders, but most of the students here, boys and girls, bring a discipline problem in their emotional duffel bag. The academy is a cross between boot camp and reform school, a second chance for dropouts to earn a high school diploma.
Ever since it started in the fall of 1994, the students have been walking away with a lot more than an education.
The program practically works miracles: 85 percent of the students earn high school diplomas, which aren’t given out unless students enroll in college, get jobs or joins the military.
"It’s a quasi-military environment," said National Guard Sgt. Randy Lofton, who supervises the boys overnight. "We’re not trying to make soldiers out of them, but we want them to know that military discipline works."
The students live at the barracks for 22 weeks, but must remain in the program for another 12 months. If they are young enough to return to high school, that’s where they’re sent. The residential program is strict: uniforms, buzz cuts, a five-minute phone call home once a week. Talking isn’t allowed at meals. The penalty? Pushups.
As the groggy teenage boys dashed down the hallway of the barracks, each one stopped when he came to Lofton and asked permission to continue. Those who forgot had to pound out a few more pushups.
"Most of them come from dysfunctional families, divorces or drug-addicted parents," Lofton said. "They just need direction."
Staff Sgt. Shane Toombs said each day can be as intense for her as for the students. She could be ordering them to do jumping jacks (with more for the slackers) and lending a shoulder for the girls who break down in tears an hour later.
They’re not allowed to be teenagers, she said. They already had that chance and failed.
"We try to break them all the way down, to get them to realize that everything in life is a privilege," she said. "Before they came here, they were doing nothing. If you engage the mind, you won’t get in trouble."
Carla Cortez, a 17-year-old from Salt Lake, said the program was teaching her that she could do more than she had ever expected.
"I wanted to make something out of my life, instead of doing what I was doing for the past two years, which was making bad choices," she said.
Calvin Keawe hopes to join the Marines some day, or perhaps become an Army Ranger. "I came here to correct my attitude," the 17-year-old ‘Aiea teenager said. "I think most of the guys here want to change. Right now their lives are all messed up."
Mike Gordon can be reached by phone at 525-8012, or by e-mail at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.
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