Victoria Rivera, 17, from Rota, Spain, tells her group's recommendations to attendess Thursday at the U.S. European Command Quality of Life Conference in Garmisch, Germany. (Charlie Coon / S&S)
Victoria Rivera, 17, from Rota, Spain, tells her group's recommendations to attendess Thursday at the U.S. European Command Quality of Life Conference in Garmisch, Germany. (Charlie Coon / S&S)
Mary-Lynn Piper, 18, of Bitburg High School was one of three teen delegates providing input at the U.S. European Command Quality of Life Conference onWednesday in Garmisch, Germany. (Charlie Coon / S&S)
Taylor Hinson, 15, of Kaiserslautern High School was one of three teen delegates at the U.S. European Command Quality of Life Conference. (Charlie Coon / S&S)
GARMISCH, Germany — If adults wondered why teenagers get into trouble, they could always ask.
“The base is safe, but there’s not enough for the kids to do,” said 18-year-old Mary-Lynn Piper. “They see a lot of stress. Alcoholism and clubbing are a way to escape from all that.”
A no-brainer might now be bubbling its way to the top of big military’s to-do list: form teen action committees at each base so kids can talk about problems and recommend solutions.
“We do know a lot about the issues,” Piper said. “It’s nice knowing we finally have a say.”
Piper, a senior at Bitburg High School and two other teens were the first ones invited to chime in at the annual U.S. European Command Quality of Life Conference in Garmisch. In the past, only adults attended the conference.
Civilians and troops came from around Europe to raise their grown-up problems — money issues, health care faults and deployment hardships. Teens, on the other hand, never had a seat at the conference table, even though about 36,000 students attend Defense Department-sponsored schools in Europe.
Come to find out, everything’s not hunky-dory with the kids: Unsafe sex, fighting, drug use and binge drinking are happening. Some adults even know about it.
“I think they know it to an extent, but some don’t want to believe their kids are doing it,” Piper said.
Piper and 17-year-old Victoria Rivera of Rota High School in Spain were among 12 delegates raising issues in a community-service focus group. Its members spent two days compiling a list of concerns and then paring it down to two ideas that would be recommended to military leaders. At Piper’s and Rivera’s urging, the idea to form teen committees made the final cut. Their idea is now in the lap of the brass.
“They were probably the most involved members in the whole group,” said Ramona Baylor, the group’s facilitator. “They were continually throwing out ideas and issues and willing to offer solutions.”
Not every teen-generated idea got promoted to the commander’s desk.
Taylor Hinson, a 15-year-old from Kaiserslautern High School, said her family was once ordered to move from North Carolina to Fort Hood, Texas, only to have her stepfather promptly deployed to Iraq.
Taylor and her family would rather have stayed in North Carolina, where they were settled, during her stepfather’s deployment.
“We didn’t have any information [about Fort Hood], we didn’t know anybody,” Taylor said. “They should have just kept us [in North Carolina].”
Soldiers’ families should have that choice, she suggested. Maybe next year the idea will get more traction.
Rivera said there should be a Transition Assistance Program for teens, just as soldiers have a TAP program to help them transition out of the military.
“I was born into the military; now I’m switching into college,” said Rivera, whose father might soon be retiring. “It’d be a lot easier if there was a system and I didn’t have to Google everything.”
