Anyone ever go to the Air Force Academy or know someone

[joeybee12]

who did?

A friend's son is considering going. What really concerns us is Colorado Springs. He'll have a sort of adoptive family there once a month during the first year at least because he won't be allowed home much (only two times the first year), so I was wondering what these families are like. I've lived in Colorado, and Colorado Springs (big surprise) is religious nutcase city. How much control will his own family have in deciding which family will "adopt" him? The big concern is that he'll have some family that will try and convert him.

Thanks!

[PassingFair]

1. Have him read up on Mickey Weinstein's fight with them.

He has a foundation fighting to ensure religious freedom in the military now.

Righteous!

http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/about.html

[joeybee12]

2. Yeah, there was that whole mess about prostelyzing (?sp)

at the Academy a couple years ago. I wonder if it's all cleared up--unlikely.

[SteppingRazor]

6. Well, that's on campus, as opposed to in the town...

from what I understand, the AFA's pretty lawsuit wary these days.

[reyd reid reed]

3. I've not heard about any problems with that

program...it was the Academy itself and the people who were responsible for those problems aren't there any more. Well, except for the baseball coach. He got in trouble last year and he's got players quitting again this year.

Tell him that if his 'family' tries to convert him, he can always call me and I'll call them and give 'em an earful. There is the zealot part of town, but they've kinda toned down a little bit, ever since what's-his-name got in all that trouble they've been keeping their heads down. We're not all like that.

[RobinA]

4. I Know Somone Who Went

Got very close to her host family. Parents have no control over who the host family will be, this is...uhm, the militart. The proselytizing, from my experience out there, tends to be AT the school. I visited there once in 2001 and yes, I did wonder if I had wandered into a Constitution free zone when I was on Academy grounds. There's fanatics in the town, but plenty of normal people too. As with anything, people trying to convert you are only as successful as you let them be. The whole military is an exercise in brainwashing, so if they are this concerned about his ego strength, maybe they should think twice about the military.

[SteppingRazor]

5. I know several people who went there, and I lived in Colo. Springs for 4 years.

Is it religious nutcase central? You're damn right it is.

But, meanwhile, right next to it is Manitou Springs, which has about as many pagans as Colorado Springs does fundies. Meanwhile, the fundie population of the Springs causes a certain amount of backlash among the other residents of the city, so that you'll find that the secular population tends to be much more anti-religious than the usual "meh, whatever" secular population of most cities.

All that said, the people who elect to host cadets tend to be religious zealots, both because they want to proselytize and because, truth to tell, that's one of the ways in which religious people are actually kinda decent. However, if your son is unhappy with his family, he doesn't have to visit with them! The program is voluntary. I had a friend who was a cadet who halted visitations with her adopted family for this very reason. So, take heart.

[rockymountaindem]

7. I've grown up five miles from the Academy. Dad and I had season football tix for 12 years,

I was on the junior AFA community swim team as a kid, and my neighborhood was full of AF veterans. I think I can tell you a thing or two.

Since your question was about the adoptive families I'll just stick to that. My family tried to adopt a cadet a few times because my parents thought it would be a nice thing to do for some kid away from home and because they thought it would be nice to have someone around I could talk to about my love of airplanes, tanks, machine guns and all those other things 8 year old boys love. We were consistently turned down because AF retirees get first priority on those things and there were just too many of them on the list for the Academy to get to our family. That didn't really matter because our best friends (despite the fact that they're big-time Limbaugh listening Republicans - yes you can be friends with them) who lived across the street always had a cadet. He was a 20 year AF vet who retired as a Lt. Colonel, so they got high priority in the sponsoring pool.

From my experiences with them and some of the other sponsor families in the neighborhood, I can tell you that the sponsors take their job pretty seriously. They've got no problem driving a cadet up to the Academy at 10pm on Sunday night so they'll be back on base on time after being off for the weekend. They'll make pretty much whatever food the cadet asks for, let them sleep in the guest room, do laundry for them etc. They have no problem with any of these things because they know the cadets really are busting their asses during the week and they don't have a lot of time for things like laundry and because they know the cadets need a break. It's a pretty good program. The couple who lived across the street were very good at the sponsoring thing. The husband could fix just about anything imaginable, and the wife was a really good cook and had a clothesline (a rare thing) so the cadet would have really fresh laundry. Since I was over there all the time as a kid, I can tell you that once the cadets move past their freshman year they get to spend much more time off base, which means that some of them were at their sponsor's every weekend. As a result, each family on gets one cadet. But, I saw a lot of these cadets (one of them even gave me his hat when he graduated) and I know they all say they couldn't make it through the program without their sponsor families. Our neighbors had a mantle full of thank-you plaques from graduated cadets, and even now they keep in close contact with all of them and follow their careers quite intently. They've been to weddings, christenings etc. years down the road after the cadets graduate. I don't know if that's typical or if that only happens because these two were sponsors extraordanaire, but from what I saw it seems like a really good part of Academy life and a good tradition that the cadets really depend upon.

I hope that answers your question.

Edit: I noticed I forgot the religious aspect. I never heard anything about it, but keep in mind this was between fifteen and five years ago before any of these scandals surfaced. I'd imagine that the AFA provides strict guidelines to sponsors now about that sort of thing. Our good friends were Roman Catholic, so the husband wasn't in with the Focus on the Family lot, although the wife would always watch Dobson during his 3 minute propaganda portion on the local NBC news station every morning. She was a really nice lady but I don't think she was very well informed about politics/religion and I don't think she knows that FoF people regularly refer to Catholicism as an "idolatry cult". However, I think they respected the cadets enough not to push any religion on them. One of their cadets *may*, I repeat *may* have been a Hindu, and I never saw any problems over that.

[joeybee12]

10. One of my suggestions was to see if he could stay with a

Jewish family! None I know try to convert you! And actually,being raised a Catholic myself, the one thing I've got to say is that they don't really try to convert you as would a fundie, and they also don't think the world is ending tomorrow!

[rockymountaindem]

12. As a Jew I can endorse that idea :-) n/t

[Pacifist Patriot]

8. I came within a breath of attending...

but backed out at almost the eleventh hour. Sorry Sam Nunn!

I'm going to read the replies with great interest.

[LostinVA]

13. You could have been a Baptist minister's wife now

Instead of an ordained UU.

[Pacifist Patriot]

19. *shudder* Oh the thought!

[LostinVA]

20. hehehehe

With poofy hair.

[leftofthedial]

9. The school and the town are both religiously insane wingnut central.

He'll be in the control of the hardest-core of the hardcore christo-religious wack jobs pretty much 24X7.

There are some terrific people in Colorado Springs, but they don't get to "play" with the Academy.

He'll have zero say about anything.

I'm an Air Force brat and very nearly wen tto the Academy myself about a thousand years ago. Today, I wouldn't recommend going to the Air Force Academy to anyone.

[Shell Beau]

11. My uncle was in the air force for a long time! He says it's the way to go.

Of course he is biased. His father (my granddad of course) was a marine. And now my uncle's son wants to join the army. My brother went into the Navy so my family pretty much covered all of the bases. Except the coast guard that is!!!!

[trof]

14. My pilot training class was the AFA Class of '63 and...ME.

But that was before the zoomies came to Jesus.
For the most part, they were pretty cool guys.
Almost every one of them was driving new 'Vettes.
Some kind of sign-your-life-away based on anticipated future earnings Chevy dealer in Colorado Springs.
I was driving a VW bug.
The Shame.

P.S. I was the lone air national guard troop.
Me an' dumbya**.
<sigh>

[Ilsa]

15. Yeah, a couple of years ago, my friends daughter had to file charges

against a cadet there because he and his girlfriend robbed my friend's daughter. The girls were roommates, and the girlfriend's family wasn't poor. But she stole some jewelry and hocked it. The boyfriend threatened her life. Another cadet was involved also. I think they both got kicked out.

[freethought]

16. A relative's son has been accepted

My cousin's son has been accepted to the Air Force Academy and West Point. The relationship between my cousin and myself is, shall we say, frayed. I haven't talked to him in years, never met his wife or his two kids. I only came by the information via another relative that I actually like.
I then asked if he had applied to any Ivy League schools. The reply was probably not. In that family getting accepted to Harvard or Cornell would rank right up there with the local community college.
Go figure.
If the boy has a good head on his shoulders this should not be a problem.

[Ilsa]

17. Self-delete.

[salin]

18. one of the class officers in my graduating class went... and got kicked out.

Guess he started some sort of "gambling ring" (back when I heard about it I thought poker - but in retrospect, to get kicked out am guessing it was a bigger deal.) Which has nothing to do with your question - but it is the only connection that I have to the Air Force Academy.

Would guess it would depend upon the strength of his 'individuality' vs. his sense of conforming to belong.