"Camp aids kids of military overseas" by Rich Barlow | August 23, 2008
Operation Purple Camp, a program of weeklong summer camps in 36 states this year (Massachusetts ran one last month and one in June), has been sponsored since 2004 by the National Military Families Association, a volunteer group based in Virginia.
The camp offered the pleasures of most other summer sojourns in the woods, from archery to water sports to arts and crafts. The local sheriff also demonstrated the skills of his department's police dog, Lady, which took some ferocious lunges at a well-padded trainer.
"That was cool," said Jessica Jacques, 17. Her youthful face had a porcelain sheen, but her eyes darkened with memories of adult worry as she talked about her father's nine months in Iraq.
The children's pain is put under a spotlight in school when their peers' parents go to their athletic events and plays. And many of them are consumed with anxiety that a parent may never come home.
In Rhode Island, Averett asked his charges, "If you could draw a picture of your feelings during the deployment, what would it be?"
One picture, he said, stuck with him: a red heart with a black hole in it.
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