Dear Tarheel Challenge Academy,
     This is Former Cadet Stephen Arthur Scott II From class 17, team 2, MIGHTY DUECE. I wanted to take time to drop you a line to let you and anyone else who is considering coming or sending a child to the Academy know exactly where I stood before the program and now where I am after the program. I am also going to share my story of the downward spiral I called life that was experianced before the program. So, here goes.
     Well, lets start with what got me here. For each cadet there is a different story. For me it had some common points but no two stories are exactly the same. Ok well I was 16 years old....a sophmore...after two freshman years. I was having problems in school and problems at home. I wouldn't do anything in school and when I did it was half way done. I could have made it straight through with no problems had I applied myself, but I wasn't motivated. I know a lot of people are thinking now of how familiar that sounds....be it from themselves or through thier kids or someone else. Anyways, the things between me and my father were getting un-bearable. I can recall one incident where Me and my father had got to arguing and I ran out. I was bearfooted, and it was raining. I had no jacket and no where to go to. All I was thinking was that I wanted to get out of the house where the problem was. ! Instead of trying to fix the problem, I decided to run away from it. I ended up walking to the gas station and sitting in plain view hoping that my parents had called the police and the cops would find me, pick me up and take me somewhere. Well it happened. The police officer told me that I could either go home, or to the cumberland county mental institution. I told them that if I were to go home, that I couldn't be held acountable for my actons and so they hauled me off to the institution. But I didn't make it there. They took me to Cape Fear Hospital where my mother worked at the time for a mental evaluation. There the doctor gave me a clean evalutaion and said I just had a problem with authorty figures. So with a clean bill of mental health they sent me home. I didn't stay long at all. I went to work that night and talked to a friend of mine who told me of a place he was thinking of renting and needed a roommate.! So I told him to get it. I would end up leaving home. Thus Begining the downward spiral I knew as life. Well I got in and with a new sense of freedom, splurged my money and time in new found freedoms never before known to my 16 year old mind. Drinking, Drugs, staying out all night and partying just to get up, continue to half way complete my work in school and go to work and then back to the night life. I had no car. I had a bike and worked across the way from where I was living. Working at foodlion, I made bearly enough to make rent and cigarette money. So I was failing in school and since I just knew that I had all the answers and didn't need school, I droped out.
     Well I went out and picked up a second full time job and kept a lil side work at an automotive shop for cash. It was a sight I tell ya. I was working 3 jobs, Living off of ramen noodles and marlboro cigarettes.

     Thats all I could afford even with the three jobs. I was making minimum wage and all my splurging in the beginning had gotten me into some serious trouble. So with my money left from rent, I bought my food, which was all ramen noodles, breakfast, lunch, dinner all ramen. Sounds fun huh? Well I tricked myself into thinking there was still some variety left in my life. I bought different flavors of noodles every week. Sad really. Well It got to a boiling point after a while. My life had become nothing more than working 18 hours a day at three jobs that I hated equally as much as the life I was leading. I got to be so filled of hate and distrust that the girl that was i! n my life for three and a half years left me for my roommate. Well at that point I felt I had no lower to go. I went out to lake rim, which was about a mile from the trailor I was staying in. I sat at the end of the dock thinking of everything that was happening and everything that wasn't. I can remember thinking I needed to do something before I got to where I had to start stealing, or something else just to get money for those ramen noodles and marlboro cigarettes.
So After spending the night on the dock for fear of catching assult charges when I went back to my trailor and found my roommate with my now ex-girlfriend of 3 and a half years, I called home and asked to come back. When I got there, things were good for a little while. I started working security, making 1200 a month....still no high school education, still a drop out, still a loser, still full of hate. About this time my brother dropped out of school. His councilour gave him a Tarheel Challenge packet. Well I came home one night and read it at dinner and said you know, that might be good for my brother. I hope he does it. I was on my way to watch the class I should have been with graduate that night. That night I watched on in sorrow and jealousy as every friend I knew since grade school walked across the stage and get thier High School Diploma. Over the P A system I heard " Jennifer Nicole Fermi! n plans to attend college at East Carolina University and study nursing" "Amornchai Brockway plans to go to Appalachin State university to study bussiness" and I teared up part of me proud, part of me jealous. Do you know how it feels to watch every single one of your friends move on and leave you behind? All that went through my mind was "I should have been with those friends who are now moving on to greater things in life...passing me by....not sitting at idle waiting for something to happen. I cried the whole way back to the house all by myself as I liked to be. When I got home, I took the last hit of that Marlboro cigarette and went in the house. On the dinner table was that Tarheel Packet. I sat down and filled it out for myself.

     Now, things start looking up. July 15, 12:30 pm Sunday, I am standing in line 326 pounds, wearing gray sweats, in the middle of July, sweating like I had the hoover dam in the back of my sweater. I reported for duty for a program that would change my life, my parents life, and my destiny.
After the shaving of the head and issuing of the equiptment was over we had a bus ride from Salemburg to Ft. Bragg. We arrived at the Barracks and unloaded the buses and the personel carrier which contained our clothes and equiptment. We came inside for the first time and things set in. I was here. I was about to become a cadet. First thing in my head was what in the hell am I doing?! I can't do this! I decided to give it some time. Well we started physicals and then PT. 326 pounds is a hard weight to come in to a program with daily PT and stay encouraged about staying around. I tried my hardest....I couldn't keep up with the formation....But I wouldn't stop running. All I could think of was how my friends were sitting in college classes moving forward and I couldn't go back to where I was. So I said to myself...Do your best and they will leave you alone. OHHHHH! NOOOOO it can't be that simple. I kept running and running and felt like I was going to die and didn't even notice that the formation was stopped waiting on me, and a Black hat and shirt was coming my way. A Cadre, a big scary looking guy with stubble running my way. I just knew I was about to get it. I felt like private Pyle on full metal jacket. When Mr. Schmitt got to me he started running beside me. Instead of telling me what a failure I was for not staying with the pack, or a loser or not worth his time, he said c'mon Scott, us big guys got to stick together....you can do it just keep up with me. At this time....I was crying. No one else had ever, ever talked to me like that. Now everything I did I put 110% into. I wanted more of that feeling. I wanted to so badly prove to everyone that even though I'd made mistakes I could be the best I ever had been and find the new me. Well I made it through Ft.! Bragg. I got to Salemburg, I was a squad leader for family day. I was in a leadership position and I was marching for my family. I had excelled to that point. From nothing to something. Seeing everyone's expressions as we marched made me want to go so much farther. So I pushed myself harder...still never giving up, never surrendering to the cat calls of the other cadets telling me to chill and quit taking my positons so seriously, and i worked my way up the ranks. A squad leader, to an asst. Team leader, to a team leader, then my big promotion. The top three cadets were caught passing notes between the teams....a big no no. They were all fired and I was moved up to First Sgt. and had no one else up there with me. I preformed all the jobs. I had done it. I had proven myself worthy of being put into command of the very academy that changed my life so drastically. As the top ranked cadet, and a ! member of the Cadet advisory board, I made many new policies and set the standard for the rest of the cadets. As all things do, my time at Tarheel ended. Its the big day. Graduation. And now its my turn to walk across that stage to graduate. My friends jennifer and Amornchai Heard Mrs, Hall say "Stephen Arthur Scott II plans on attending college for his bachlors in criminal Justice" along with witnessing me win a total of 7 awards including 2 scholarships and the coveted Directors Award.
     Now here we are, present day. I lost a total of 82 pounds while at Tarheel and more since graduation. I am on my way to UNC-Pembroke to study Criminal Justice, go to the North Carolina Justice academy and begin living the dream of mine since childhood of becoming an officer of the law. I just hope I can have half the impact tarheel has had on me.

Stephen Scott II Raeford, NC USA - Wednesday, January 16, 2002 at 23:01:19 (EST)