Have you ever started your own cadet corps? Now, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this as a course of action for everyone, but here's a little story about how a few kids, all on their own, created an organization of their own to fill that basic "need" to belong to something bigger.

To put this into perspective, it all started when I was 12 years old and had just moved into a new town. My previous home was only 5 miles from Fort Lewis, WA so a military presence existed in everyday life, but this new town was over 100 miles away and completely devoid of anything remotely related to the military. JROTC was unheard of, CAP had a local squadron that was living up to it's reputation as America's best kept secret, and the formation of a local Naval Sea Cadet Corps unit was still a few years away.

During this time of my life, I was really a big military dork. Anything remotely related to the military was totally cool in my book. Not only was it a fact of life that I'd be sitting in front of the TV every night at 7:00pm to watch "Hogan's Heroes," but I was slowly collecting quite a bit of militaria, insignia, fatigues, helmets, real-looking toy guns, hats, backpacks, pup tents, and boots. To top it all off, this new neighborhood had a huge wooded area that was just perfect for playing "war".

As the saying goes, "Birds of a feather flock together," and it didn't take long to stumble across a few other kids with the same interests. Soon, just playing "war" wasn't enough. We finally decided that needed to belong to something and that something needed a name. A few ideas got tossed around like "Mike's Marauders" and "The Oracle" (stupid heavy metal music influence) before we came up with a very official sounding name, the "United States Junior Military Academy" or USJMA for short. Of course, we didn't realize at the time that there really was an ACTUAL United States Military Academy in existence.

What was the purpose for the USJMA? Well, to wear cool uniforms with lots of bling, of course. Come on, is there really any other reason?

The local military surplus store had lots of Vietnam-era khaki shirts for sale so those became the USJMA's basic dress uniform. Cotton fatigues, or BDUs if you had good connections with someone on active duty, became the USJMA's field uniform. That same store also had a supply of berets, Aussie-style hats, badges and ribbons too. The challenge was to find a surplus fatigue shirt that already had your last name on it. An easy task for a guy named "Moore" but not so easy for the others.

After sitting down and taking an inventory of our personal insignia collections, we pretty much appointed ourselves into whatever rank we felt was appropriate (based on what rank insignia we had in our collections). For the five charter members of our group, the grade structure ended up looking like this; one Major (his uncle had given him a set of BDUs with that grade already sewn on), one Captain (already owned the insignia), one 2nd Lt (borrowed the insignia from his brother), one Sergeant (stripes were already on the shirts he bought), and one Private (hey, someone had to be at the bottom).

Promotions were later made based solely on whatever rank insignia the individual happened to own. For a short time, we had a 5-Star General among our ranks! We quickly realized that we had no room for Generals and limited the top USJMA grade to Colonel. To complete the uniforms, we contacted a local trophy shop that engraved nametags for our shirts. A couple of years later we noticed that, except for the colors, our USJMA tags looked nearly identical to those in CAP. (Makes you wonder who else ordered name tags from that engraver.)

Now that we had uniforms, we needed to get some ribbons! After all, what good is a uniform without a little fruit salad over the pocket? We had a poster showing all military medals from the Medal of Honor down to the various campaign medals. From that poster, we set some standards for awarding those medals to ourselves. Oh, boy...

The surplus store had lots of WWII and Korea-era campaign ribbons for sale so we started with those. We did some research and learned that the medals were first granted for service in a theatre, then a star was added for each additional battle in that same theatre. OK. Easy enough for us to emulate that system so, after our first campout in David's back yard, we awarded ourselves the American Campaign ribbon. Befitting, don't you think? After all, it was our first foray into the great American experience of camping without adult supervision. (OK, it was a fully fenced, totally safe, well-lit back yard, but it really seemed like wilderness after the sun went down.)

Our next campout was a bit further into the woods (but still behind David's house) where we built a lean-to and a campfire. For that outing, we awarded ourselves the European-African-Middle East Campaign ribbon. The choice for that ribbon was obvious; the green and brown colors on the ribbon matched the green and brown colors of the forest. Just like the real military, more outings in that particular patch of woods gave us additional stars on the ribbon.

It was time to move on and over the next couple of years we camped out at other sites. Down by the river a few times - which of course rated the Korean Service ribbon (since the blue went with the river's water, duh). A camping trip into the foothills where we crossed several creeks and found snow rated the United Nations Service ribbon (blue-white-blue-white...)

One night, while camping in the woods, we decided to venture off into the darkness and go on a "combat patrol". We patrolled all over town until we were stopped at about 3am by a police officer who asked what in blazes we were doing "prowling" around the neighborhood in fatigues/BDUs and camouflage face paint. The officer was understanding and offered to not call our parents if we went straight back to our campsite and stayed there. For that, we awarded ourselves the WWII Victory ribbon (our victory being that we were neither arrested nor grounded that night.)

(Disclaimer for the next two paragraphs - Young people are known to do things that can get them hurt, arrested, and possibly deported... In other words, when it comes to being stupid, don't try this at home!)

Occasionally, like most teenage boys, one of us would do something incredibly stupid and live to tell about it. Following these acts of "bravery" (stupidity), the group would meet to decide if the actions merited a medal. Breaking up a fight rated the Multi-National Peacekeeping Forces Medal. Climbing to the very top of a certain tall tree rated a Bronze Star. Falling out of said tree and breaking one's leg rated a Purple Heart. Crossing the river by crawling the entire length under the railroad trestle rated a Silver Star. We won't discuss the act of stupidity that earned one guy the Soldier's Medal.

It wasn't all ribbons, there was other bling too... The Parachutist Badge for being able to jump from a one-story roof without breaking any bones. The Combat Infantry Badge for participating in a B-B gun fight against another group of kids. The Pathfinder Badge for getting everyone out of the woods, and in one piece, after we got seriously lost one day. Marksman, Sharpshooter, and Expert badges if you could consistently hit a stop sign with a rock (Grenade) or B-B gun (Rifle) at various distances. Heck, we even had plans to award the Driver's Badge if any of us ever got a driver's license.

Officially speaking, the USJMA existed from 1980 to 1984 and at one time boasted nine members, but it was really the five charter members that kept it all together. Luckily, before we could wreak too much havoc on our small town, I discovered the Civil Air Patrol. As the only member of the USJMA old enough to immediately join, I checked it out and was totally hooked. The other USJMA members followed suit as soon as they were old enough and the group faded away as everyone eventually joined CAP. It's interesting to note that two of those USJMA/CAP members had very successful careers as CAP cadets (one earning the General Carl A. Spaatz Award and the other earning the Phase IV consolation prize).

I suppose the moral of this story is that interesting youth programs really are a necessary part of growing up. When interests go unmatched by local programs, people will come up with their own "programs" to keep themselves occupied. Luckily for it's members, the USJMA was a constructive group. Who knows, with a combination of bad luck and some poor decisions made along the way, the USJMA could just as easily have become a local chapter of Crips or Bloods. Thank goodness it didn't.