“Our military leaders bring state and local officials, school administrators, and teachers up to visit the academy and cadets to demonstrate the good return on investment that is happening up here. When they see firsthand the hundreds of lives this program positively effects each year, the program sells itself.”-Collier Lipple, executive officer to the adjutant general of Idaho, and notice the salesman lingo he uses to promote the covert child soldier program

In the Christian dominated (67% according to Pew Research Center, but predominantly ‘Mormon’ LDS by 19%, then Catholic by 10%, all other ‘christian’ denominations come in at less than 6% each) U.S. state of Idaho children are undergoing military training, at taxpayer expense.

It’s called the Idaho Youth ChalleNGe Academy.  The NG in ChalleNGe is capitalized because the U.S. Department of Defense funded program is run by the state militia (National Guard).  It’s just one of 40 similar Department of Defense ‘child soldier’ programs operated across the United States.

By September 2018, Idaho Youth ChalleNGe Academy got its largest number of ‘cadet’ enrollments for a single 22 weeks-long program; 135!

This is concerning, not because it looks like child soldier training, but because Idaho Youth ChalleNGe Academy is for youth considered ‘at risk’ of becoming ‘failures’ (according to the standards of the ‘christian’ dominated state government), and the National Guard reported that the current enrollment of 135 teenagers is the largest ever since the program started, that implies the number of at risk youth is only going up in Idaho.

According to press releases, the goal of 1-thousand Idaho teenagers graduating from the Idaho Youth ChalleNGe Academy is about to be met.  Most of them have come from the Treasure Valley (Boise metro) area of Idaho.

I’m not against military training for youth, I couldn’t wait to join the military, always obsessed with armored vehicles since before kindergarten, so I joined when I was 17 back when you didn’t need to be a high school graduate.  It wasn’t until about 1984-85 that Congress required military enlistees to be high school graduates.

Ideally military training for youth should be voluntary, for those who know it’s the career path for them, it should be a last resort for kids considered ‘failures’.  Back during the undeclared Cold War there were lots of people who were forced to join the U.S. military as an alternative to a prison sentence for a crime they committed.  Some of those guys did well, even said it saved their lives, but there were those that were so criminal minded (some to the point of rape and murder) they ended up in Fort Leavenworth (military prison).

Idaho Youth ChalleNGe Academy was started in January 2014, ordered by gov’na C.L. ‘Butch’ Otter to push through 1-thousand ‘failures’ by December 2018.  But who should be blamed for these child failures? Idaho Air National Guard Master Sergeant, Becky Vanshur, wrote about the program saying at one point “… they learn to adjust to the physical, mental, and social discipline…..  …emphasizes self-discipline, self-esteem, education, and the development of healthy lifestyles.”  Gee, isn’t that what they’re supposed to be learning from their church, schools and parents?

I know ‘christian’ parents here in eastern Idaho that couldn’t handle their own children, they even resorted to calling the police to have them ‘detained’ in the county jail for failing to obey them (Juvenile Incorrigibility).  And it’s christian (especially Mormon) families that seem to have the most problems with their children, I know people that work in the juvi detention for Bannock County who’ve told me (no names given because law enforcement employees could lose their jobs for talking publicly about anything they see, or hear, on the job) the overwhelming majority of kids detained come from Mormon families (the overwhelming majority of eastern Idaho law enforcers are Mormons, so they should know).

see related: In Mormon dominated School District 25 (aka Chubbuck/Pocatello) students experiencing skyrocketing disciplinary problems, “More children were expelled… …and even elementary students got in trouble more often for threats, drug possession and sexual offenses.”

IDAHO: MOUNTAIN HOME AFB UPDATE, F-15E WALK-AROUND, MICRON BUS