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Gen. Mike Minihan, Commander of Air Mobility Command, visits the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station June 8, 2024.

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AFRC teens attend Air Force-wide youth program

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Andrew Caya
  • 914 Airlift Wing Public Affairs
NIAGARA FALLS AIR RESERVE STATION, N.Y. --  For the past 11 years the United States Air Force Academy has hosted a summer Teen Aviation Camp for the highly motivated children of U.S. Airmen.

In the past, children of Active Duty Airmen dominated the attendance for this camp however, this year nearly half the teens in attendance are the children of Air Force Reservists.

According to people involved with the camp, this phenomenon is no accident; it stems from hard work both from Air Force Reserve leadership and from the teens themselves.
The youth and child care programs in the Air Force Reserve Command have come a very long way in the past six years that Mr. Jerry Cardinal has been chief of services for the command.

Since Mr. Cardinal has been in charge, AFRC Services has gone from having zero youth programs to having three major camps for teens. Along the way AFRC Services has increased attendance in the Air Force Youth programs from only 96 teenagers to more than 320 youth out of 770 applications to attend the camps.

This summer camp is for high school students entering their sophomore or junior year in the fall of 2011 and the intent of the program and it's scheduled tours is designed to give all attendees an experience that will help them determine if aviation or attending the Air Force Academy is a good career path for them.

According to Mr. Cardinal, getting your name on the list to attend the program is not easy.
"It's a very competitive application process," said Mr. Cardinal. "The teens can't just say they want to go to the camp. They must have documented the hard work and dedication they have achieved."

On the application, the teens have to list school sponsored and non-school sponsored extracurricular and leadership activities, honors and awards received, community service projects, and two essays on various aviation and military topics.

Despite the intense screening process of applicants, children of AFRC Airmen faired pretty well against Active Duty.

"For this year's Aviation Camp we had 16 applicants [from Air Force Reserve Command], (of which) 11 were selected to go to this camp," said Mr. Cardinal. "That's amazing; it proves that our [Air Force Reserve Command] is into this and can compete with the Active Duty kids."

One of those 11 AFRC selections was Austin McCoy, son of the 914th Mission Support Group Commander Col. Timothy McCoy and his wife Debi.

Colonel McCoy was elated that his son, a scholar athlete at Grand Island High School, was one of the few AFRC selections who were chosen to attend the camp.

" He [Austin] has been focused on this camp for the past three years and has worked very hard for it. He knew what the application looked like and he filled all the squares on it...he's been interested in attending the Air Force Academy since the fourth grade," Colonel McCoy said with a laugh.

The AFRC Services leadership, such as Mr. Cardinal and the camps he works hard for, give youth a chance to experience the military first-hand and grant the opportunity to turn highly motivated AFRC teens like Austin McCoy, into highly motivated Airmen.