Victory Forge Military Academy Gave Me My Son Back

Hello Colonel,

I wanted to write to thank you, and to give you an update on how my son, Clay Jackson, is doing.

The transformation in him since he attended your camp is phenonmenal. You can see if you read his application that some of the reasons we wanted him in the camp were his disrespect for authority, especially the authority of his parents, extremely poor grades, sassing, getting in trouble with friends and hanging out with the wrong crowd.

I'm VERY proud to say he has come around 180 degrees! He has 5 A's in school, ALL 100% or higher. He also has one B and one C, no D's or F's. That is up from 5 F's at the end of last year. We knew he is intelligent and can do it, but he just didn't care the last two years. He is no longer calling me stupid. He feels the need to work for whatever he gets. He doesn't like to take anything without working for it.

His birthday was September 11 and all he wanted were items from the USCalvary.com website.

I told him I received the survey from Victory Forge and that you asked if he would be back. I told him I put no because he is too old. He said he would like to go back, but not in the same capacity! I guess he would much rather help than go through the camp!

Finally, his history teacher from last year goes to our church. She was sitting in front of us Sunday and I leaned up to tell her how well Clay is doing. After Clay walked away, she told me "parent to parent because she knows Clay would never actually tell us this", that he had come to her room last week to tell her how he was doing, and that he was beaming about it. He then told her his parents sent him to a camp this summer and that he was really glad we did because it really changed him. Wow. That's huge, when CLAY admits THAT. He really did enjoy all of it, except PIT.

I want to thank you for what you did for especially my son but also my entire family. It is so much more enjoyable to parent a child who listens and tries to get good grades.

You will likely see his little brother in the future!

Thanks again,
Tracey Jackson