Our Community Feedback
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“A Viewpoint On Reality Ranch”
I would like to make a statement concerning the Reality Ranch and its use of the property it has purchased. I do not border the property, but my land parallels it partly down the south side, offset about a hundred and ninety feet. From my work area I have a good view of part of the Reality Ranch operation; every day, day and night. I have lived here since 1970 and have seen that property fail to support a cotton farm and a tree farm. Several of my neighbors and I are situated above a fairly narrow and shallow aquifer of excellent water, which has been virtually drained out from under us by farming attempts on this and another piece of land above the same flow. Consequently when this land came up for sale, I was concerned it would be subdivided, possibly into little ranchettes which would end up depleting our water again, especially in dry periods. The other concern was that the Fort Thomas Water Company has been shopping for years to buy land on this aquifer, which would also drain it. I was relieved to hear that the use of this land was to be something which would have negligible impact on our water table and would not result in more residences in the area. From my perspective, the use of this property for a camp, which lasts only a quarter of the year, is the highest and best use. This operation is a source of taxes and revenue to the county, and has very little impact on the area as far as demand for school, or utilities. Just a little math makes it evident that the camp has a potential of bringing in a lot of revenue, but it is very evident from my vantage point across the fence that a huge amount of money has been poured into the operation, from the high price of the land, cleanup expenses, repair on the wells, improvements, camp equipment, supplies, and wages for all the staff. This enterprise has to make its yearly revenue in three months, and I am sure the costs of operation such as insurance, taxes, recruit transportation strategy and supply strategy is incredible and not seen by the casual passer-by. It seems that wherever you look, people are wanting more refineries, more prisons, more power lines, more employment producing industry, or whatever, but always the qualification “not in my back yard”. Well, this Reality Ranch enterprise is in my back yard, and I don’t have a problem with it, and as far as I know, neither do most of the surrounding neighbors. Conversely, I am equally certain that for the other 44,950 some odd residents of the County, it isn’t in their back yard, so I’m a little perplexed at why there is so much talk and editorializing from out of the immediate area about putting it out of business.
The Courier has written articles, written defenses of its articles, and printed editorials much of which are agenda driven and sensationalized to the point of ridiculousness at their face value. The paper is obviously more concerned about putting out half baked allegations to rile up public indignation and goad the regulators into running amok and shutting everything down, than contributing to mitigating a sustainable operation. It needs to be clear that the concept of a military camp is about as alien to me as is ballet dancing or Antarctic exploring; I can’t imagine being sent to one or sending a kid to one. Nevertheless I am equally convinced that there are many kids on which this kind of experience can have a very meaningful, beneficial impact. I have never been in the military and just have knowledge of military procedures second hand or through study, but I am fully aware that it has its place and is effective, particularly to those who have interests along those lines. I have only talked to the owner of the operation for maybe a total of ten minutes, and know about the operation just what I see over the fence and what I read on his website and brochures. I don’t have any difficulty in determining from the promotional material that this is an outdoor, endurance, stamina building, character building program, and the term “military camp” is kind of an indication too. There are obviously lots of kids scattered through the cities across the country who would find this experience attractive, and I have no desire to deny them the opportunity, though I can’t imagine myself there. At that age I spent summers taxing my endurance by putting up hay, cowpunching, building fence, and all other types of productive and strenuous work out in the sun all day every day, and I survived fine. Unfortunately, only a pathetic few kids have the opportunities like I did, and further, I had a very firm and reinforced concept of what discipline and responsibility meant. It’s so easy to look around and see that an abundance of parents and kids seem to have no understanding of these qualities. If Reality Ranch has some program to instill seeds of discipline and responsibility and the “reality” of the real world in a few kids every summer, give them some new outdoor experiences, get them in a little better shape, and so on, I think that’s an overall benefit to society in general and the kids and their families in particular. I know very little about their program to accomplish this, but from my vantage point, I do see a transformation take place. The first few days look like slightly contained chaos, but that quickly evolves into regimentation which continues to refine, relax, and smooth out. What is obvious is the process operates on continuous tight supervision at every minute by an abundance of “black shirts”; and as I understand; this is would serve as a kid-level, short term, low impact, experience of what real military training is like; another time, another place. We have lots of real soldiers in real stifling heat, real sandstorms, real filth, real hardships, doing real strenuous unending activity, and deeply immersed in very real high-stakes dangers. From these recruits short camp in the high desert, maybe they can take away a slightly better awareness and appreciation of what our troops are enduring. Sometimes life’s growing and building experiences are not continuous enjoyment, but they nevertheless may have life-changing impact. Root canals aren’t particularly pleasant, but if you need one, you’re usually better off afterwards.
The paper parades a list of allegations from parents, regulators, recruits, disgruntled employees, those who really have no connection to any of this, and what the paper concocts on its own. While I am not attempting to either support or detract from Denton’s position, several of the incitements quickly fall apart on their own merits:
The parent of one of the two run-aways less than a week into the session, incited the paper with allegations from the recruit that the activities were outdoors, which he hadn’t anticipated; that it was filthy; there were insects, ie. tarantulas, scorpions, and cockroaches; and it was like a prison; he only had well water; and that the meals were not up to his expectations. If a casual reader of the website can’t figure that this program is an outdoor one, it seems to me they share a little culpability, or maybe they didn’t share this with the kid. Some people have different perceptions of filth; in my observation, this camp is eighty acres of soil with no previous involvement with anything other than crops and weeds, and I don’t equate soil with filth. If this kid saw a tarantula, that’s quite remarkable, because I’ve never seen a tarantula around here until late in August or into September. I’m glad he at least got to stay long enough to see a scorpion and cockroach, but am sorry he must not have been here long enough to see the centipedes, ants, junebugs, beetles, snakes, lizards, toads, dragonflies, and all the other fascinating little critters who are the permanent residents out here in the “outdoors”. When you learn to recognize and live with this you’ve actually learned something, and broadened your life skills for the real world. It’s funny there’s a problem with drinking the well water; it’s the same aquifer that all my neighbors and I have been drinking for decades, and people come from town to take our water home because it is so good. I know nothing about the food situation, other than at that age, I never considered food to be sufficient in quantity, and often quality, but I did always manage to get enough. The one thing that never concerned me in the least was where it was served, just as long as there was plenty. I could put up with dust storms, bugs, dark, sunlight, animals, sitting down, standing up, or whatever, and that was all inconsequential. Sucking muddy water out of a cow track or eating a mashed sandwich and some fruit picked off the cactus or brush out in the hills never constituted an abomination in my life. Then there’s the outrage about the conditions being “like a prison”: What the hell is it supposed to be; like an unsupervised trip to the mall? Of course he was confined to the property; what else would be even remotely considered by the program, the parents, or the neighbors? These people are trying to run a highly regimented, intense, around-the-clock training session resembling military training, and if that doesn’t have prison-like connotations, somebody is kidding themselves. Does anybody think that in military boot camp anyone is free to come and go or have guests as they please? If any parent or recruit suspects he will not be continually supervised and confined to the property, the relationship between the camp and them should be terminated before it starts. Like I stated before, as far as I know, the immediate neighbors are supportive of the camp and its mission, but that is with the understanding that the recruits remain on the property. As far as everyone having access, that is an equally egregious intrusion and interruption to the program. Since the paper seems to have problems with the camp not having an open door policy, maybe we should all go down to the paper office whenever we want and go all through the place to our satisfaction. Most of these allegations start to sound like hysterical whining by a chronic complainer who maybe didn’t do their homework, was playing games with their kid to get him to go, or was dissatisfied with the “return policy” arrangements. All that might be a valuable lesson for the future: to have everything fully disclosed and understood before any arrangements are made, and then at last resort there should probably be some exit policy formulated and understood.
It’s ironic that the paper expresses indignation at the camp’s food preparation, but in the same issue, by the same reporter, gushes about all the good times at the Pioneer Days celebration and feed where it shows volunteers cooking in the rain and blustery conditions, and never a mention made about whether all these food preparers are state certified and the equipment passes all the standards. That’s strange that people go a picnic and expect picnic-like conditions and the paper is just thrilled, but if another group goes to an outdoor endurance camp situation, the paper is outraged and demands the regulators descend and require their interpretations of what’s acceptable to meet school cafeteria type standards. As I understand, the camp will likely have to serve MRE’s; which I know very little about other than what I read that they may be like: Sautéed chicken breast strips, fettuccini alfredo, with tossed salad and thousand island dressing, iced tea, and Boston cream pie; unfortunately it’s all in the same can. I suppose this is what regulators and newspaper reporters eat and feed their families. Personally, I would lots rather have a hamburger grilled out on a barbecue in a sand storm, with nothing more than just a little salt and pepper and a stale bun.
We also find out from the paper that the camp is located in a flood plain; the same one that washed away some people last year. Supposedly that’s supposed to bring up visions like what we’re seeing now of water flowing through towns all over seven states as a result of the hurricane which went up through Texas and ended up in Wisconsin; killing people and animals, doing terrific property damage, and running water down the streets to the height of car windows. I haven’t noticed the paper condemning these million people for establishing themselves in an obvious shoulder-deep flood plain covering thousands of square miles. The real story here in the brush patch is a little less sensational: there’s an area here several hundred yards wide and many hundred yards long that’s this hideous flood plain. We know this because it’s designated so by FEMA and the County Engineer; otherwise the couple dozen houses of us who live here in the middle of it know it because since 1971 it has “flooded” about five or six times, usually in the fall or winter, to a depth of maybe two inches and maybe as much as six inches in a few of the lower places, and I have numerous pictures from several of the times which show this. Now; on the east side of the flood plain is a wash with a bed that varies from maybe sixty to hundred feet wide and is probably four feet or so below the lay of the land, and it usually runs for several days, several times a year. It’s a desert wash and does just what any self-respecting desert wash does; though lots of people don’t grasp that concept. This wash is what the people who got swept away were playing in when the bank caved off and dumped them in the rushing water two or three feet deep. This was a dangerous situation and fortunately everyone was rescued. Of course, the paper thinks it is more sensational to state the people were washed away from the flood plain and they leave you hanging as to whether they were ever found.
The really rich image the paper conjures up is reporting that a disgruntled former employee stated that “Denton would patrol the Bylas and Fort Thomas area and pick up homeless American Indians to work at the camp”. This makes you wonder; how does one go about finding homeless Indians? Do you maybe look in brush piles, or under wash banks, or maybe in culverts? Then when you find one, how do you lure him over to give him your pitch on recruiting him to work at the military camp? Do you offer him beads, a brightly colored blanket, firewater, or maybe a tomahawk? If there are really such things as homeless Indians, is there something inherently wrong with them working in a military style camp, even in light of that may have had military backgrounds themselves? Possibly if they could find a job with the military camp they could make some money and buy a home just like newspaper reporters have; then they wouldn’t be homeless any more. My impression of all this is that those kids will be talking for years about the summer camp time they spent under the supervision of a real Apache! I bet these “homeless Indians” weren’t continually whining about being outside or in the heat, or that there might be a bug around, or there was only well water. I’m sure these “homeless Indians” also learned things through their interaction with this diverse bunch of kids from all over.
I have never seen any enterprise, from restaurants to airlines, to Walmart, to churches, or whatever, that pleases everybody, completely, all the time. Even in the best of circumstances, someone is dissatisfied or disillusioned. What strikes me about the paper’s reporting is that it is focused on the displeased, seemingly without the least effort to find any other viewpoint. This summer there were about a hundred and forty recruits and maybe forty or so “black shirts”, and the paper’s interest is in two of the recruits and one “black shirt”. I have no doubt there are not simply a hundred and thirty eight supremely happy campers, or maybe a hundred and ten, or a hundred; but I’m equally as sure that all are not dissatisfied. If the paper can determine a hundred percent dissatisfaction, then they genuinely have something to write about in the broad terms they use presently. I would like to know the percentage of parents which would send another kid, or would send the same kid again. I imagine the approval rating rests somewhere in the middle, as with about any program or product. If the paper wants to investigate something, they might investigate how to objectively research and report a story, impartially, thoroughly, accurately, devoid of agendas, sensationalism, and half baked accusations.
As I’ve stated before, I know very little of Reality Ranch”s policies or procedures, but I think it deserves an objective look and not be condemned of an infraction of every conceivable regulation until they can prove otherwise. I don’t think it’s the County or State’s business to go on fishing expeditions to put someone out of business just because the paper decides there is some cause there that they can get hysterical about and boost paper sales, or whatever. The very last thing I want to see is a kid get injured or sick or abused, and I have no reason to think that Dentons or their organization doesn’t feel acutely the same way. I also think that imagining a kid enrolling in a military style, endurance, outdoor, boot camp, type situation is going to be utterly comfortable and catered to is ludicrous. My main concern, realistically, for the kids safety, would be their ride through the traffic between the airport and Fort Thomas; after that, I think their exposure to endangerment falls to a very acceptable level; even without the intervention of regulators or reporters. I hope the management can take the off time to adopt a well reasoned set of policies to address any contingency and that their promotions contain absolutely complete disclosures so that no parent or even newspaper reporters can claim deceitful or dangerous practices in future sessions. Although, I guess a camp operator shouldn’t feel too set-upon by the regulators and paper for being accused of all types of abuse and mis-management until he proves himself innocent or succumbs to compliance on volumes of regulations, because in the same way we are all assumed to be suicide bomber terrorists if we want to get on a plane, unless we prove differently, usually by removing all our clothes. There isn’t a farm, trucking company, restaurant, mine, machine shop, ag processing plant, or whatever, that can’t be put out of business by all the regulations hanging over its head, and their existence rests on the intensity of the regulators. As an example, if I remember correctly, years ago a farmer gave a talk to a Farm Bureau meeting recounting his research as to what it would cost him to “properly” dispose of the can of pesticide or herbicide which he had finished spraying the content of on many acres. It seems the regulations required all kinds of elaborate preparation, then it to be shipped as hazardous waste to some location in Texas, at a cost of hundreds. As I recall, most of the County officials here and in most rural Arizona counties run on a somewhat Libertarian leaning platform of keeping government from interfering in business and personal lives, other than when and to the extent that is absolutely necessary. I realize there is a constant pressure to cater to the industry the regulators and regulation writers have created to justify their existence, but I hope that at least in Graham County this is resisted.
From my vantage point, I have seen hours of formations marching back and forth, eating, standing in line for food, etc. and have never witnessed any particular gnashing of teeth or wrending of garments which would indicate extreme dissatisfaction with the program. I can see that they all have uniforms, caps or hats, packs, and whatever they might need for the program. As far as I can tell, the recruits seemed quite resigned to the regimentation and exercise. On the other hand, there was often pleasant or happy chatter from over there. One time there was a half-inch downpour one afternoon, and later I saw all the recruits in formation on their stomachs like salamanders going across about an acre which was flooded to about two inches deep. The giggling, squealing and laughing coming from that exercise could be heard a quarter mile away, even over all the thousands of little toads which had come out everywhere in the puddles and were hollering their little brains out. I hope that camps are real successful in teaching the kids some manners, discipline, regimentation and other values the brochure states they will learn. But beyond that, I hope that their tents do blow down some evening, and they get to sleep under a silent, dark, starry sky, and that might be the first time that kid from Baltimore or someplace ever got to see a meteor. I hope they get to be kept awake for a while listening to the coyotes yap and yodel and they can hear the owls talking to each other. I hope they discover that food with dust in it is really still eatable. Maybe one of the most valuable lessons out there is that a little adversity and unexpected consequences are a part of life in the real world and coping with it is a key to maturity.
Particularly, I suspect few of these kids have had the opportunity to look over a couple miles and see the rough hills that constantly change with the light and the shadows of the clouds, while they can watch the thunderheads grow and the lightening dance. Hopefully they’ll develop the senses to see all the mundane things like the insects, snakes, rabbits, hawks, buzzards, lizards, toads, ants, and so on, that even though are devoid of Hollywood hype are truly fascinating. There’s always a possibility that a few eyes can be opened and Reality Ranch may play a part of providing a few steps toward maturity which is not saturated by light saber battles, video games, mindless tv shows, and thoughtless newspaper drivel.
“…I am very disillusioned with [newspaper “reporter”] whom I asked to come out and write an article on Reality Ranch last week, but he couldn’t be bothered. Reality Ranch Military Camp is the best thing that has happened to Fort Thomas since the cavalry left.”
- a neighbor in Fort Thomas
Note from RRMC: You mean you asked them to come out and report something POSITIVE, and they weren’t interested? Feel good articles just don’t sell well anymore…?
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