(Editor’s Note: Addressed to VFW members and Lions’ Club members donor)
Sincerely, I thank you for the generous donation and for the good wishes for me to have a great experience at Louisiana Boys State.
I can vouch to say that I did have a unique six days filled with activities. It’s something I’ll never forget, and I don’t want to forget it. It taught me very much about our legal system and politics.
Boys State was an experience that hit me by surprise, and surely, I didn’t expect what it ended up being. I had never taken on a challenge with the same criteria I faced in this program. Minimum sleep, marching around in tight twos and fours, eating on a timed schedule. It felt like boot camp without the physical ailments. However, not one of us saw it, but sharing a little bit of pain and perseverance within our groups bonded us quicker and stronger than I had ever witnessed with anyone I’d met before.
The counselors led us to a dormitory and made us do things we didn’t fully feel like doing at some point, and they controlled us for the most part - which the majority of us didn’t appreciate from guys who didn’t seem to be much older than us! In the end, we appreciated what they did, because we felt something holding our group together and holding our Boys State 2010 together. It was a very unique experience, and I wouldn’t trade that week for any other week. It toughened me as a young adult and put me on the right path. I see clearer now, and I can deeper feel the connection to my wonderful country. I made friends now that I may have never met without Boys State, and no doubt some of them will be my friends for the rest of my life. I can’t thank you enough for your past or present contributions to protecting our country and making it such a great place for today’s citizens to live. Again, thank you very much! I will always remember how special this time in my life was, and I will not forget who helped to make it possible for me.
With much appreciation,
James Kevin Veillon
Boys State participant
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