2023/Amanda-

One of my favorite things about being military connected is being part of Troop 45, the boy scout troop here on Yokota Air Base.

I woke up on a chilly Saturday morning excited about the upcoming campout, at Tama Hills, with all my friends. I’ve never been to Tama Hills, but I know I will have a good time. Some time has passed and I have packed my backpack and am in the car with my best friend, Olivia. It's a 30-minute drive, we entertain ourselves by listening to the radio and talking about music. We arrive at the bottom of the hill when a slight sprinkle of rain starts trickling down the car window. While waiting for the rest of the troop we watch the cross-country match. Some of us and cameras attached to our bags to get footage for AFN’s new story.

Eventually, the rest of the troop arrived. It was now pouring rain. We started our trek up the hill. Some of us put our ponchos over our backpacks, therefore, they wouldn’t get wet. I walk up with the rest of the members who also have heavy backpacks. I felt like a salmon making its way upstream. Halfway up one of the leaders warns us about fire coral. A deadly fungus that is bright red and, like its name, looks like coral. Finally, we reached our campsite and set up our canopy where we set up our tents and moved them out of the canopy to build more.

Afterward, we ate lunch and took notes on our journalism merit badges led by the members of AFN who also recorded an interview. Meanwhile, I worked on tying knots for one of my scout requirements with Rylan, a first-class scout. Playing in the rain after.

“Come back under the tent you might get struck by lightning!” exclaimed Jeremy; since thunder clapped loudly.

In the evening we scavenged for firewood and built a fire. The patrols did skits. My patrol did a skit where we said our skit names and fell. Later we sat by the campfire and talked as the sparks glowed in the air like fireflies. At 10 o’clock, we headed to our tents but Sydney, Nina, another friend, and I went down to the cars to hang out a bit more and finally, at 10:30 we went to bed.

Bright and early at 6 am Sydney banged on our tents to wake us up. “Wake up!” Shouted Sydney. Tired, I responded with “Okay, I’m up.

Along with the others in my patrol, we head to the canopy to help the Grubmaster, Olivia, with breakfast. We planned to have granola with yogurt and fruit, but we decided to use the leftover pancake batter from the other patrol to make bacon with pancakes instead.

“I will make the bacon and you make the pancakes.” I told Olivia. “I will help Amanda too.” added Nina.

After breakfast we go on a hike as a troop. We head down the hill observing abandoned bunkers on the way. We stop by the horse stable, some others lagging behind to take a longer look while we start to head back up to our camp and pack up. Luckily, it was not raining so we were able to load our stuff and go back to the scout hut safely.