FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, Pa. –
More than 120 children of Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs and Pennsylvania National Guard employees toured Fort Indiantown Gap April 25 for Take Your Child to Work Day.
Tour stops included the Combined Arms Collective Training Facility, Training Support Center, Unit Training and Equipment Site and static displays of military vehicles and aircraft along Fisher Avenue.
The kids had the opportunity to explore buildings used for urban combat training at the CACTF, get inside several military vehicles at UTES and use a weapons simulator at the TSC.
After the tour, Pennsylvania Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Mark Schindler addressed the kids and their parents at the Keystone Conference Center and thanked everyone for participating.
“It’s great to see such a crowd,” Schindler said. “This is tremendous. It means a lot that we can share our experiences and what we do every day. Our kids see us leave the house and maybe hear their parents complain about work, but, really, what we do here is critically important.”
Among the day’s participants was Staff Sgt. Danielle Hulstine of the 28th Finance Battalion, 213th Regional Support Group, who brought her son, Leland.
“He thought it was fantastic,” Hulstine said. “With me being an admin person, he thinks it’s completely boring for me sitting in an office, so at first, he was like, ‘I don’t want to go to work with you.’ Once he realized we were actually going to be out doing different things, he was all about it.”
Events like this are beneficial to the DMVA and the Guard because they get families more involved, said Hulstine, who works full time at the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program at Fort Indiantown Gap.
“Just to be able to see what we do and how the simulators work and all the different trucks, that’s really cool,” Hulstine said.
Tiffany Cleary, an outreach clerical assistant with the DMVA, attended the event with her kids, Marleigh and Kaydence.
“I think it’s really good to bring all the families together and bring all the employees together as well, because we can sit in our offices all day and not know what the building next to us does or down the street, so I thought it was really neat to see what other employees do,” Cleary said.
At the conclusion of the program, each kid was presented with a certificate and a souvenir wooden coin, then posed for photos with Schindler. All appeared to have a good time.
“I wanna come here everyday instead of going to school,” said Braxtin Rhen, son of the author of this article, who works at the Public Affair Office.