Marine Corps Base Quantico -- “Kids don’t spend any time with their parents at work,” said CW 2 Adoni Torres, Family Readiness Officer for Marine Corps Air Facility Quantico (MCAF). “Mom or dad goes off to work in uniform and they come home and the kids don’t know what they did all day.”
Children of Marines assigned to MCAF got a chance to see what their parents do for a living during MCAF’s Take Your Kids to Work Day Mar. 31.
“This is the first one we’ve set up,” Torres said. “It’s to build morale and show our kids all the cool things we get to do.”
Around 20 children, ranging from toddlers through high-schoolers, attended the event. They spent time with their parents at their work stations, got the chance to simulate flying an MV-22 Osprey, toured the inside of an Osprey, and completed a modified version of the Combat Fitness Test (CFT).
“It’s like a TIE fighter,” Gabriel, 12, said upon entering the Osprey—comparing it to the aircraft flown by the Galactic Empire in Star Wars.
Inside the Osprey, the children learned that the aircraft can fly to an altitude of 25,000 feet, can take-off and land anywhere a helicopter can, has a wing-span of 46 feet, can fly day or night, can be refueled in the air and can seat 24 troops. The kids got to test out the seating and explore the cockpit.
“Marines jump out of that,” Staff Sgt. Michael McCloud told his son Christian, 3, pointing out the main cabin door.
After the Osprey tour, the kids got to experience the CFT, a test all Marines must pass annually. The CFT has three events: an 880-yard run in “boots and utes,” two minutes of lifting a 30-pound ammunition can over the head, and a maneuver-under-fire drill involving a sprint, a crawl, a buddy carry, a sprint with ammunition cans, throwing a dummy hand grenade and push-ups.
The kids completed a modified CFT, lifting empty ammunition cans and skipping the crawl. They also didn’t have to buddy carry anyone—their dads carried them fireman-style.
“I didn’t know we’d be running, too,” said McCloud, slightly out of breath after finishing the CFT with his eight-year-old son.
The youngest children to complete the test were Harleigh and Nahla, both four. They opted to sprint with one instead of two ammo cans but both finished on their own, Nahla in 3 minutes 5 seconds.
At the end of the morning, the children received “honorary Marine” certificates from Lt. Col. William Pacatte, MCAF’s commanding officer.
“I hope you learned a little more about what your parents do here,” Pacatte told the kids. “It was an honor and a privilege having you here.”