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Friday, August 12, 2011

Traveling to North Carolina

The following statement was taken from a message board belonging to a radiostation

The days I was kidnapped by Chicagoan

.....The next morning I was woken up when two strangers walked into my room. They were older, in their early 50s probobly. One was both overweight and muscular while the other was short and lean. I would joke to kids I met on my journey that this was so one could chase me and the other could restrain me, as I've never looked anemic and have always been stronger than most.

I gave the pair a tired hello, rolling over in my bed, angry that these electricians had barged into my room when I was so tired still. The larger man went over to where my shoes were and began to unlace them. The smaller man told me to get up and brush my teeth. He told me we were going. I asked where we were going. I was told I would find out when I arrived.

Although at this point, as clear as the consequences of all our actions are with reflection, I should have known something was amiss, I had remembered my mother telling me I should go to a summer camp in order to get out more, in order to enjoy life more. I thought I was being taken to a camp by friends of my parents friends, or someone else close to the family who I did not know. I followed their directions. When I put my pants on after I had finished brushing my teeth, the larger man grabbed onto the empty belt buckle of my jeans and began to guide me out of the house. I clumsily shuffled down the stairs with my shoe lace-less sneakers to the back door, which, in our house, is near a pushdoor to the kitchen. I wanted to say goodbye to my two dogs, as I thought I would not see them until the end of the summer. When I began to move to push open the door to the kitchen, where my dogs usually are, begging for food and relaxing on the cold tile, I was yanked back into place and led out the back door. I was led out the garage to a minivan I did not recognize. I was forcefully 'assisted' into the back of the minivan and the door was slammed shut.

At this point the two men, who's names I did not know and to this day I do not know, told me I was going to O'Hare Itl. Airport. I asked where we were flying to and I was told North Carolina. I began to panick a bit at this point. I realized I had no control in what was occuring. I felt flustered by the use of force barring me from bidding my dogs and my parents farewell for the summer. Although this is tough to admit to because I love to view myself as a rugged individualist unwilling to allow others to defeat me on a personal intellectual or emotional level, at this point I began to cry. My crying was not out of complaint or pain, but rather it stemmed from the fear of my circumstances. I was locked in a minivan with strangers who had led me there by force, and now I was on my way to an international airport.

As we drove, the trip to O'Hare being about 45 min from my house, the two men talked about the night they had spent in Chicago before. They laughed about the time they'd had at Uno's, a famous Chicago Pizzaria I was familair with, and they showered praise on the city's night life.

When we arrived at the airport I shuffled along with the two men, not willing to subject myself to the force I had experienced earlier when trying to stray from the preordained course. I had a backpack with me that my parents had packed and the two men had given to me. In it was my favorite book, "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Maria Remarque. (Off topic I STRONGLY recommend this book. My initial juvinile misreading of the book led to my pro war patriotism, and my rereadings of the book led to my anti-war pacifism) I began to read while we waited for the flight from Chicago O'Hare to Ashville Airport in North Carolina. We boarded the flight and the plane took off. I was seated in the middle seat of a three seat row, in between the two strangers.

About half way through the flight I was handed a folded sheet of printer paper. It turned out to be a letter, in the style of speech I had learned to associate with my father. The letter told me about how sorry my mother and father were to have had to resort to handing me over to strangers to take me to North Carolina, but it was clear that my lifestyle required some intervention. I immediatly thought of the discussion of summer camps I'd had with my mother. I felt calmed. "I'm going to summer camp." I told myself, "It wont be that bad. At worst it will be boring." As I began to realize that the hand had been taken off of the chess piece, that the plan was in play, I began to calm myself, forcing myself to come to terms with what I thought would merely be the loss of my summer.

If you have come this far without clicking away I applaud you. Up to now most of this has been just description of the initial trauma of an experience that would last for a long time to come.....

He later returned home, but when he fell into a disagreement with his parents, he was transported once more. Here is the story with his own words.

.....After the end of the school year at Catholic school, I told my parents I refused to reattend a cathlolic school the next year. Within a week of this announcement I was woken up early by the exact two strangers my story begins with. The horror and addrenaline that rushed through me is inexplicable. I hopped up out of the bedroom where my experience began and tried to flee. I was knocked down at the door by the larger man, he hopped on my back, pushed my face into the carpet and contorted my wrist as to disallow me to move in any way without an increase in the pain I already felt. I was told I could either go back to my "school" in Utah "willingly" or go to a worse place, horror stories of which I had heard from children at the location I was sent to for 6 months in Utah. The large man, no longer a stranger, then showed me a pair of handcuffs and pepper spray. I decided to return to, as we called it, Jail for Kids, willingly.....

The boarding school in question is not named. Like so many it is located in Utah. Below is the Fornits Wiki Datasheet on SUWS, which is the name of the wilderness program.

Sources:
Fornits Datasheet on SUWS

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