SHAPING UP FOR LIFE AS ADULTS THE HARD WAY -- IN BOOT CAMP

It is not just for boys now. Two area girls talk about their stays.

SANDY CREEK TOWNSHIP -- Cpl. Heather McIvor paced the barracks at 6 a.m. as
30 girls kicked up a cloud of dust while getting ready that morning.

"WILLIAMS!" McIvor snapped. Although only 5-foot-2, the corporal, known as
a tower of terror, can draw enough air and might from her lungs to project
far beyond her petite physique and rattle the bones of those around her.
"Ma'am, aye-aye, ma'am," Heather Williams responded, standing at attention.
"Your foot display is off. Fix it," the corporal ordered, waving a
dismissive hand to the 17-year-old. "Ma'am, yes, ma'am," Williams chanted
as she dropped to her knees and slightly moved her camp-issued boots,
sneakers and shower shoes until the toes were perfectly aligned.

That is life at Fort Charles Young, the only boot camp in the state
licensed to accept girls, who started arriving there six years ago.

Tuesday, a new generation left the camp as a platoon of 15 girls graduated
and returned home. They are among a growing number of troubled girls in
Pennsylvania who are being ordered to undergo the "in-your-face" treatment
once reserved for boys.

It is not just boot camp; it is boot and hat camp. The boot is symbolic of
vigorous physical training, the hat of therapy that follows.

Carved into the countryside about 85 miles north of Pittsburgh, the camp is
a three-month military-style regimen for wayward teens whose crimes are not
serious enough to send them to prison. Still, they have been in trouble too
many times to slide past the wagging finger and stern warning of a juvenile
judge.

The camp is privately run by VisionQuest, a comprehensive and national
youth services organization that provides innovative intervention for
at-risk youth and their families.

About 900 teens between the ages of 13 and 18 are accepted each year.

For many teens, VisionQuest -- it is based in Chester County and Arizona --
is a last chance to learn to follow rules. The teens remain under 24-hour,
seven-day-a-week, strict rule. They learn they are accountable for their
behavior and must work as a team to graduate. The slightest straying calls
for strict discipline, such as exercise or loss of privileges. They are all
part of a platoon; all can suffer for the misdeeds of one.

"Pretty much everything is taken away from them when they get here," said
Dave Simpson, the camp's lodge master. "They know there is only one way
through this, and nothing is the same. You don't talk the same and you
don't behave the same. Until you start doing things the right way, you
don't have any choices."

There are no statistics that show boot camps are any more effective than
other juvenile programs. A recent study conducted by VisionQuest with the
University of Pennsylvania showed that 55 percent who entered the program
stayed out of trouble two to five years.

At Fort Charles Young, girls from 44 counties, including Philadelphia,
Chester, Montgomery, Delaware and Bucks, come by bus and must surrender
their clothes, jewelry and the bad attitudes that brought them there.

Their hair is lopped to the shoulder, and vanity is not tolerated. Eye
glasses replace contact lenses; makeup is contraband. Only those who
respond well are permitted to shave their legs. Still, showers are limited
to four minutes, hygiene, three. "They don't want to leave home to come
here," said Tony Emposola, a juvenile intake manager from Montgomery
County. "They think they're going to have to kill their own food and dig
holes with spoons."

That is not quite what Williams and Nicole Wodarski, both 17 and from
Montgomery County, were expecting. Then again, neither expected to end up
in boot camp -- Wodarski for drugs, Williams as a runaway.

With long, brown hair that dipped to her hip and piercings through her
ears, lip and tongue, Wodarski arrived at boot camp Feb. 4. "I was an
out-of-control teenager," she said, now dressed in a navy, camp-issued
battle dress uniform.

A long history of fights, drug abuse and running away from home forced
Wodarski there. She accepts responsibility for her behavior, but she is not
the only one. Her mother, Joanne, 41, of Conshohocken, takes some blame.
Joanne Wodarski herself abused a variety of drugs, including crack cocaine,
for nearly two decades before she quit and eventually became a
drug-treatment counselor.

Although she did not know it at the time, Nicole Wodarski's own odyssey had
begun. At 13, she said, she started using drugs. "Pot, pills, beer,
alcohol. I just kept going higher and higher. Cocaine, crack, meth," she
listed them matter-of-factly. Eventually she started sniffing and shooting
heroin. "I was looking for something to take the anger away, and it did.
And when I finally found it, it was like heaven." Heaven did not last long.
Twice she has been charged with assault. More than once she tested positive
for drugs and was forced into drug rehabilitation. On April 20, 1998, she
got out of rehab, returned to her old ways and overdosed, snorting heroin
at her boyfriend's house. "She said she was drinking and smoking pot a
little bit. But I know the deal. I seen me all over. . . . I had been dead
set against boot camp, but I decided I had to send her there," her mother
said. She wasn't sure how her daughter would respond. "She wrote me letters
for the first month that she was crying every day because it was so hard,"
Joanne Wodarski said. Then she visited her daughter at the camp. "Honestly,
I didn't recognize her." Once she figured out how to survive the regimen,
Nicole Wodarski said, she drastically changed. She grew fond of boot camp
and had a hard time leaving. Still, she said, she is glad to be home.

Now she is thinking of joining the military and, like her mother, maybe
becoming a counselor to work with teenagers. Her mother, she said, is her
best friend. And, like her mother, she will never abuse drugs again, she
swears. Can she do it? "In the perfect world, yeah," said Steve Glammer,
Wodarski's Montgomery County probation officer. Shuffling through papers on
his desk, Glammer found test results listing Wodarski's IQ. She has an IQ
of 120, which puts her in the top 91st percentile, Glammer said.

"The biggest thing is for her to curb her substance-abuse problem. If she
can do that, which she'll pretty much have to fight her whole life, then
she can do anything. It's all up to her."

Williams must decide the same.

Twice Williams ran away from home after defiantly continuing a romance with
a 27-year-old man when she was 16. The relationship created a rift with her
parents, who had separated and were working through their own problems. The
family tried counseling. The third time Williams, then 17, ran away, she
was placed in juvenile detention and tested positive for marijuana. "I
needed something, but I think this is a little extreme," she said while at
boot camp last month. Her senior year, she said, was ruined. She feared
that her plans for college -- she wants to be a speech pathologist -- would
be delayed. But after boot camp graduation, Williams learned that she could
start college this year. She is thankful she went to boot camp, where she
learned discipline and met such counselors as McIvor.

"It was the experience of my life," she said. "In the beginning, it was
horrible. But three days before graduation, all we did was cry because we
didn't want to leave."

She returned Tuesday, a different person. "She thought at 17 she was an
adult and she could tell me what to do," said Heather's mother, Diane
Williams, 44. The Philadelphia teacher was not sure how to deal with her
daughter. "She needed, unfortunately, something extremely serious." When
Heather Williams learned she was going to boot camp, Diane Williams said,
her daughter warned that she would never speak to her mother again. "This
was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I've had regrets about it. There
are times I just go in her room, look around and just sit on the bed," she
said last month, while her daughter was away. "But in other ways, I have no
regrets. I was fighting for my daughter's life." At first, Heather Williams
said, she cried for weeks, unable to do the exercises and singled out
repeatedly by McIvor. Then she just "got it" and grew to respect those
around her. Now, she can laugh about the last three months.

"HELL-LLO, WILLLLLIAMS!" McIvor, bent at the waist, screamed at the heavy,
metal door before her.

As McIvor's voice began to trail, there were footsteps of rapidly
approaching military boots. Williams quickly shuffled to the entrance of
the chow hall. It is her responsibility to remain at attention, holding the
door, or "hatch," as her platoon marches into the beige, igloo-shaped,
no-frills building. McIvor spun on her heel, face to face with Williams as
the verbal lashing began.

"You're about to get freaking fired if you don't beat me to the hatch,"
McIvor yelled, a finger shaking in Williams' face. "They absolutely hate
the ground I walk on when they get here," McIvor said. "But at the end, I
can't detach from them. I don't go to graduation, because I can't stand to
see them go." Like many of those who work for VisionQuest, McIvor, 22, a
New York native, comes from a military background. She served four years
with the Marines and briefly worked with the Maryland State Police before
joining VisionQuest six months ago. "I have a naturally aggressive
personality," she said. "The kids are the ones who keep me here. I had it
difficult growing up, and sometimes I can feel their pain. In groups, it
just kills me. It rips me up."