RED RIBBON WEEK PROMOTES BENEFITS OF STAYING DRUG-FREE TO KIDS

ELEANOR -- It's not every day a helicopter lands on the front lawn of
George Washington Elementary School, or that Army Special Forces set up
camp in the George Washington Middle School gym.

As part of Red Ribbon Week, a national event that can be described as a
next-generation drug prevention and awareness program, members of the West
Virginia National Guard's Air and Army divisions came Friday afternoon to
the Putnam County schools to show the kids what was out there for them if
they didn't get into drugs.

The program is called the Drug Demand Reduction Program, and it's part of
the West Virginia National Guard's Counter Drug Unit. Several Guard
officers, as well as members of the Special Forces, travel around to
schools setting up different activities for children trying to snag their
interest in a world without drugs.

In addition to the helicopter landing, the set-up at George Washington
Elementary and George Washington Middle included a demonstration by Putnam
County police of their K-9 drug dog units, a demonstration by the Putnam
County Fire Department and Special Forces repelling down ropes hung from
the rafters in the middle school gym.

"The Guard has the resources to bring them things that will make a real
impression on the kids," said George Washington Elementary counselor Carla
Anderson, who organized Red Ribbon Week.

She said that the program is to show the kids that they can grow up to be
anything; a counselor, a pilot, or an Army officer.

"We're trying to stay away from the same old 'just say no' thing," she said.

The Drug Demand Reduction Program was started by the National Guard in
1993, said Adjunct General Allen Tackett, whose son, Sr. Airman Allen
Tackett, was one of the men who swung down from the rafters on Friday.

It became a priority for him when he became Adjunct General in 1995, and
has since grown in funding from $800,000 a year when it first started, to
$5 million now, he said, because drugs are counter-productive to making
good citizens.

"I'm recruiting for the next generation of guardsmen," Tackett said. "If
you make kids stay in school and stay off drugs, they can become productive
members of the state."

Kids from both schools were treated to presentations by members of the
Special Forces, including demonstrations of the gear troops must carry
through the desert. One Special Forces soldier shared pictures and
displayed gear he got from an eight-month stint in Afghanistan.

"That was very cool," said Clint Casto, an eighth-grader at George
Washington Middle School. He had just discovered the meals ready to eat
that the troops had eaten in Afghanistan.

Clint said there is a drug problem at his school, even among some people
that he knows. He thinks the message the National Guard tried to get across
should get through, he said.

"If you're into drugs, you ruin your life," he said.

"We're very proud of it, and we really do think we're making a difference,"
Tackett said.

Tackett retold the old story about the man walking along a beach littered
with starfish, picking up one starfish at a time and throwing it back into
the water. Another man comes along and tells the first man, "What are you
doing? You can't possibly make a difference to all of them." And the man
returning the starfish to the water said, "I just made a difference to that
one."

"If you only save one, or save two, you're in turn making an impact," he
said. "If we just save one at every school we go to, we're making a
difference."