By Amanda Pringle, 17-year old daughter of AW2 Soldier

BLAMJJAUGS. This stands for:  Brittany, Lexie, Amanda, Mark, Joen, Josh, Alexis, Vivian, George and Sadaruis.

We just met 6 days ago at the AW2 Symposium. And now, we all see ourselves as a Family. We are a group of kids who share something in common, something that brought us all together as one. As a Family.

We finally have others who understand our emotions towards Iraq and what it has done to our Families. Operation Purple helped us during this week, talking about trusting without judgment, leadership, also expressing our feelings.

The activity that touched the BLAMJJAUGS the most was the trust fall. We had to trust that our group would catch us, when we fall into each others arms. This activity brought us together and we started to call ourselves the Operation Purple Teen Family.

This camp is an experience that all of us will never forget. We have made lifelong friends here and we know we will stay in touch. We are even going to start a MySpace page for AW2 kids.

I would like to thank anyone and everyone who made this camp possible and brough us togehter. Now the hard part is saying goodbye.

Note: Last night, the 37 children in attendance at the AW2 Symposium participated in a farewell ceremony. The children, who spent the week with National Military Family Association's Operation Purple camp, introduced their counselors, spoke about their experiences and presented special dog tags to their wounded Soldier parent. The ceremony concluded with a slideshow of the week's activities.

Photo: BLAMJJAUGS

Photo: AW2 Soldier, CPT Elmer Rivera and his three children at the AW2 Symposium

Photo: AW2 Soldier, MAJ Kristi Hilton, receiving special dog tags from her son