Kent Solheim is the founder of Gold Star Teen Adventures, a nonprofit serving the surviving children of military members, law enforcement officers, first responders, and members of the intelligence community.
There is a moment every law enforcement family understands is possible, but no family ever truly believes will happen to them. A knock at the door. A phone call. A visit from people whose faces say everything before the words are even spoken. An officer isn’t coming home. In the days that follow, a community responds.
Fellow officers surround the family. Flags are lowered. Uniforms fill a church. People bring meals, send flowers, raise money, and stand beside a grieving spouse and children as they say goodbye to someone who gave his or her life in service to others. Then, eventually, everyone goes home. The surviving family does not. For the children, that is often where another part of the journey begins. That is why Gold Star Teen Adventures exists.
GSTA was founded following an experience that profoundly changed my own life. In 2007, while serving in Iraq, I was shot four times in combat and nearly lost my life.
I eventually lost my right leg because of those wounds. From the point of injury and into my recovery, I found myself thinking less about what had happened to me and more about what could have happened to my family. I was a father of two.
What if I hadn’t come home? Who would have been there for my children—not simply during the funeral or in the months immediately afterward, but years later as they were trying to figure out who they were and what kind of adults they wanted to become? That question ultimately inspired Gold Star Teen Adventures.
Today, GSTA serves the surviving children of our nation’s military members, law enforcement officers, first responders, and members of the intelligence community. And while the circumstances surrounding each loss may be different, these young people share something few of their peers can fully understand.
They lost a parent who died in service to others. Our mission is not simply to give them a good weekend or an exciting trip. It is not enough for us to say, “We remember your mom,” or “We remember your dad.” We walk alongside them.
More importantly, we want to help them become successful young adults who understand the importance of character, values, faith, leadership, service, resilience, and living a purpose-driven life. We use adventure as the vehicle to do that. Our teens learn to scuba dive. They paddle rivers and waterways. They spend time in the backcountry learning bushcraft and survival skills. They hunt, solve difficult problems as
teams, and are intentionally placed in environments that require them to push beyond what they thought they could do.
There is a reason for that. Thirty years in the military taught me that people develop confidence by doing hard things. They learn leadership when someone else is depending on them. They learn perseverance when quitting would be easier. They learn humility when they need help. They learn responsibility when the team cannot succeed unless everyone does his or her part.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, something else happens. They realize they are not alone. A teenager whose lost a parent may find himself sitting around a campfire beside another young person who understands that loss. No explanation is necessary. There is tremendous power in that shared experience.
But GSTA is also very intentional about looking forward. We honor the parent who was lost, but we do not want a young person’s entire identity to be defined by tragedy. These youth have an incredible story still ahead of them. They can become leaders. They can build strong families. They can serve their communities. They can live lives characterized by courage, integrity, faith, compassion and purpose. Our responsibility is to help them see that.
That mission is particularly important within the law enforcement community. When an officer is killed, we rightly say that we will never forget. But remembering the fallen must include remembering the people they loved most. A son may be ten years old when his father is killed, but he will still need mentors when he is sixteen. A daughter may be surrounded by support immediately after losing her mother, but years later she will still experience milestones when that absence becomes painfully real again—graduation, college, marriage, children of her own. Grief does not operate according to a calendar. Neither should our commitment to these families.
That is one of the things I want every law enforcement officer reading this to understand about Gold Star Teen Adventures. If one of your brothers or sisters in law enforcement does not make it home, there are people committed to being there for their children for the long haul.
We cannot replace their parent. We would never pretend that we could. But we can provide mentors. We can create community. We can challenge them. We can encourage them. We can remind them where they came from while helping them discover where they are going. And we can make sure they know that the sacrifice made by their mother or father has not been forgotten.
Over the years, I have had the privilege of watching young people arrive at GSTA unsure of themselves and later become confident leaders. I have watched friendships form among teenagers who might otherwise never have met. I have watched young
people discover that hardship does not have to be the end of their story. That is ultimately what this organization is about. Not tragedy. Hope. Not what was taken from these young people, but what can still be built within them.
The men and women who serve in law enforcement accept risks most Americans will never fully understand. Their families quietly accept those risks alongside them. When the unthinkable happens, those families deserve more than our sympathy. They deserve our commitment.
At Gold Star Teen Adventures, our promise is simple: We will remember their parent. We will walk beside their child. And we will do everything we can to help that young person grow into a confident, resilient, values-driven adult who understands that his or her life has tremendous purpose. Because honoring the fallen should never end at the funeral. For those of us who remain, that is where the responsibility begins.
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