Hanna Brodeur attends American Legion Law Enforcement Academy

By Hanna Brodeur, photos by Rosie Brodeur

In July, 54 kids from all over Michigan were given the opportunity of a lifetime, and I was one of them.

I had the incredible, life-changing opportunity to attend the week-long American Legion Student Trooper Career Academy.

On July 19, I grabbed my suitcase and was dressed according to a mailed list of things to pack: jeans, sneakers, black belt, and a shirt with my last name stenciled on it. My hair had to be up above the collar and I had to remove my beloved jewelry.

And, even though I had done this through Kiwanis last year, I was still worried and scared for this week.

What if I got called out? What if I messed up and got into trouble? Would the other girls like me?

My parents drove me to the Michigan State Police Academy in Lansing and I waited as long as I could before stepping out of the car. We said our goodbyes and the troopers immediately directed us to stand at attention and to secure our gear.

I kept reassuring myself that I could do this as I walked up those stairs. They searched our suitcases for any electronics and anything else that wasn’t going to be needed this week. We were then directed to take our things upstairs and unpack.

I felt memories from the Kiwanis Career Academy come flooding back to me but felt more secure.

Over the week, I grew very close with the female cadets on my floor. There were only 12 of us and they all looked to me for reassurance since they knew I had done this before. I was happy that they did so especially since the female troopers that were teaching us, were also watching me.

One of them, who also ran the Kiwanis Academy I attended, told me that I had self-confidence to do this, and I needed to be a leader for the other girls. It really surprised me when she said I had self-confidence — as that’s something I had been heavily struggling with.

The first two nights, I didn’t have a roommate as 58 teens were expected but only 54 showed up. I was moved in with another girl from Monroe. One night, she broke down crying saying she couldn’t do it anymore and she wanted to go home and see her mother. I reassured with some advice my roommate from Kiwanis had told me. I told her that she could do it, we only had a couple days left, and that her mother and loved ones will be so proud to see her graduate.

She, in return, assured me when I had a slight breakdown after a tough day.

We would wake up at 5 a.m. to revelry, get dressed and be in the stairwell in alphabetical order for physical training (PT) at 5:30. PT included running, push-ups, burpees, mountain climbers, shoulder rolls, stretches, flutter kicks, ab curls, and other forms of exercise guaranteed to make us soaked with sweat.

We had PT in a giant 12-foot tank, used for learning life-saving techniques.

One morning, we had to do bear crawls up the ramp leading to the gym, down the hall and back down the ramp to the gym. I was in the very back as my arms would shake and I would fall. I had troopers right next to me that would be yelling at a cadet to get up, which scared me as I didn’t want to be yelled at for not trying hard enough.

One trooper came right next to me, cheered me on and did them right next to me for a bit. Once I was crawling down the hall, I was in tears and grunting to hold myself up. That’s when every cadet who was finished came up next to me, yelling, “Don’t give up! Keep going! You’re almost there! Don’t quit on me! We’re not quitting on you! Get up!”

I kept going with everyone screaming in my face and they all cheered for me. I will never forget the feeling of triumph I felt.

I also had cadets who would run right next to me as running was another struggle for me. I quickly discovered that even though I was in the back, the troopers didn’t care where you were. They always did the exercise with us and cheered us on. They stood with those who stopped because they couldn’t go any further. And, they cheered me on even though I was one of the slower people running. The only thing that mattered to them was that you gave your 100 percent and kept going.

After that hour of hard work, we showered and got dressed to line up for breakfast or “chow” as it was called. We weren’t allowed to talk or look around or look at the TV.

Once done, we would take our trays and give them to kitchen detail to clean, make sure there was someone behind you, and run up the stairwell to be ready for inspection at 7:40. We had to change into our American Legion shirts with our name tags, jeans, black belt, and tennis shoes. Males had to be shaved and females had to make sure their hair was secure to the head while being above the collar. Our floor had to be spotless, dirty towels in the dirty linen bin, nothing out of drawers in our rooms, and our beds had to be perfectly made – military-style.

After inspection, we would be lined up to go to class. Each class was different with different instructors. Classes included First Aid, Patrols, Behavioral Science, ES (Emergency Service or SWAT Teams), Firearms, Narcotics, Criminal Law, Forensic Science, Recruiting, Motor Carrier Officers, History of MSP, Leadership, K-9 Unit, Water Safety, Defensive Tactics, Drive Track and other interesting classes.

They were all very neat to learn about and I learned something different from each of them. I enjoyed the Drive Track as we had gotten to ride in a patrol car almost like how they would drive in a chase. The K-9 class was great as the dogs are trained to detect all sorts of things and I love German Shepherds. Sometime in between class, we would have lunch and then go up to our rooms and talk.

After dinner, we would do a variety of things. One day, we had military training, which consisted of learning how to march around the academy, how to stand, how to present arms, and other stances we needed to know.

We also did scenarios with a fire situation and a domestic violence situation in a house. Some days, we would just relax with the troopers showing us motivational videos, telling us more about themselves and their jobs, answering questions, or playing games.

At 10 p.m., it was lights out with us in our rooms and standing at attention while Taps played to honor fallen Troopers.

Even though the American Legion Student Trooper Career Academy was similar to the Kiwanis Career Academy, the two experiences felt completely different, but I am grateful for both opportunities.