A 17-year-old who enjoys reading Supreme Court opinions, a 16-year-old aspiring heart surgeon and an 18-year-old aspiring neurosurgeon are among the recipients of the Operation Homefront 2017 Military Child of the Year award.
Six recipients were chosen from the nearly 400 nominations this year to represent their respective service branches – Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy and National Guard. They are selected based on their scholarship, volunteerism, leadership and extracurricular involvement.
Each recipient will receive $10,000 and will be flown with a parent or guardian to Washington, D.C., for a special recognition gala Thursday night, where senior military leaders will present the awards.
On top of the military lifestyle's challenges for military children with frequent moves and deployments, many of these youths have faced other obstacles, but they haven't let such challenges define them.
Mary Kate Cooper, an athlete who is a below-the-knee amputee from birth, is a "well-rounded and grounded teenager," said her father, Coast Guard Capt. Tom Cooper. "She's Mary first, and a scholar, and community service activist."
These busy students excel in many things – academics, community service, sports and other activities. Some interviews for the bios below were conducted as they were in the car with a parent coming to or from an event – such as a track meet or a prom tuxedo fitting.
Along with the branch-specific honorees, a seventh student, Sophie Bernstein, will receive the Military Child of the Year Award for Innovation.
Sophie, a 17-year-old high school junior, has built, planted, maintained and harvested 22 vegetable gardens at low-income day care centers and shelters in the St. Louis area. She's the daughter of Navy Capt. Brad Bernstein and Moira Bernstein. That award is presented by Booz Allen Hamilton.
Alexander McGrath, 17, called his selection as Navy representative "a huge and unexpected honor. I have tremendous respect for the other military children, and I hope to represent them well."
These award recipients "are truly exceptional young people who have achieved much at such a young age in terms of academic achievement and service to others," said retired Air Force Brig. Gen. John I. Pray Jr., president and CEO of Operation Homefront. "They are remarkable representatives of a larger community of extraordinary military kids."
Jamal Braxton, 2017 Military Child of the Year honoree for the Air Force
Photo Credit: Operation Homefront
AIR FORCE
Of all Jamal Braxton's activities and accomplishments, the one that's most important to him is working with other youth members of his American Red Cross group in northern Utah.
"I want them to learn and grow as an individual and a leader, to understand their potential and capitalize on what they can do to push themselves and their team further, and to help them realize their skills as an individual," he said.
Among his various leadership positions, he oversees monthly veterans home visits, youth group and leadership group meetings, activities related to the armed forces, recruiting of Red Cross Youth Services leaders, and many fundraisers.
As such, he's been involved in projects ranging from a "Pillowcase Project" educating elementary school children about how to prepare for emergencies to raising money to help vaccinate high-risk children who live in places threatened by measles and rubella.
Jamal, the son of retired Air Force Master Sgt. Lawrence Braxton and Ahllam Braxton, wants to be a neurosurgeon. He's been accepted at the Air Force Academy and Cornell University, and is waiting for decisions from three other universities before choosing his school.
The 18-year-old senior at Northridge High School in Layton, Utah, near Hill Air Force Base, has a nonweighted grade-point average of 3.95. He competes in cross country and track and field, and amid all this, he's maintained a long-standing priority for family.
Ahllam Braxton said he showed this early in life, recalling when they moved from Japan to Germany in 2010, when Jamal's father had to go to Korea immediately for an unaccompanied tour.
She said she appreciated how he stepped up at the time: "I needed a lot of help," she said.
Jamal, almost 12 at the time, helped with chores, but said one of his key contributions was helping care for his brother, who is 10 years younger.
"I appreciate everything my mom and dad do, but I want to be a role model for my brother and step up when I need to," he said.
Jamal's "an awesome kid," Ahllam Braxton said. "He has the best heart and the biggest smile. If somebody asks, or if he sees somebody needing help, he'll step up and offer help without being asked."
Henderson Heussner, 2017 Military Child of the Year honoree for the Army
Photo Credit: Operation Homefront
ARMY
As Henderson Heussner began his freshman year in high school in 2013, his family was moving to Fort Myers, Florida, while his father was deployed to Afghanistan.
That's a common experience for military families. But this family also was moving because Col. Todd Heussner's father was terminally ill with brain cancer, and the Army officer wanted his children to be able to spend time with their grandfather.
"That was a lot to process all at once, because moving is a big jump alone for a lot of people, and starting high school is intimidating at best," Henderson said. "The transition was a lot to take in, then trying to care for my grandfather and extended family. I was trying to process that he wouldn't be here much longer.
"It was definitely a trying time for all of us."
Col. Heussner, now stationed at Army Materiel Command in Huntsville, Alabama, while his family remains in Fort Myers, said Henderson "really went out of his way to spend time with his granddad. They spent a lot of time fishing and just hanging out."
Henderson considers the continuous act of helping support his family as his most important personal accomplishment.
"Growing up in a military family, cooperation and teamwork are essential to your existence," he said. "So being able to work with my family through tough times, give help when they need it, and to ask for help when I need it, is the crowning achievement of my upbringing as a child in the military."
There are plenty of other accomplishments the 18-year-old senior could cite: a 5.01 weighted GPA, for instance, or being a pitcher on the varsity baseball team at Estero High School, where he's served as class president for the last three years.
The aspiring economist has been awarded an Army ROTC scholarship, has been accepted to Emory University and has been offered an academic scholarship by Stetson University. He's waiting to hear from other colleges before making a decision.
He started a program to help immigrant children in eighth grade connect with high schoolers. He volunteered with New Horizons of Southwest Florida, tutoring, mentoring and otherwise helping at-risk youth.
"His selfless service and ability to think of others and try to find ways to help them is just extraordinary to me, for a kid of that age," said Col. Heussner, who also credits his wife, Linda, who "is a lot like that and does a great job modeling behavior."
Mary Kate Cooper, 2017 Military Child of the Year honoree for the Coast Guard
Photo Credit: Operation Homefront
COAST GUARD
When Mary Kate Cooper talks with fellow amputees at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, they're often surprised by her answers to questions about how she lost her leg.
"They ask how I lost my leg, in what war, and I tell them, 'I was born like this. I'm in high school,' " Mary said.
She often talks with wounded warriors at Walter Reed while waiting for appointments, and sometimes joins them in physical therapy sessions.
"Everyone encourages each other and shares what they've learned," she said. "I've learned from them, and they've learned from me. They have amazing stories and they're very courageous, so I've learned perseverance from them. …
"I always saw myself as a normal kid and always competed with able-bodied athletes. ... I never had a problem accepting who I was as an amputee, and I'm able to show wounded warriors that."
Her attitude and example also provides a sense of comfort to wounded warriors' families.
"It's a sense of positivity, that everything will be OK in the long run, even if it's not feeling perfect in that moment, or they might be struggling," she said.
Her parents have played a major role in fostering that attitude, Mary said: "They never let me use my leg as an excuse. In turn, I've never seen it as an excuse."
A junior at W.T. Woodson High School in Fairfax, Virginia, Mary has a weighted 4.7 grade-point average. She's participated in leadership programs in the high schools she's attended, doing community service work, and also helped start a Paralympics sports event when her family was stationed in Los Angeles.
She earned All-American High School status in multiple track and field events from U.S. Paralympics and also has become a top swimmer. But her most important accomplishment, she feels, is being a mentor.
"When I was a little kid I had a lot of mentors, from wounded warriors to Paralympic athletes," she said. "Now the tables have turned and I've had a lot of opportunity to teach kids what I've learned from others."
Jackson Beatty, 2017 Military Child of the Year honoree for the Marine Corps
Photo Credit: Operation Homefront
MARINE CORPS
Jackson Beatty has a weighted 4.2 grade-point average, has earned black belts in two types of karate, and has competed in the North Carolina state wrestling championships. But his most important accomplishment, he said, is being a big brother and mentor to children at a camp for children of wounded warriors.
Each of the past two summers, he got to know two children of wounded warriors at the weeklong camp, sponsored by the Semper Fi Fund.
"I felt I made a difference in their lives," Jackson said, adding that he still keeps in touch when he can. His volunteering extends to other areas, such as teaching karate to children.
Jackson, 18, plans to attend the University of Alabama in the fall and will audition at the end of April to play snare drum with the school's Million Dollar Band. He's been captain of the marching band drum line at Lejeune High School at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
A member of his high school wrestling team, he placed third in the 1A 106-pound weight class at this year's state championships, and has recorded more than 100 wrestling wins.
His mother, Somer Beatty, said she's most proud of her son as "a humble individual who works very hard at everything."
While he is an accomplished athlete, Jackson also deals with some physical challenges because of his skeletal dysplasia, a condition that hampers the growth and development of bones and joints.
"My parents didn't let me use that as a crutch," Jackson said.
In elementary school, he was bullied for being short, he said. Now, his knees and wrists hurt at times, and he wears braces at night to keep his wrists in place and alleviate some of the pain. Prolonged physical activity can trigger knee pain and movement problems – it happened a couple of times during the wrestling season.
He was nominated for the award by his senior English teacher, Samantha Kay.
Jackson's father, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Geoff Beatty, has been deployed seven times in Jackson's life, and the family has moved nine times.
Molly Frey, 2017's Military Child of the Year honoree for the National Guard
Photo Credit: Operation Homefront
NATIONAL GUARD
When Molly Frey was 15, she sent her mother a text with a picture of a suture kit she wanted for Christmas so she could practice sewing up dissected sheeps' hearts, said Ohio Air National Guard Senior Master Sgt. Renee Frey.
"It's not something you'd expect to get from your kid for a Christmas list," said Frey, who is has been selected for promotion to chief master sergeant. In a class studying human body systems, Molly's teacher had offered to teach her how to suture the sheeps' hearts dissected by students in another class.
Molly, now 16, is a senior at Pickerington High School North in Ohio, having skipped her junior year. She started taking high school classes in seventh grade.
Her school activities include participating in the Students Serving Students leadership group, which is designed to improve character, bolster school climate and organize events. She's been accepted to Capital University, where she will play golf, and has also been awarded an academic scholarship.
She plans to major in biology as the first step toward being a doctor.
"For a while I've been decided on cardiology," she said, thanks in part to high school classes like Principles of Biomedical Science, where she studied the heart … and dissected sheep hearts.
But of all her activities and accomplishments, the most important to Molly is giving back to different groups in the community.
"Making a difference in even one person's life is important," she said.
Molly has raised money for breast cancer research, and co-created and performed in ice skating shows where spectators donated items that were sent to deployed troops.
As a daughter of Air National Guard parents, she hasn't experienced the frequent moves that some children of active-duty parents face. But her father, now-retired Senior Master Sgt. Kim Frey, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
There's a "good handful of military children" in her high school in Pickerington, she said. "We all know who we are."
"It's a bonding thing that all military children have been through the same sort of things, have all faced similar troubles," she added. "We can pick each other up when somebody's down and help them get through whatever they're going through."
Alexander McGrath, 2017 Military Child of the Year honoree for the Navy
Photo Credit: Operation Homefront
NAVY
Alexander McGrath describes himself as an "unashamed constitutional law nerd."
The 17-year-old Eagle Scout reads Supreme Court opinions and books about the Constitution in his spare time. He's listened to countless hours of arguments before the Supreme Court. His favorite case? Snyder v. Phelps, which upheld the right to protest at military funerals – of particular interest to him as part of a military family.
He's also in a fantasy league similar to fantasy football, except that it predicts how Supreme Court justices will rule on cases.
Alexander puts these interests into action on the local level, advocating for the needs of military children to local leaders, including those needs that are addressed by the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children.
As first vice president of the Chesapeake Regional Association of Student Councils, which represents more than 80,000 students at all levels of government, he organized 700 students to lobby in favor of education reform bills.
He's also a legislative aide for the assistant majority leader in the Maryland House of Delegates.
"His mother [Jessica] and I are very proud that when he's put into a new situation, he jumps into it and tries to embrace the new situation," said Navy Capt. Richard McGrath, a pilot who is now a professor at the Naval Academy. "He looks at it with optimism. He says he may be there for a short amount of time so he jumps right in to ... take advantage of new opportunities."
Alexander's dream is to argue at least one case before the Supreme Court, but he's considering different legal career paths.
"My family has instilled in me a sense of public service," he said. "I believe every American should serve their country in whatever way is best for them. For me, it's constitutional law. I want to have an impact on the way Americans interpret and interact with their constitution."
The senior at Severna Park Senior High School in Maryland has a weighted 4.38 GPA. He hadn't cemented his college plans as of late March, but he's been accepted at Yale, which is his first choice.
While life as a military child can bring challenges, he wouldn't trade it, he said.
"If I could choose to be in one place and grow up, or to move every two to four years, I would choose the latter," he said.
Karen Jowers covers military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times. She can be reached at kjowers@militarytimes.com.
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book "A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families." She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.
