A group of people cluster around each other and begin conversing. She spots a bright yellow wristband amongst the crowd and approaches the young man wearing it. They immediately make a connection and start speaking as if they have known each other for years.
Over the summer, senior Tessa Toler attended Aviation Challenge, a military-based camp featuring flight simulations. She met her current boyfriend, Logan Short, on the first day of camp after discovering that they were both given yellow wristbands and assigned to the same team.
“We hit it off because we’re both into anime and that kind of stuff,” Toler said. “We started talking, and that’s where it started.”
Two years ago, Toler attended a space camp where she learned about Aviation Challenge. She then decided to go to this camp after hearing it was active and engaging.
“We’d get up at six in the morning and do PT,” Toler said. “Then we’d run the mile to breakfast. And then afterwards it would either be [simulations] or ground training missions. The first few days, it was really strict and everywhere we went, the instructors were constantly yelling at us and firing our team leaders.”
Toler said during camp the members participated in physical training (PT) exercises such as push-ups, sit-ups and running. Additionally, they did ground patrol missions, air mission simulators and navigational activities. The camp assigned partners, one of which is a pilot and the other being a radar interception officer (RIO). The RIOs acted as the main directors and told the pilots what to do. Toler ended up being a RIO, with Short designated as her pilot.
“Basically you have the pilot seat in front and then you have the RIO seat [beside it],” Toler said. “The pilot can’t talk to anyone but their RIO, and the RIO coordinates everything. We’re the ones who [instruct] the pilot.”
After going through a series of survival, endurance and evasion tests, Toler realized she was capable of doing better in physical exercises than most people expected of her. Furthermore, Toler said she has made friendships she knows will last forever since the camp members started off as strangers to her, but they eventually created a strong bond over the duration of the camp.
“I’ve got a family I can basically contact whenever,” Toler said. “I know they’ll be there for me, because we worked hard together.”
Toler said that one of her most memorable experiences at camp was getting to meet people and engage in simulations such as top gun, a battle between two pairs of pilots and RIOs. During one of the top gun simulations, Toler and Short defeated their opposing team.
“We actually shot someone down which was rare,” Toler said. “It [involved us] working in a team.”
In regards to their relationship, Toler and Short decided to commit to a long-distance relationship after discovering they had feelings for each other. Toler’s family is aware of her relationship but is unsure of whether it will last.
“I know they’re being practical because a lot of long-distance relationships don’t work out due to trust issues and things like that,” Toler said. “It kind of makes me think that [our relationship will] be better off in the end, because we would have fought so hard [to stay together].”
When she tells people about her long-distance relationship, Toler said people think she met Short online.
“It’s kind of weird how every time I tell someone he lives in Mississippi, they always assume, ‘Oh, they met on the Internet,’” Toler said. “I find it weird how so many relationships start on the Internet now and people take it as a thing, because you’ve never met the person. I’m not really biased against online relationships, but I also think I’d rather get to know the person in person first.”
Because Short lives in Mississippi, they mainly communicate through Skype. Toler said that her relationship is different, because she does not know of any camp relationships that have worked out. For Toler, the long-distance is hard on her at times.
“As weird as this relationship is, I really like him, and I really care about him even though he lives in Mississippi,” Toler said. “It feels like he’s on the other side of the United States. Sometimes it’s fine, but a lot of the time, I wish he was here.”