By Tricia Pursell
The Daily Item
February 07, 2009 11:56 pm
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SELINSGROVE -- All Kimber Kreamer wants to do is serve her country. The only thing standing in her way, it seems, is the military.
Kreamer, 17, of Selinsgrove, is a senior at Selinsgrove Area High School. For the past few months, she has been working hard to achieve a long-held dream -- to join the U.S. Air Force.
But last month, her military recruiter delivered heart-breaking news.
"He told me I will never be allowed to serve my country while being enlisted in the United States Air Force," she said, "or any Air Force organization."
The reason?
Kreamer has scoliosis, an abnormal curvature of the spine, and the angles of her spine are 6 percent greater than the Air Force allows.
The Air Force's measurement limits for the spine are 30 percent and 20 percent. When Kreamer went through 12 hours of testing in December at the Military Entrance Processing Station in Harrisburg -- a requirement in order to enter any branch of the military -- doctors noticed a curve in her spine and asked that she come back in a few weeks for X-rays.
When she returned, the X-rays showed her spine's measurements at 36 percent and 26 percent, and the doctors disqualified her.
The surgeon general later denied her a waiver.
Kreamer sees it all as a form of discrimination. "They don't know me as an individual," she said, "what I'm capable of."
She has been president of the Outdoors Club at Selinsgrove Area High School since her junior year.
"I was not voted in as president," she said. "My teachers picked me, not because of my personality or my ability to get along with others. They picked me because of my ability to do things in the great outdoors."
Kreamer was diagnosed with scoliosis in middle school, but didn't think it would stop her from having a normal life.
"I didn't really think anything of it," she said.
She has been white-water rafting, and rock climbing and backpacking with a 50-pound pack in West Virginia.
"It doesn't really affect me," Kreamer said. "That's why it (being disqualified from the Air Force) bothers me so much."
Kimber's exclusion has troubled her family. She would be a third-generation member of the Air Force.
"Here you got someone willing to go and serve her country," said Kimber's father, Gary.
"She cried her eyes out," he said.
The whole family was distraught, including Kimber's grandfather, who began serving in the Army Air Corps in 1946. He then served in the Air Force for more than 20 years. Her father served in the Air Force for four years.
Physical requirements for enlistment are essentially the same for all branches of the military, according to Master Sgt. Roberto Goyco, with the U.S. Air Force recruiting office in Mechanicsburg.
While the Air Force has the highest expectations for scores on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test, it tends to be more lax when it comes to overlooking legal transgressions, he said.
The Air Force also is more relaxed on medical issues such as knee surgeries, Goyco said. Other conditions, such as color blindness, would disqualify a person for certain jobs within the military.
With scoliosis, there is no wiggle room, he said.
Goyco said Kreamer may be able to work as a civilian for the military, but "as far as active duty, she would not be qualified for that."
"Different branches are willing to waiver different things, but for the most part, the standard is the same," he continued. "Scoliosis is pretty much standard across the board."
In just a few months, Kreamer will graduate from high school. And her concern about her future is growing. She hasn't applied to colleges because she was counting on joining the Air Force. And most of the deadlines for college admission are over.
"What am I going to do now?" she asked. "There has to be something else that I can do."
Kreamer has been meeting with recruiters from the Coast Guard and Navy, and is hoping they may provide her with other opportunities, although they were not her first choice.
"The Air Force is what I have wanted to do with my life for a very long time," she said. "It truly is my dream."
Specifically, she wants to join SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape), which requires seven months of training and interrogation in Washington State. She would then be able to travel to various bases and provide survival training.
It seems as though they could already start taking lessons from her. She's not about to give up on her dreams.
"I don't take no' for an answer," she said.
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Photos
Kimber Kreamer, 17, of Selinsgrove.
