Feature Articles

From Ward of the State
to Defender of the Country
By Jessica Brooke-Buskirk

While most 18-year-olds are filling out college applications
with their parents by their sides, foster kids must make decisions
on their own about the future. Many choose to join the military and head off to war to defend the country that never managed to provide a home. This is the story of one such former foster child.

Three miles away from the New York University campus, 20-year-old Keno Deale struggled to find independence while living in a group home on the lower eastside of Manhattan.

Deale never had a chance to attend a school like NYU. He and his twin sister were the youngest of five children, and when they were 10 years old, their mother surrendered them to the foster care system.

She told her twins they would have a better life with another family.

The twins were placed with a widow, and Deale suspected the woman had emotional problems that prevented her from being an adequate caregiver.

"She was a sweet woman inside, but I feel she was also overwhelmed with emotions and maybe even more, we just didn't know what as kids," Deale said. "She treated us as her own at times, but quite often it was bias(ed)."

When he was 14, Deale ran away from his foster mother. As he packed his backpack with his clothes and toothbrush, his sister begged him not to leave. He left without her to search for their birth family.

Deale tracked down his brother and stayed with him for three days. On the third day, his sister arrived.

The twins then found both their birth parents. They stayed with their father briefly before moving in with their mother and her boyfriend. Within a year, she placed the twins back in foster care.

Although she requested that social services not separate her children, the twins were placed in different group homes.

"It had been the first time in 15 years that we had been separated," Deale said.

Despite the separation, the twins remained in close contact because the group homes were both in Yonkers.

Deale's sister eventually moved into an independent-living home in the Bronx and he moved into the group home in Manhattan. He longed for the independence his sister enjoyed, but there was a waiting list for her independent-living home, and his behavior made it unlikely he would be accepted.

Deale's social worker told him she was concerned about his future and suggested the Army. Deale refused.

The social worker made a phone call to Deale's father. She convinced him to come talk to his son. Maybe if the suggestion came from someone other than a social worker, Deale would listen and enlist in the Army.

"I remember the day he came down," Deale said. "I felt like a grown kid whose father was coming to a school play. I have never been as proud of my father as (I was) then."

Although Deale still could not be convinced the Army was his best option for a good life, his opinion on enlisting was changing. His father thought it was a good idea, so it couldn't be too bad.

Following the meeting with his father, his sister's social worker felt it was time for her to move out of the independent-living home and into an apartment. Their social workers found an apartment for the twins, and they began their lives outside of the welfare system.

This living arrangement worked for about a year, until Deale found out his girlfriend was pregnant. At age 21, he became a husband and father.

The next two years brought the addition of another child, while Deale worked menial jobs to support his new family. He was working as a night manager of a pharmacy when he and his wife separated.

At that point, Deale finally saw the Army as his opportunity for a better life, not only for himself, but also for his two children. He did not want them to know the childhood he had known.

Because he joined the Army, Deale can provide his children with a steady income and quality health insurance. He realizes this is an immense accomplishment for someone who was once a scared 14-year-old whose whole life fit into a backpack. But he misses his children.

"I can't wait to get home to be with them again," Deale said.

Deale is a sergeant stationed in Tikrit, Iraq and recently completed the Primary Leadership Development Course to become a staff sergeant. He anticipates a long and successful career with the Army.

Deale is one of countless former foster children risking their lives daily to protect this country. Fostering Families Today salutes all of our troops, but especially the soldiers who were once scared foster kids hoping for a permanent home.

© 2004 Fostering Families TODAY magazine, all rights reserved.