DEA awards national honor to Rose City Young Marines

Published 5:35 am Tuesday, April 2, 2024

From Staff Reports

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Young Marines, a national youth organization, announced the winners of the Enrique “Kiki” Camarena Award.

The Rose City Young Marines, of Tyler, received the honor for Division 4. The award honors Young Marine units for drug prevention and resistance efforts through community education and peer-to-peer role modeling.

The other winners for 2024 are Division 2: Potomac River Young Marines, Washington, D.C.; Division 3: PFC Bruce W. Carter MOH Young Marines, Doral, Fla.; Division 5: Chesty Puller Young Marines, Ravenna, Ohio; and Division 6: Southeast County Young Marines, Midway City, Calif.

The award is named in memory of DEA Special Agent and U.S. Marine Enrique “Kiki” Camarena who dedicated his career to defeating the drug invasion in the U.S. In 1974, he became a special agent with the DEA. In 1985, he was working in Mexico and had come dangerously close to exposing the top leaders of a multi-billion-dollar drug pipeline when he was abducted and brutally murdered at the age of 37.

“Congratulations to all the Young Marines winning the Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena Award,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “DEA encourages other young people to follow their example, by leading a drug-free lifestyle and raising awareness in our communities to stop fentanyl and other deadly drugs, and to save lives.”

Young Marine units are judged on DDR hours, curriculum, and the steps taken in reaching out to the community to include peers and other organizations. Units may enter pictures, endorsements, proclamations, videos, and other items that help demonstrate their efforts. The best three entries per division are sent to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s headquarters, and a winner from each division is selected.

One of the pillars of the Young Marines program is to lead positive, drug-free lifestyles and to educate and encourage others to do the same. Young Marines units are mandated to teach the standardized Project Alert curriculum. The Project Alert curriculum focuses on the gateway drugs, but also stays current with drugs that affect today’s youth.

“The increase in deaths due to fentanyl and other lethal and illegal drugs are tragic for our country’s young people and their families,” said Col William P. Davis USMC (Ret), national executive director and CEO of the Young Marines. “This year, we consider the awards more important than ever. We value our relationship with the DEA, and we honor the five outstanding units who won these awards.”

The program also gives senior Young Marines the opportunity to become certified instructors and teach their younger Young Marines and peers.

“Our units make every effort to become more innovative with their anti-drug education and messaging,” Davis said. “Their goal is to reach more young people in their communities, and know they are being heard.”

Since the Young Marines’ humble beginnings in 1959 with one unit and a handful of boys, the organization has grown to over 236 units with over 5,000 youth and 1,950 adult volunteers in 40 states, the District of Columbia, Japan (Okinawa), and affiliates in a host of other countries.

For more information on the Young Marines, visit the website at www.YoungMarines.org.