If you could go back in time, what would you tell your fourteen-year old self?  It is easy for me as a parent of teenagers to share wisdom stored from far more years of experience than my young son and daughter, hoping and praying, that the message sinks in.  This Thursday I accompanied ten cadets to the Otisville Correctional Facility an hour north of us here in the Hudson Valley.  I walked into the room, the last to enter, and saw the cadets seated in a circle with the inmates. In the center of the gathering was one prisoner, his hands in arm cuffs and chain, legs in shackles and chains.  Walking around the square he described his cell.  He later explained that when he was 17, he had killed someone. Serving a sentence of 50 years to life, he had now been in prison for 25 years.  He had a son, 26, who he had never played ball with, never seen graduate from Kindergarten, he had missed every meaningful father-son experience he could imagine.  As he told his story we were all captivated.  One by one, they all shared their experiences.  The inmates were a varied bunch, one was in for vehicular manslaughter after killing two people when under the influence, another was involved in the stabbing death of a classmate when he was in high school, a third had been lured into a gang by the “family” it offered and entered a world of violence he could not escape.  As I sat there, an outside speculator of what our cadets were experiencing, I wondered why?  Slowly they unveiled their motive in the meeting.  None of them had listened when they were told not to cut classes, watch out for drugs, get good grades, etc., and as a consequence one bad choice led to another until it spiraled out of control.  Albeit, by their own accounts many did not have positive role models, but by all accounts, someone out there had tried to help at one time or another.  What was interesting, too, was that none of them were asking us for forgiveness.  They recognized their actions resulted in terrible consequences for others.  One prisoner said, “you have to walk through hell in order realize you want to be somewhere else.”  At the end of the four-hour educational program they asked the cadets to write down questions.  One cadet asked, what would you do differently if you could?  The answers, in various forms were all the same– listen.  – Christine C. McDonald