The Drug Education for Youth (DEFY) Team at Navy Readiness and Training Command San Diego was awarded a Length of Service award Jan. 25, 2024 during a Train the Trainer event in Millington, Tennessee, to highlight and acknowledge three years of continuously running a DEFY program.

DEFY is a Department of Defense program that’s free for DoD affiliated youth ages 9 through 17. The mission of the program is to educate, mentor, improve resiliency and strength as well as to build healthy drug-free lifestyles.

Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class George Taylor became involved in the program at his previous command as the healthcare supervisor and is now operating as the DEFY Lead Program Coordinator for NMRTC San Diego.

“I love serving and being part of the community,” said Taylor. “I love everything that DEFY stands for. Serving the youth, serving tomorrow and the future, I enjoy being around kids as a mentor and I enjoy helping them make good decisions.”

The Length of Service award is one of the first milestones for a command DEFY program and is awarded after three years of successful program operations.



“Receiving this award means a lot to our team,” said Taylor. “It means a lot that we’re being recognized for the work and heart we put into this program and hopefully we’ll be able to continue it for many years to come.”

DEFY provides a setting to build peer groups and deliver a curriculum in a unique way to provide education on positive and healthy lifestyle choices.

“We meet one Saturday a month,” said Taylor. “We start out with a lesson from the curriculum that we teach here at Naval Medical Center San Diego and then we go out in town to do a fun group activity such as going bowling or to the aquarium.”

Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Denis Adusah, the healthcare supervisor for NMRTC San Diego’s DEFY program, said the kids involved seem to really enjoy it and benefit from the program and often want to come back for consecutive years.

“It really shows that this is a good program and it really helps the kids,” said Adusah. “They tell us, their mentors, about everything they learned and how they benefited from it.”

“We develop bonds with the kids in the program,” added Taylor. “A lot of them are the kids of our co-workers and our colleagues. We look forward to seeing them and hearing about their day or how they’re doing on their sports team. They could be anywhere else on a Saturday, but they enjoy hanging out with us and we enjoy hanging out with them.”

The DEFY program at NMRTC San Diego has three more months of activities scheduled for the current group and has begun preparations for the upcoming annual week-long summer camp. They are always accepting applications for more mentors and youth attendees.

“I just really want to get the word out about this program and get more people involved,” Taylor said. “It’s a free program for the kids and it really impacts them in a positive way.”

The mission of NMCSD is to prepare service members to deploy in support of operational forces, deliver high quality health care services, and shape the future of military medicine through education, training, and research.
NMCSD employs more than 5,000 active-duty military personnel, civilians, and contractors in southern California to provide patients with world-class care anytime, anywhere. Anchored in Excellence, Committed to Health. (U.S. Navy story by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Celia Martin)

Story originally posted on DVIDS: NMRTC San Diego DEFY team receives length of service award