A main theme in “Boot camp” is indoctrination, and how an entity such as Lake Harmony can slowly distort someone’s perspective on what is considered moral or unmoral. Through out the early/mid sections of the novel, Garret the main character is a smart ,self righteous young-man, who’s decisions are justified to himself.

   For example, he pursued a relationship with his teacher Sabrina not because he wanted bragging rights, or to be cool. Garret was attracted to his teacher because they had a lot in common, when it comes to education, views, ideas, and personality. However Garrets parents, decided that enough was enough, and Garret had to be disciplined efficiently, so they got “transporters” to ship him off to Lake Harmony.

 This is when the struggle of Garret vs. himself comes into play, Garret resists the indoctrination of Lake Harmony at first, but his grasp on what is right and wrong, starts to get twisted, through constant verbal/physical/psychological abuse, and the Lake Harmony signature agenda of tearing down an occupants ego, then rebuilding with the principles of the desired traits the parents want, an obedient young child that wont argue.

  Close to the end of the novel, Garrets will completely gets shattered, his escape plan fails. Garrets gets shipped back to camp, this is when Garret realized he had to play by camp rules to get out. Garret started embracing what he needed to become to get out, a ruthless thug. Garret starts reporting the newer kids for talking at lunch, and disobeying rules he once considered unmoral

Tranquility Bay, was most likely the inspiration for “Lake Harmony” from Todd Stressors’ Novel Boot Camp.

Tranquility Bay is an American owned behavior medication camped located on the island of Jamaica. For $38, 000 a year parents can have their children and their attitudes sent away to be modified to their liking.

David Van Blarigan was 16 years old when he called his brother Timmy a” butt”. His Parents dragged him to the bathroom and literally washed his mouth out with soap for the verbal profanity of saying “butt”.

Hiram Van Blarigan (grandfather),knew the boy was just growing up and testing his parents to see how much he could get away with. However David crossed the line and his parents premeditated

to ship him off to be disciplined  by strangers, instead of his parents

On November 10^th at 12:30 AM David was awoken by his father with two burley strangers telling him get up now or else he would be hand-cuffed to the car outside parked in front of their house. The “Transporters” As Strasser call’s them took David away that night, to ship him off to Tranquility Bay a behavior modification camp located in Jamaica, where US law has no jurisdiction.

Like “Lake Harmony” in “Boot Camp” the camp is over-crowded, teachers and nurses are not certified, intimidation & fear is used to tear down a kids ego and then rebuild it to the desired liking of the behavior modification camps system. If kids try to resist the system of the camps indoctrination they simply break the child’s will until the child realizes the only way they have a chance of getting out is playing by camp rules.

Lile and her husband, Kendall Ross Bean, 44, with whom she runs a piano advice hotline, arrived at Tranquility Bay to collect their daughter after attending a parental seminar that concerned both of them.

“ several girls asked them for hugs. She recalls one saying, "It has been so long since I have had a mother's hug."

Todd Strassers’ Character “Garret” had a relationship with his teacher,was one of the 70% percent of teenagers that have tried marijuana and spoke back to his parents a handful of times. Unfortunately in reality parents are sending their children out of the country to “Behavior Modification Camps” for petty acts of child like mistake we’ve all made.

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20125924,00.html - Text To Text connection