For Her Father - A profile on Peyton Walker

By Maddi Dolan

A mile off shore and 35 feet underwater, Peyton Walker did as her divemaster instructed her to do. It was her first open-water dive test to become scuba certified. She was 14-years-old and nervous to be diving in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. Her nerves got the best of her; she suddenly forgot everything she had learned the past few days during her dive lessons in the pool at Gold Star Teen Adventures Camp.

The divemaster gave her the hand signals again, asking her to complete her regulator recovery test. She removed the regulator from her mouth and let go of it, allowing it to fall to her side. She then reached for it quickly and put it back in her mouth, but she had forgotten the final step: purge her regulator of water so that she could breathe in oxygen again.

Peyton took a deep breath in, sucking in straight salt water. She began to choke, panicking at the bottom of the ocean. She squeezed the inflation button on her buoyancy control device (BCD) as hard as she could and quickly shot up to the surface. As soon as she reached the top, she began to vomit. Her divemaster surfaced the water soon after.

She continued to cough for about a minute while they floated at the top, letting the waves sway them side to side, her vomit circulated around her. The divemaster, Kent, waited to speak until she was done coughing.

“Do you want to go on the boat or go back down?” He asked simply.

Peyton wiped her mouth and pushed her brown hair out of her face. She felt like crying. Peyton wanted nothing more than to climb back on the boat and end her dive there, but she knew she couldn't. She was doing this in honor of her father, and he didn’t raise her to be a quitter.

“I want to go back down.”

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Peyton said that a lot of what she does now is for her father. Whenever she is presented with a new opportunity she thinks, “My dad would have wanted me to do this.”

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Peyton remembers the day like it was yesterday. It was the first weekend of October, her favorite time of year in Fayetteville, North Carolina. It was a crisp 65 degrees out and the leaves were beginning to change color.

It was the day she learned the news about her father, Special Forces Army Major, Jonathan Walker, who had been serving overseas on his ninth deployment. He had died on October 1st, 2014, in Doha, Qatar, during Operation Enduring Freedom, in a non-combat related accident. At 13-years-old, Peyton had lost her father - her best friend wasn’t coming home.

Instead of going to pumpkin patches and picking out Halloween Costumes that fall, the Walker family was grieving their fallen hero. Peyton’s father was one of 58 U.S service members who died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom that year.

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A few months had passed when Peyton’s mother, Kelly, received an email from Kent Solheim, asking Peyton to join Gold Star Teen Adventures (GSTA), a program he created for children of fallen military members.

Kent, who is a special forces service member, was seriously injured in combat in Iraq in 2007. He ultimately lost his right leg. Through his near death experience, he saw how devastating it would have been for his two children if he hadn’t made it home alive. It inspired him to create a program for kids whose parents didn’t make it home.

The program provides fun opportunities for teens who are collectively healing from similar emotional traumas. GSTA offers two adventure academies, an outdoor academy and a scuba diving academy.

“I knew it would be a great opportunity for Peyton to have fun and start to heal,” said Kelly. “I had never scuba dived before, but her dad was a diver. I think in a way this brought her closer to him.”

Peyton went on her first dive trip with GSTA the following summer, 2015.

“I was hesitant at first, but my mom was a very strong advocate for it, so I decided to go,” said Peyton. “I thought if worse comes to worse, it would just be one week of my life, and if I didn’t like it I just wouldn’t go back.”

Peyton ended up falling in love with it. Even though she almost drowned on her first dive trip, her experience diving and the lasting connections she made with other gold star teens on the trip drew her in.

“You get really close with all the other teens, since there’s only about 20 kids per trip,” said Peyton. “Everyone around you has gone through the same thing too, so we never have to talk about our losses if we don’t want to. We’re all already on the same page.”

Kids at GSTA also become close because of the layout of the program. Peyton said that the people you start with the year you join are usually the people you stick with throughout your time as a GSTA member.

“In the diving program, you get certified in open-water, advanced nitrox, wreck diving and rescue diving,” said Peyton. “You have to do it in that order, so every trip you see the same kids you started in open-water diving with, unless they don’t want to advance their certifications. They can do the outdoors program instead.”

Shaina Shaw, a participant at GSTA, met Peyton on their first dive trip to get open-water certified. They have been close friends ever since.

“As soon as I met Peyton, I knew we’d be friends,” said Shaina. “I think we were both pretty shy on our first trip with Gold Star, so we sort of stuck together.”

Shaina laughed and said she remembers Peyton’s scare while getting open-water certified.

“On our first dive trip, everything that you could do wrong, Peyton did wrong,” said Shaina. “At the end of the trip we did superlatives and Peyton got, “most improved diver.” It’s honestly crazy how far she’s come.”

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Peyton is now a 20-year-old junior at The University of Tampa, with a double major in accounting and marketing. After logging over 70 scuba dives and going on more GSTA trips than she can count, she is now working to gain her certification for the highest level of scuba diving, becoming a divemaster.

After aging out at 19, she has become a mentor for the program. She continues to go on GSTA trips, now to help other Gold Star teens.

“After I became rescue dive certified when I was 17, I knew I wanted to become a mentor,” said Peyton. “The program has really broadened my horizons of opportunities. They have offered me so much, and I want to give back now.”

Peyton has been a mentor on the past three trips she’s attended, and she plans on going on another trip in December. She says being a mentor is not all about scuba diving; helping teens grieve is another aspect of it.

“Now that I'm a mentor, a lot of teens confide in me,” said Peyton. “I’ve had a lot of tough conversations, but I’m happy to talk to them about anything.”

Peyton hasn’t always pictured herself as someone who would become a mentor for GSTA. For a long time, she couldn’t see herself as a leader.

“Looking back on the first trip I took with Gold Star, I remember feeling so overwhelmed. I was not as outgoing as I am now,” said Peyton. “This program has helped me come out of my shell so much and has given me leadership skills I thought I’d never have.”

Peyton said that she had to push herself to gain a mentoring position. She said GSTA can be rigorous at times, since the camp is designed to have a military aspect to it. On most mornings there is an optional physical training at 5 a.m., which all mentors and future mentors participate in. Peyton hadn’t attended a single one.

“I told Kent that I wanted to become a mentor and he told me that I was slacking,” said Peyton. “I decided I needed to step up my game.”

On Peyton’s next trip, she stepped up and went to physical training in the mornings. Kent recognized her effort and growth and gave her a mentoring position.

“I’m very happy that I’ve gotten the opportunity to experience GSTA and that I get to continue to experience it,” said Peyton.

Once Peyton becomes a divemaster, she will be able to stay in the program even longer. Instead of being a mentor, Peyton will become an instructor in training and assist the divemaster in certifying teens.

“This program has made me have a passion for positively impacting other people’s lives, whether in a big or small way,” said Peyton. “It’s what my dad would have wanted.”