12-year-old joins Marines for boot camp at Parris Island. ‘He has the biggest heart’

The Make-A-Wish Foundation has granted the wishes of more than a half-million children with a critical illness worldwide since 1980. Typical requests are visiting a favorite theme park or exotic beach, attending a major sporting event or meeting their favorite athlete or singer.

Trent Williams, a 12-year-old from York, S.C. with a congenital heart defect, had something else entirely in mind. Granted a wish through the organization’s South Carolina chapter, he asked to be sent to boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, where recruits get run through the ringer.

On Thursday, Williams could be seen at Parris Island crawling through the dirt as explosions made his ears ring and smoke swirled around him. He also tested his aim at the shooting range and rappelled down a four-story tower. Trent talks about becoming an astronaut or even president one day, but his love of the military, especially the Marines, prompted his unusual wish, which came true this week at the Port Royal base.

“Honestly,” said Williams, wearing the telltale green and tan marine combat uniform, “they accepted me more than I thought they would.”

The Marines didn’t hold back on Williams, who stands 5 feet 1 and weighs 96 pounds. When he arrived by bus at Parris Island Wednesday evening, he was greeted by screaming drill instructors as he stood on the famous yellow footprints, a rite of passage for all recruits.

“Mostly because of what they do for our country,” Williams explained later, on why he chose to train with Marines instead of choosing a more typical wish.

While his request to visit the marines may not be the norm, Major Philip Kulczewski, a Marine Corps spokesman said, Parris Island has helped fulfill the wishes of three children through Make-A-Wish in the last three years.

On Thursday, Williams’ most dramatic moment may have come at the rappelling tower, a four-story, 48-foot high wall that challenges even regular recruits much older than Williams, who is in the 6th grade.

“I was a pretty good recruit and I wound up upside down,” Kulczewski, the Marine Corps spokesman, noted as he watched from the ground.

There stood Williams at the top of the platform, standing backward, with his heels over the edge and his toes keeping him in place. He wore a black helmet and grasped a rope. Tension filled the air. Could he do it?

On the ground, Trents’ parents Holly and Wayne Williams — she’s a power company dispatcher and he’s a high school teacher and football coach — nervously watched. “Come on Trent,” Wayne Williams said to himself, his voice pleading and willing his son to succeed. Marines shouted like they were encouraging one of their own. “Let’s go Trent!” “Straight legs!” “There you go, there you go!”

After a few minutes of uncertainty and some coaching, Trent straightened his legs as instructed and he leaned back into the rope, trusting it would bring him safely to the ground. He did it.

“It was scary,” Williams said moments later. “But I mean, the amount of support they give you is phenomenal.”

Marines who joined Trent in his squad volunteered, along with three drill instructors.

“We’re so glad to have him,” said Capt. Bailey Sheppard, the “action officer” for the Williams’ visit.

Trent has hypoplastic left heart syndrome, or HLHS, a rare congenital birth defect that affects normal blood flow through the heart. “Basically, he was born with half a heart,” Holly Williams said.

He has gone through three open heart surgeries because of the condition, with the first needed when he was 2 days old. Eventually, he will need a heart transplant.

“He just has to have life-long cardiac care,” Holly Williams says.

Two years ago, his cardiology team nominated him for Make-A-Wish. He could have picked anything from a trip to Disney World to visiting his favorite football them

“He just said, “I want to be a Marine, that’s my wish,’” his mother said.

No activity is easy for Trent, Wayne Williams said. He loves football but will never play because contact sports are not allowed. But that does not stop him from being involved in the game. He joins his father, the coach, on the sidelines at football games. The father-and-son also study game film together. Sometimes, Trent comes up with plays.

“To be born with half a heart,” Wayne Williams said as he watched his son train, “he has the biggest heart I’ve ever known.”

Over the years, Trent’s condition has caused him to fall behind in school, but he has worked work relentlessly to catch up with his grade level. His energy, Wayne Williams adds, is amazing. Trent’s mom calls him a trooper who always “sticks with it.”

At the “day movement course,” Trent, face down, pulled himself forward along the ground. He carried a red gun with the same shape, weight and size of a M4 carbine rifle. The course tests a team, and he and the other members of his squad made their way through large pipes that simulate tunnels, under barbed wire and over walls. Smoke spewed and whistled from smoke grenades and explosions loud enough to make a person jump boomed all around. “Yes sir!” Trent said to a drill instructor shouting instructions as he belly crawled.

Trent said of the experience, “it’s been pretty cool.”