Jordan Turner looks down at the scrap paper on the table in front of him.

The instructions sound simple enough: On one side, write a negative word associated with grief; on the other, a positive word.

Words have always come easily to the lanky 15-year-old, who hours earlier walked into a Washington-area hotel conference room full of unfamiliar faces and easily fell into conversation with teens and adults alike.

"Where are you from?" asks one teen.

Tacoma, Washington, he says.

"You been here before?" another asks.

No. This is my first time.

Nobody asks Jordan the next question, the one that would explain why he's in this room with more than two dozen teens about his age.

Nobody has to ask. They all know. Not the details, necessarily. But they know the reason: Somebody in the military -- a father, a mother, a brother or a sister -- is dead.

That is, after all, the only reason any of them are here at grief camp.