You say that, but I’ve always had my Eagle Scout award on my resume, and in the quarter century or so that I’ve been in the professional world, it’s the ONE thing that consistently gets commentary in job interviews. I doubt it has actually got me a job yet, but it’s something that consistently gets remarked upon and inquired about. I’d guess 2/3-3/4 of interviewers mention it.
More lately, since my sons are both Cub Scouts. I remember going on the first camping trip with the pack, and they were all duly impressed that I wasn’t one of the total neophyte campers like most parents. I’m a den leader now, and assistant Cubmaster next year if I decide I want to go that route, and I find myself digging up all sorts of Scouting-related skills for my den and the pack in general.
Outside of Cub Scouts, the stuff is more limited- that knife safety stuff is seared into my brain, so that’s one place I use it every day. Same for other stuff like basic knot tying.
But what I’d say I use the most is the self-reliance that Scouts teaches. I know it sounds cheesy, but at least in our Troop, our whole raison d’etre was to teach us how to both be self-reliant and how to work together as a team at the same time- we were definitely a Scout-led troop, and we had to learn how to do stuff by ourselves and figure things out, as well as get people to cooperate toward common goals if we wanted stuff as simple as a successful and fun campout. That sort of thing has been very handy in both my professional and personal life. For lack of a better term, it’s a sort of bedrock confidence- just knowing that you have the tools to figure stuff out and get through things is self-inspirational when things get difficult. And I think in large part, Scouts helped me gain that confidence.
I have some mixed feelings about the sexual integration of Scouts. I mean, it definitely needed to happen and I wish it had been that way when I was a Boy Scout, but –
On the one hand, why is it once again the male version that becomes the model, making the female equivalent supernumerary and irrelevant? The two become one and the one is (nearly) always the male one that previously wouldn’t let the girls / women in. Which lends additional credence to the notion that the “girl version” was not as real, not as good, etc.
On the OTHER hand, it does seem that way in this case. The image folks have had of the Boy Scouts was camping and hiking and otherwise getting out there in nature, and leadership and survival skills and learning how to run things with no more than a modicum of adult supervision. To learn how to lead. (Well, they also have the image of adult leaders molesting boys, oh so charming). The image folks had of the Girl Scouts on the other hand starts with cookie sales, and being a volunteer, good citizenship and social responsibility (and a safe place to park your teenage girl child), but despite some good latter-era ads showing teams of girls with canoes hoisted over their heads or climbing rock slopes with pitons, there was a vicious-cycle pattern where the adult leaders didn’t have the experience to take the troops out camping and blazing trails, so the girls didn’t do much of that, so the image folks had of Girl Scouts didn’t involve that, so girls who wanted to do that kind of thing felt left out. Went to Explorer Scouts when old enough. Felt cheated of opportunity for not being able to get into Boy Scouts.
All in all, I wish Girl Scouts had opted for coed events with the Boy Scouts, had been more proactive about bringing in the outdoorsy and self-reliance building adventurous stuff, and the Boy Scouts to do more volunteer and community-involvement work, instead of the path that we’re on which will most likely make GSA go extinct, but at least there’s more equality of opportunity for the kids now.
I mentioned above how I was sort of an Accidental Eagle scout… joined for the camping and didn’t notice that I was amassing merit badges as we went on adventures (week-long canoe trips in Baja Canada, scuba diving the Florida Keys, hiking the Maine coast…).
Fifty years later, I was talking to my neighbor and he said “Ja, when I was young I was in a group like the scouts. Of course, ours was the Hitler Youth.”
I completed almost all the requirements to be an Eagle Scout. Then I took a summer off to work on a charter fishing boat. When I returned in September, I was quite busy with my school work, football and a part time job at Jack In The Box. Scouting was way down on my list of things to do. When I finally had time to work on the few remaining merit badges I needed, my scout troop got a new scoutmaster. I didn’t know him, he didn’t know me but he tried to block my attempts to complete the requirements for Eagle scout. Just as I received the last merit badge I needed, he booted me from the troop. He said I was a bad influence on the younger scouts just because I smoked cigarettes. I never got the certificate but I still considered myself as an Eagle Scout.
I was in the Scouts but didn’t make past Tenderfoot. I didn’t get a single merit badge.
In retrospect, our troop leadership was worthless. I wasn’t a totally incapable and unmotivated boy. I’d won math competitions, and later did well in the Science Olympiad, so I was perfectly capable of succeeding in extracurricular activities. But I could have used a non-zero amount of encouragement from the leaders, and didn’t receive it. Even just a microscopic push would have likely been self-sustaining in time. But there was nothing.
Was the leadership just totally incompetent? Did they direct all their attention to the less reserved kids? I don’t recall, and probably wouldn’t have figured out the social dynamics anyway. Regardless, it did not work for me and I drifted away before going very far. I went on a few poorly-run backpacking trips and that was about it.
I was a Life Scout. I just had too many activities in High School to finish it up. That is one of my minor regrets. I was lucky in that my troop growing up was very active in regards to camping and hiking.
I wanted the same for my kids, but found the ban on gay and atheist scouts unpalatable. It was not Kind, Courteous, Brave, or Reverent.
See pp. 75-76 of the current Winter 2022 issue of Shaker Life (of Shaker Heights, Ohio) for a profile of four young women who’ve earned their Eagle Scout: http://shaker.life/
As a Cub Scout den leader, I get to see a lot of girls and boys these days, and the girls consistently kick the boys’ asses at doing stuff right, being prepared, and so on. The boys mostly screw around and want to go play tag or some kind of ball game, while the girls are more focused and interested in the actual Scouting stuff.
I think it’s a good thing overall- it raises the enrollment, it challenges the boys, and it gives girls who don’t want to do the typical Girl Scout stuff a better option. There’s really no downside, except that it probably steals a number of girls from Girl Scouts.
I made it to Life Scout but I stopped taking badges seriously after I earned five during a two week scout camp. I got the Fish and Wildlife Management badge without ever touching an animal. And Basketry without making a basket.
The one real achievement was getting the Atomic Energy badge in 1964. I just missed out on being one of the earliest .
For all you Not-An-Eagle guys: scouting is for fun and personal growth and teamwork. NOT counting your merit badges.
Our Scout Leaders sat my son down and, after asking him why he never wore his uniform, said “We don’t think you’re taking advancement seriously. You know, one more merit badge and you’ll advance beyond First Class.”
Kid: “Yeah, I thought First Class Scout sounded pretty cool, so I’m fine where I am. Now, if you’re done, Jason’s teaching me to build a Sioux teepee. See ya!”
The other leaders looked at me as if I was failing my son. I said “Hey, I think the kid’s got his head screwed on right.”
.
Way back in the '70s we had a bunch of Girl Scouts come on our weekend trips. In my son’s troop in the '90s, a Girl Scout troop joined up with us (when we invited them to the Appalachian Trail and diving in the Keys). Their leaders came too, and we were functionally a Boy/Girl Scout Troop for years.
I always saw it as all that stuff, but that the advancement was a more formal way to ensure that Scouts got the breadth of knowledge/experiences that the organization wanted, as well as a sort of incentive system to keep some Scouts engaged.
I mean I never really cared personally, except that I didn’t want my friends to outdo me, so I made sure to keep up with them/outpace them. And had there not been stuff like ranks and required badges, etc… I wouldn’t have ever bothered with Personal Management or the Citizenship badges in a million years.
I wasn’t trying to say that the girls make the boys do better at the advancement, but rather that the boys get slightly embarrassed that the girls are getting the recognition and they aren’t, and therefore try a bit harder than if it was all-male.
[I’m here because the OP made a suggestion in another thread]
::koff-koff:: (clears away the dust)
I began with Cub Scouts, worked my way up through Webelos and advanced to Boy Scouts. I had a lot of other options by the time I was 12, and lagged behind my peers who achieved Life Scout by the time they were 15. I made Star at 16, and pushed myself to make Life a year later.
I’d worked with other scouts on their Eagle projects, so lining up support for mine was easy. It was summer of 1980 and several residents in my neighborhood had gutters clogged with volcanic ash from the eruption of Mt St Helens. We cleaned out a dozen gutters, mostly senior residents. All I had left to do was the interview.
I’d been working part time at my uncle’s hardware store since I turned 15, and we were talking about Scouts. He’d been a scout when he was a teen before dropping out of school to work full time, eventually entering the army at 17. Next to my dad, he’s someone I looked up to and respected. He knew I was a non-swimmer, and asked how it was possible to earn an Eagle rank without earning Lifesaving merit badge. I told him I had the option of earning Citizenship In The World instead of Lifesaving. He replied that he’d never heard of an Eagle Scout who couldn’t swim.
That stuck with me. At the interview, I was seated before a panel of adults, all of whom I’d known through Scouting. I told them what my uncle said, and I felt I was “back-dooring” my way to Eagle. My scoutmaster argued that it wasn’t true, that I’d earned my place with the troop by demonstrating leadership qualities and that’s what mattered most. I told them I appreciated all the help they’d given me, but I wouldn’t be pursuing Eagle. I stayed with the troop as Junior Assistant Scoutmaster and left when I turned 18. I enjoyed my time as a Scout and treasure those memories.
Same here, on both counts. I learned more about the outdoors and such from my brother than anything those scouting morons were teaching. I only joined because my friend joined, and quickly became disenchanted with it. The last straw was when they nearly had a disaster on the Winter Jamboree when the temperature dropped to -30F and they were totally unprepared for it. Having said all that, I do admire those who worked their way to the top echelon and who had good leaders to guide them.
A while back I was curious how many Eagle Scouts went on to earn the Congressional Medal of Honor. Answer: at least 12.
There’ve been 2.4 million Eagle Scouts. There have been 3,356 MoHs awarded (19 of which were awarded twice), out of a total of 41 people who’ve served in uniform.
Britain’s Victoria Cross famously cannot be rescinded due to later criminal behavior. George V insisted that a recipient could wear it to the gallows. So I had to look to see what nastiness any MoH winners had gotten up to. Besides the alleged war criminal Navy Seal Britt Slabinski who was then given an own-the-libs MoH by Trump, and pacifist protester Charlie Liteky, the closest to post-award fall from grace was Iwo Jima recipient Jacklyn Lucas who was busted for 90 pot plants on his property, charges dropped.
Yikes. We had our own frozen backpacking trip but not as bad as that. I recall waking up with everyone’s water bottles frozen. I don’t think anyone had sleeping bags rated for below freezing. It worked out, I guess, but it wasn’t that pleasant.
Agreed. I have a friend who made Eagle. He has always been a somewhat… unmotivated person. But totally capable of doing things with a little bit of encouragement and guidance. He undoubtedly had support in areas that I lacked.
Parents were on the warpath after that debacle. A couple of kids had frostbite. I could hear several of them crying in their tents. When I finally walked in the front door at home, my mother lost it.
