I was a Boy Scout from the time I was 11 years old until I went into the Army at age 17. When I joined the Army and they assembled my unit and gave three instructions: 1) All those who have a college degree take one step forward. I had an associate degree from a local junior college (night school while I was in high school), so I took a step forward. 2) All those who have been in the Boy Scouts, take one step forward. I had been a Boy Scout, so I took another step forward. Finally, 3) All those who have been Eagle Scouts, take a step forward. I took a final step forward, and when I looked around, there were three of us standing out in front of the group.
The next words from the Platoon Leader were, “Congratulations, pending additional testing, you will be offered a position in Officer’s Candidate School.” As a result, I went through the Army as an Officer, a much better existence than to that of an enlisted man to which I had resigned myself.
The Boy Scouts have recently changed their policy regarding the admission of gay males. Being a liberal, I have no objection, but being a former Boy Scout and Eagle Scout, I can tell you that young gay men have been in the Boy Scouts for many years; some of them in the closet, some not so much. I was in a Boy Scout Troop that had a less-than-closeted gay young man it. Everyone knew it and no one really cared, much less objected. There were some “new” guys who joined the troop from time to time that were a little surprised, but they generally did not have a problem with it, after all, the existing guys had no problem with it, right?
We had no problem with a gay scout because he never made it any of our business. He did not hit on any of us because he knew we were not gay. He was never a “recruiter” for the “gay community.” The fact that he was “queer” was sometimes more of a joke than anything else, and he joined right in. There was always the decision as to who would share a tent with Kirk [not his real name]. When someone volunteered, there were the ooohs and aaahs of suspicion and good-humored accusation, but it was all good-natured fun. Kirk often joined in the cajoling. I still correspond with “Kirk” from time to time. He is in a long-term relationship with another man with whom he is very happy. He is also a man that has contributed to his community, both gay and straight. While his father died when he was young and a member of my troop at the time, I know his father would be proud of him regardless of his sexual orientation.
We learned an incredible amount in the Boy Scouts that have served us well in adult life, particularly regarding values, self-sufficiency and a lot of skills, but the value I learned that is one of the most important was tolerance. I was in an organization with blacks, Hispanics, gays, straights, rich and poor, and it made no difference, we were all Boy Scouts. I had 21 merit badges, in subjects from fingerprinting and rifle and shotgun shooting to home repairs and community service. We all learned camping and hiking, how to appreciate nature and how to survive. As I watch various shows of how people will survive in a post-apocalyptic world, I can’t help but say, “I learned how to do that in the Boy Scouts when I was 11.” You have no idea how important that stuff was in the military.
One of the things I learned that has become increasingly important is self-discipline. I think many of the problems we have with our youth today is the fact that they have no self-discipline. While the Liberal in me understands and accepts the need for people to have freedom, I believe that freedom must be tempered by self-discipline. You have to have self-discipline to do so many things that we find lacking today; the ability to say no to drugs, the ability to stand up against peer pressure, the ability to have respect for others and, at the same time, the ability to stand up for what is right, sometimes, even in the face of authority. Just because someone has power, does not always make them right, but only the self-disciplined will have the confidence and strength to stand up and say so.
I was watching a program on television about Chiefs of Staff to Presidents of the United States. After watching for a while, I said, those guys talk like Boy Scouts. I checked the list and found that a majority of them had been both Boy Scouts and Eagle Scouts. They may have been overachievers, but I will bet, if you talk to them, they will give a lot of credit for having the self-respect, determination and self-confidence to be able to tell the President of the United States what he does not want to hear from their experiences in the Boy Scouts. It is said that the second most powerful man in the world is the Chief of Staff for the President of the United States.
One of the reasons that I have the self-confidence, self-respect and self-discipline I do is, in part, because I am a member of an incredibly small, and yes, elite, group of men. Go to this link and check out some of the men who have been Eagle Scouts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Eagle_Scouts . It is a group of men I am both very proud and at the same time humbled, to be a part. As I go down the list, I found it interesting that so many Eagle Scouts became Astronauts. It makes me wonder if camping in the wilderness was just not enough; now camping in space, that’s a real challenge…LOL
In all fairness, there are Boy Scouts and even Eagle Scouts that have gone bad. Charles Whitman, the “Texas Tower Shooter” was one notorious example. I had the experience to be able to speak to Whitman’s father in Lake Worth Florida where I was a police officer. Mr. Whitman lived with the guilt and had no idea his son would do something like he did. He blamed it on a brain tumor they found in his son when they performed an autopsy. Another “bad” Boy Scout was H.R. Haldeman. He was Richard Nixon’s Chief of Staff, who was responsible for overseeing much of the nefarious “Watergate Affair.” Even the best can turn into some of the worst over time.
Regardless of the fact that the Boy Scouts now allows gay men to join, they still teach the values necessary in our society, and even gay men, and women, need values, self-discipline and self-confidence, especially when so many are trying to destroy these traits in gays.
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