Good Morning.

'tis a lovely Saturday, and we'll soon be off to the nearby Arsenal Mall for the district Pinewood Derby. Javi won his den races, and qualifies to represent the pack.

You all know I've been at the Scouting business for nearly my entire life; I joined as a youth member when I was 8 years old myself, and haven't really been out of uniform since.

But what am I really doing here? Something Raine said in Monday's blog has given me pause.




Javi was born a month before September 11. For him, we've always been at war with Eurasia; we will always be at war with Eurasia.

This got me thinking a bit about the Scouting movement. I've been the first to defend it and denounce those that call it a 'paramilitary organization', but isn't it really? The founder, Robert Baden-Powell, was a British soldier. His methods became so succesful that he wrote a book about it, called "Aids to Scouting". After the Boer War, he returned home and found the youth of England had discovered his book and were using it to form their own 'clubs' and organizations. To his credit, Mr. Baden-Powell thought they deserved better, an developed "Scouting for Boys" in response. Of course, you know the rest of the story by now.

But Scouting in America seems to have veered far from its purpose. It's still in the "Aims of Scouting" that all us adults have to learn...Character Development, Physical Fitness, and Good Citizenship. At the surface, all good things to help train the future leaders of America. Everyone is familiar with what an Eagle Scout is, I would hope. But did you know that it's become a virtual pre-requisite for all the Service Academies that male applicants be Eagle Scouts? You can still get in if you're not, but being an Eagle is an unofficial edge. Eagle Scouts also go in at a higher pay grade if the enlist in the 'regular army', too.

So again I ask, what am I doing here?

My troop has been large enough in the past that all the adults could specialize in a few areas. Over time, I've become the "woodcraft" expert (knife, ax, fire), the First Aid guru, and the master of Flag Etiquette and Citizenship. Innocuous skills, but in part of the larger picture...am I training boys to be soldiers here?

There have been plenty of other youth organizations that have competed with the Scouts. A couple of notorious ones spring readily to mind, and at the time and place, these programs replaced the Boy Scouts in their respective countries.

Both programs did the same thing scouting did...training youth in Good Citizenship as it applied to them, Physical Fitness, Good Character...but one program was overtly military and prepared men for war, while if you didn't belong to the other program, you probably were not getting into college, or getting a good job. Hell, they probably considered you a subversive danger to society.

Of course, these programs were the Hitler Youth and the Young Pioneers.

The essential difference between the organizations is the government; while Scouting remains ostensibly free from government control, the other two organizations were the official youth organizations of the state.

Nevertheless, I have a bad feeling about this....and I really and truly do not know what I could do about it. It's been 37 years of my life that I've given to this organization. A few of the boys I have watched become men have gone on to military careers, but that's been the exception rather than the rule.