{"id":549,"date":"2011-11-11T11:11:12","date_gmt":"2011-11-11T16:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/?p=549"},"modified":"2011-11-10T23:39:47","modified_gmt":"2011-11-11T04:39:47","slug":"issue-276-antithetical-scouting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/netcommissioner.com\/askandy\/2011\/11\/issue-276-antithetical-scouting\/","title":{"rendered":"Issue 276 – Antithetical Scouting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWar has been, for almost all peoples and all times, the purest test of manhood,\u201d stated Evan Thomas, editor at both Time<\/em> and Newsweek<\/em> and author of The War Lovers<\/em> (Little Brown & Company, 2011).\u00a0 Scouting, Boy Scouting specifically, has been accused for decades of being an organization invested particularly in preparing young men for military service, war, direct combat, in fact. These accusations have used as underpinning Scouts\u2019 care and use of knives, fire-building, uniforms and\u2014however crudely\u2014marching, compass-and-map skills, and\u2014in days gone by\u2014signaling and stalking.\u00a0 The irony is that nothing, from a practical standpoint, could be further from the truth.<\/p>\n

Now there\u2019s no question but that, at large, our nation\u2019s military and law enforcement personnel exhibit a far greater propensity to have been Scouts members than those choosing other careers.\u00a0 But here\u2019s the rub: It\u2019s not the uniforms or the manual skills that engender the desire to pursue these careers; it\u2019s the sense of duty to country and the spirit of serving that has been instilled in these young Americans that carry them forward onto these paths.\u00a0 Think about it\u2026<\/p>\n

In Scouting, we learn that earning ranks and merit badges isn\u2019t a race to the finish line, where there\u2019s only one winner and everyone else is second place or less.\u00a0 Instead, every Scout has the same opportunity to advance himself, without ever taking anything away from a fellow Scout.\u00a0 We learn that, even when there are inter-patrol competitions, the game isn\u2019t to the swiftest or most adroit, it\u2019s to the patrol that works together as a team\u2014all pulling together toward the same goal.\u00a0 We learn that a Scout aspiring to the rank of Eagle can\u2019t achieve this unless and until he wins and then manages the cheerful cooperation of his fellows.\u00a0 We learn that literally all of the positions of responsibility a Scout can hold\u2014from Assistant Patrol Leader to Senior Patrol Leader and even Junior Assistant Scoutmaster\u2014are founded on the principle of serving others.\u00a0 We learn that all leadership training available to these Scouts is grounded in the ideal of the \u201cservant-leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

In my time, I\u2019ve had the opportunity to speak with Scouts who have gone on to West Point, Quantico, Annapolis, and The Ramparts, and they all say the same thing about how their Scouting experience helped them along the way.\u00a0 It\u2019s not knowing how to build a fire that helped them succeed; it\u2019s the learned skill of gaining and leading cooperation that made all the difference. But it doesn\u2019t stop there; there\u2019s more.\u00a0 Anyone can be put in charge, they told me, but that doesn\u2019t make him a leader; it\u2019s how he treats his squad or platoon that makes the difference: When he puts himself above the rest of us, he\u2019ll fail and so will we; when he understands that his job is to put us first, we all succeed.<\/p>\n

The late Major Richard Winter, of Easy Company, 506th<\/sup> PIR, 101st<\/sup> Airborne Division, U.S. Army, who wrote \u201cLeadership at the Point of the Bayonet\u201d (Beyond Band of Brothers, The War Memoirs of Major Dick Winters<\/em>, by Dick Winters and Cole Kingseed, New York: Berkley Publishing Group, 2006), put it this way:<\/p>\n