The Boy Scouts, now called Scouting America, has always emphasized a service component. Be it cleaning up beaches, repairing trails, or helping on service projects, it was part of being in the Scouts. It wasn’t really thought of back then as service but just chores you did as a Scout so you could go camping and hiking.
This service component is build into obtaining Eagle Scout as it required a significant service project. In my case, I did two:
- I placed and recovered a large number of mosquito traps at Skidaway Island to track mosquito population growth. This was perfect for me as I got to tramp through the forest and marshes of a back then mostly undeveloped island.
- I and a team of scouts worked with the National Park service to build a full-sized replica of a cannon fighting position at Fort Pulaski National Monument. It was dome shaped and involved fill a large number of sandbags. I was surprised to see it still in operation some 40 years later.
I was elected by my troop to join the Order of the Arrow which is a service organization within the Scouts. I became a Brotherhood member and was elected a lodge officer of the Tomo Chichi Lodge. You can see a picture of the 17 year old me below. I enjoyed the more service oriented nature of the Order as I grew older and looked for opportunities to give back to the community.
As an aside and a service announcement, Order of the Arrow lodges take the name of a local American Indian hero. In Savannah, Ga that was Tomo Chi-Chi Lodge. Regrettably, tomo chi-chi translates to something completely different in Spanish much to the amusement of everyone in Mexico when a bunch of teenage boys showed up wearing a tomo chi chi badge on their uniform.
Almost every camping trip involved some service work as well as a Saturday night campfire. After everyone had eaten, there would be the telling and demonstration of the ancient Indian ritual of the drawing of the clear-throated Moon. Because boys are completely oblivious, this would take 15-20 minutes before they could draw a clear-throated moon. We would follow this by the singing of Flea Fly Fo. Normally we would do three rounds with the pace dramatically increasing between the rounds. We would finish by linking arms and singing scout vespers (lyrics are at the bottom of this page).
I didn’t participate as a cadet or at Fort Bragg but when we were living in Italy. The local troop needed some assistant scoutmasters. Eileen and I volunteered and somehow both of us won assistant scoutmaster of the year. Later, I would become troop scoutmaster for a couple of years. Only Curtis was born at this time so we didn’t have any kids in the Scouts, we were just helping out. Every month we were on an Italian island or at an abandoned fort camping out and enjoying the Italian countryside.
There were two humorous stories that emerged from my time as scoutmaster:
- One of the “rules” of the troop was that the adults cooked for the adults and the boys cooked for the boys. Working at a genius level of lack of attention to detail, the boys always forgot some essential element to cooking. They forgot matches. They forgot water. They forgot oil. They forgot soap to clean the pans. They forgot pans but brought soap. They bought completely frozen cornish hens and kept them frozen without considering how they were going to cook them on the trail. They learned searing lessons on the importance of planning while entertaining the adults with a nightly, completely unintended, comedy routine.
- One of the annual service projects we did was to clean the “American” beach at Pisa, Italy late in the Spring. The boys would work all day and the adults would cook hamburgers and hot dogs for their lunch. On one of these service project days, we could not find the boys. We searched and quickly discovered they had all congregated to watch a beach volleyball game. Of laughing, openly flirting young ladies. I guess I should mention they were all topless as was not uncommon in Italy in the 1980s. Much to their dismay and intense protest, we got the boys back to work away from the young ladies.
At West Point, I became a merit badge counselor to assist the local troop as our boys were really not interested in the boy scouts. We continue to support Scouting America financially and it may be something I volunteer for in retirement again.
Scout Vespers
Softly falls the light of day,
As our campfire fades away.
Silently, each Scout should ask
Have I done my daily task?
Have I kept my honor bright?
Can I guiltless sleep tonight?
Oh, have I done and have I dared
Everything to be prepared?
I sang this song every night I camped with the Boy Scouts. It became a habit of the mind.