[July 2, 2017] Many young boys have had the opportunity to belong to the Boy Scouts and learn about good character development, citizenship, and personal fitness. My son Sean and I spent many days camping and enjoying activities that a small town environment encourages through the local Boy Scout program.
The scouting experience embodies those essential values key to a thriving, diverse, successful society and leadership. I just re-entered scouting now that my retirement allows me to do things I most want to do. Locally, I joined a Boy Scout troop in a small town close to my home where the boys show their eagerness to have fun and learn those things rarely taught in school anymore.
Being around the boys – as well as the adult leaders – is a positive experience that cannot be replicated elsewhere. In just a couple of week’s time I will be at their summer camp doing more to help them become better citizens and better people; something I also worked hard at during my military service.
I live in southern New Jersey where their scouting programs are largely centered on small town values and where the family and religion are prized. The pace of life is a little slower than the big city, New York City, where I moved from just this past December. That additional time gives me more time to give back to the community through.
My son is a better man and better father, in part because of his time with the boy scouts. As part of his Eagle Scout project, he designed and built an outdoor nature-walk bulletin board. It was accomplished with the help of his scouting friends. He is now a registered architect and outdoor enthusiast where he lives in a small town in Colorado.
One of the questions I had raised in the U.S. Army was why young men and women from rural America made for better soldiers. We wanted to replicate this in the bigger cities. What we discovered was that small towns are more likely to involve their younger boys and girls in scouting programs, church, and sports programs than their counterparts from urban areas.
I for one was not surprised. The Army never followed up on what to do about this discrepancy between rural and urban kids but they at least recognized the value of small towns in producing good citizens that came with values similar to those needed in the U.S. military.
“I still remember the entire Boy Scout motto. I don’t remember the serial number of my gun in the army. I don’t remember the number of my locker in school. But I remember that Boy Scout code.” – Tommy Lasorda, American Major League Baseball player and coach for the Brooklyn/Lost Angeles Dodgers organization
What adventure awaits our boys at this upcoming summer camp is to be determined but I’m sure they will remember this trip for the rest of their lives and it will help make them a better person.
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