I had every intention of responding to this thread earlier today and actually had a rather long post prepared... then I thought to edit it and, just as I got it perfect, ended up with a "you waited to long and got timed out" message.... thats probably a good thing because it gave me time to reflect and rethink what I was originally going to say....


Scout Leaders like DUG and I devote huge amounts of our time to the Scouting program. We were told "one hour a week" of volunteer time would be all the commitment required of us. What we weren't initially told was that the "one hour a week" was per child we would touch the lives of. So... take the 15 or so boys in our separate troops... thats 15 hours a week each for us... now take what we teach those boys and then they take it and teach.. lets say two friends each. So now we've taken the 15 boys (hours) a week and multiplied it to 60 boys (hours) per week... thats more time then I spend at the office (and not really an exaggeration most weeks).

Do we do it because we enjoy spending all of our vacation time and spare money on other peoples children? No.

Do we do it because we get paid to do it? No...

We do it "for the boys" because no one else seems willing to step up and do it. The culture of todays youth tends to revolve around electronic entertainment and a near complete lack of physical activities (and no... the WII Sports doesn't count. Sorry) and most parents/adults seem to be Ok with that. Childhood obesity is at an all time high... and National Park visitation by people under 20 is at an all time low. Programs like the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts work to combat both of those problems.People like DUG and I (and the other leaders I've spoken to on this board, within my community, and in my travels) are the instruments of that combat.

I don't know how many of you followed the link at the bottom of that LA Times article to the list of the 32 "Scouting" related deaths in the last 5 years... but I did. Then I spent two hours researching articles and specifics (as much as I could find) on each of those deaths. Everyone on this board is right... some of those deaths were completely preventable and should never have happened. BSA looks at each and every incident and accident with a finely focused microscope and does its best to learn from them...

In January of 2010 Ian Miller was killed when sledding. He was not wearing head gear and fell backwards off his sled, hitting his head in the process. After this happened BSA, having previously "suggested" helmets for such activities, made them mandatory.

In 2008 4 boys were killed by a tornado while camping in Iowa. It happened in the middle of the night, struck them completely unawares, and there were no sirens because of teh remote area where they were camping. The surviving Scouts rendered first response to the injured and dying, possibly saving lives. After this incident the BSA instituted a training called the Hazardous Weather training. It is mandatory for at least one Leader on each outing to have this training.

Sean Whitley died as a result of burns suffered from something called a "fire ring" in 2008. One of his buddies was messing around with alcohol, a type of fuel allowed at the time for backpacking stoves, and poured the fuel directly on the the fire. The flame backtracked up the bottle and the boy panicked, throwing the now flaming bottle. Sean and one other Scout were injured, Sean succumbed to his injuries three days later. BSA no longer allows the use of that type of fuel within our organization.

Going down the rest of the list there is everything from river raft drownings to lightening strikes, tree falls to being ran over by a parade float. Were every single one of these deaths preventable? No... there were some that were complete flukes of nature and some that were health related and beyond anyones control.

In most of them the leaders did absolutely nothing wrong and actually did everything they could to prevent the accidents. But accidents do happen. The girls in 2005 were sitting 15 feet away from the base of a tree, in the shade, when the trunk suddenly split and fell on their picnic table, striking and killing 8 year old Kelly.

Some of them were completely preventable... and lessons were learned from them.

I guess what this rambling monologue is actually trying to say is this.... people like DUG and I devote our everything to our Scouts and others. I don't know about DUG but I, personally, am not only involved with my Scouts at a Troop level... but am on the District AND Council level training teams to share my knowledge and experiences with other Leaders. We all take what we do very seriously and, even if no insult is intended... tend to get defensive when someone has something negative to say about something that is so much a part of us.

It's like I tell my boys whenever we're out in the community. You are a representative of not only your Troop and Council... but of Boy Scouts of America as a whole. If you're out there messing around and doing something that you aren't supposed to be doing then it reflects badly on all of us... not just on you. People aren't going to look at you and say "What a little brat" ... they're going to look at you and say "Man... he's supposed to be a Scout???"

The same goes for the leadership... people look at that leader that took his Scouts through chest deep snow and split his troop... or the leader who let his Boys go climbing on some natural arches and try to leap a 6' gap between them... and they say "Thats supposed to be a Scout Leader.... Wow....". I take it personally when someone does something stupid that I have to be held accountable for... because that is what happens whenever a leader makes a mistake or does something dumb that results in something tragic. Every single leader in the entire organization is held liable for that childs injury/death, because we are every leader...

When something negative happens it overshadows every positive thing that the Scouts have ever done. No one thinks about the Sea Scouts who save the life of the abandoned diver off the L.A. coast. Or the Scouts who rescued the severely injured hiker in the Appalachians and took them to safety. Or the Eagle Scouts who have been Military Leaders, Presidents, or walked on the Moon....

I seem to be running out of steam.. but I think I got out everything I wanted to say. No... we were not personally responsible for that childs death on that snowy cliff. Yes... we will bristle up when we feel our organization is being unjustly judged. Yes... we will continue to do what we do... despite what anyone else thinks of us...

Just my two cents worth...
Chris... aka SoCalGirl
Troop 363 Assistant Scoutmaster
Troop 363 Outdoor Chairman
Crew 363 Assistant Advisor
Crew 1833 Adult Support Member
Heartland District Training Team
San Diego-Imperial County Council Training Team
Proud Mother of a Life ranked Boy Scout
Proud Mother of a female Venture Crew Scout....