BOY, does IRAQ need SCOUTING!! (20 Sep 10)

(This was originally written in the fall of 2004 as a follow-up to a presentation I did on the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)’s youth programs, to include Scouting, to a Scouting audience.  I was asked to “pitch” why Americans should care about rebuilding a Scouting program in Iraq when (at that time) Americans were being sent overseas without protective body armor or “up armored” vehicles. This was the question:  “It seems that instead of Scouting giving money to Iraq, we should be giving money to General Motors and Chrysler (the manufacturers of a majority of the vehicles used by Coalition military members in Iraq) instead.  Can you make the case why Scouting is so important THERE.”)

As I heard the question being posed to me – not in anger, not in frustration – but rather as a matter-of-fact debate question, my mind reeled back in time to an earlier period.

I was involved in Cub Scouting at the time – the year was 1968.  I overheard two adults talk during our Blue and Gold Banquet.  One adult spoke “You know the Council is removing Czechoslovakia because they’ve turned red and they’re using our programs to “train” kids.”

Not knowing what “red” really meant, I listened for clues from the other adult. “Yeah, they’re closing the border there.  They don’t want us to do anything down around that area.  It seems that the government there is using Scouting to influence the youth in that country – make them march and carry weapons.  They’re gonna be Commies too…”

I got it.  Red as in Communist, not red as in the color red; or the red outline on our circular “Around the world” patches we wear on our right pockets.

As my mind returned to the present, I looked at the audience, moved from behind the podium and stepped off the platform in the hotel ballroom.   I then shared my heart with the audience:

“Okay.  Let’s do away with Scouting.  Many of us have heard the stories – have experienced the yelling, have put up with the fights about the cost of this, that and the other thing…and kids don’t want to really wear a uniform anyhow.  Let’s call up the BSA and say “We all quit!”  But before you do that, consider these four things please.

First, ask yourself, “Who is going to teach MY child and more importantly MY NEIGHBOR’S CHILD about responsible citizenship?”   The schools?  Our schools are already overburdened with trying to teach everything from car repair to sex – all of the things we as parents said, “We don’t have time for, we’re embarrassed about or we’re just not learned enough to teach.  That’s why we have teachers and that’s what we pay them to do, right?”  So who does this teaching and who does the coaching as your child grows up?   Each one of us as parents can indeed teach our children what WE know about citizenship – the idea of one man, one vote; the idea of everyone being able to vote freely; the idea of not being afraid to disagree with or debate – like we’re doing right here, right now – an issue or idea.  But will the things I teach my kids be the same or similar to what you will teach your kids?

No, it won’t.  Each of us brings to our family our own backgrounds, our own heritage and in some of our cases, inequities and instances whereby our citizenship may have been questioned – or worse, denied.

Okay, so we, as parents, all get together and decide that we’ll all teach a set standard of civics topics to our kids. 

Now, let’s talk about character development.”

I smiled because several in the audience start frowning.

“Yes, that’s right.  While we sometimes don’t like the fact that the BSA has held onto many traditional character-based issues, we do know where the BSA stands.  In a country like ours, we are allowed to develop our character in our youth…for good or bad, and the BSA provides a baseline.  A starting point.  A goal, if you want to go that far.   

So, take the BSA out of that equation, leave the character development completely up to us as parents also and hope that there’s enough similarity in what we teach our children and what others are teaching their offspring to ensure a cohesive set of moral character guidelines for the next generation..

Then, there’s the issue of recreation.  You know, since 1910 or so, the BSA has been providing recreational activities for young men and in later years young women as well.  We’ve moved entire groups of kids “off the streets” and “into the woods.”  Many a businessman or woman fondly remembers — with detail – their camping adventures with a Scout unit.  Some recall national and international events in which they grew emotionally, physically and yes, socially.   But forget about that.  Let’s leave recreation, and all of the growing and learning experiences that come with it, to families and communities as well. 

The American Camping Association says that in 2000, the number of individuals camping could be placed in a city the size of Louisville, Kentucky – about a million.  In 1990, that same organization said that you would have to have four or five Louisvilles to house all of the campers – 4.72 million young people were camping in 1990. 

What happened in that ten year period?

Public land for camping became locations for new housing developments.  The emergence of the “big box” retailer – not just “Wally World”, but Best Buy. Target. Bed Bath and Beyond.  Our grocery stores moved from just selling foodstuffs to selling a bit of everything – the local Kroger became a “Super Kroger”, selling flowers, offering a sit-in deli, allowing one to bank, and even rent a car at some locations.  And get this:  a de-emphasis on WILDERNESS CAMPING accompanied by a slight increase in what the ACA calls “warehouse camping.”  All together, it meant that we were no longer pleased with the outdoor adventure of the rolling hills, forest areas and ponds and streams.  Camping too, was to be “manufactured” and only organizations like the BSA would have “real camping places.”

But folks, the BSA have also read those same bad leaves…many of our summer camp operations have been sold or rebuilt to provide “conference venues” for big business in addition to the traditional camping we all grew up with.  So while we may take our children to the State Park, or squeeze in a period of camping at Philmont – we in Scouting no longer say “three quarters of Scouting is outing.”

I am straying a bit from the point: what we in Scouting do is tied to the outdoors…and we need to find, develop and keep those outdoor facilities for young people to use. But hey — we’re not doing Scouting any more, so let’s allow the city and county and maybe the state to provide that recreation for our young people.

Our tax dollars at work, right?”

I then took a small sip of water and then continued.

“The fact that we are all gathered here is my fourth point.  We all have a like mindset, a common goal – we want to do things for young people. We want to affect their future in a positive way.  We value the fact that this is their legacy we’re leaving them.  We care.  In all honesty can we truly say this about all of our fellow parents?  Many of them do care but, as we know, many of them are already stressed from the strain of working, coming home, preparing meals, juggling family schedules, and having time to develop or enhance a relationship with another parent.   Who would help ease the burden of these parents and help teach their children to become better people when we do away with the BSA? 

Do people even KNOW what we provide now?

The only thing that most people know about the corporation called the Boy Scouts of America is that it provides “Boy Scout and Cub Scout Troops”.  See, they don’t even get THAT right – Cub Scouts are organized into PACKS.  But that’s about all they know.  They may know some other elements – “Eagle Scout”, for instance.   They might know something they’ve heard about the “Order with the Arrow.”  But they lack education in what the BSA does otherwise. 

 For instance, some of you – many of you – know about the “Learning for Life” programs.

They “took our Explorers” and made them something else.  Very few of you are aware that in some 5000 school systems – public and private – around our nation, that the Learning for Life programs are embedded within the school curriculum.  At the same time that they are being taught math, science and social studies – they are being taught American citizenship, character and ethics, and health and well-being.  All without someone serving as a “Scoutmaster” and without someone becoming an “Eagle Scout.”

Our career exploration program – Exploring – continues to do the same things it did for our young men and women that it did when it was part of the “uniformed BSA”. We can argue over why it was important or not that the BSA moved it from one side to the other side – but ladies and gentlemen, we cannot fight over the value that Exploring continues to have in many of our cities and towns.

Many of you know that your success as a Scouter is not entirely your own doing – you had help. Other parents, community leaders or shakers, a volunteer called a Commissioner, sometimes a professional member of the BSA – all helped you and I out, wanting us to succeed. 

Without a “BSA”, who would do those things to help those parents and teachers?  Who would bring together different generations and different segments of the community, not to mention people of different social, economic, racial and religious backgrounds and unite them in the common goal of creating a better tomorrow for our children?

So those four things – citizenship, character, recreation and adult modeling – those are the things that WE would lose here in the United States if we gave the BSA “the middle finger” and moved on our own accords.

To answer your direct question, “Why should we invest in an Iraqi Scouting Association?” I think I’ve answered them in this overview.  Substitute “Iraq” or “Iraqi” for “American” and you’ve got a good idea why. 

Let me be a little more direct, however.

Without a citizenship based program in Iraq, the three warring factions will continue to hate and despise each other – there would be no “coming together of a country” under any kind of circumstances because families and clerics will continue to tell their offspring and faithful that “what WE are doing is right, and what OTHERS are doing is wrong.” From parent to child to grandchild, the existing status quo will keep going because there will be nothing there to change it. 

Without a character or ethics based program in Iraq, how can anyone get past the suicide bombers; or the young men and women who are finding weapons in the streets or in buildings and instead of turning them in – are storing and using them later? 

Without a recreational program in that country, what will the young people do “for fun”?  Right now, “for fun” they are blowing up Coalition vehicles and buildings while taking “pot shots” in the direction of Coalition personnel.  They’re bored.  They’ve been fighting and watching fighting and witnessing death some since birth – they need something DIFFERENT, something which will offer them a CHALLENGE – a challenge to build instead of destroying.

Without adult role models – POSITIVE adult role models – many of those kids will “be born by the sword, grow up by the sword, and die by the sword.”  “

 I showed a photo of a proud boy, holding a military weapon as to say “See, I’m gonna be just like Daddy”.   I continued onward.

 “And one day, those Coalition members as well as those working in the International Zone — what we call the “Green Zone” – will be going home. With that, go all of those wonderful men and women who were providing modeling to their Iraqi counterparts. 

The “Green Zone Council”, by the way, is NOT a BSA local Council.  It was a name given to the Iraqi Scouting Association effort which “stuck” unfortunately when it started.  Its goal is NOT to create a “Boy Scouts of America” local Council in Iraq and then to turn it over at some point in time.   The purpose of the movement is to permit Iraqis to redevelop, retool and build their OWN national Scouting association, using their OWN citizenship and character values.

If, through the money I donate and the time I spend, I can convince one boy or girl that the “path to Allah” is not through the destruction of other human lives; that they do not have to “die by the sword” to be an honorable man; and there are other youth close to his own age who are discovering that Iraq is not “in a bowl by itself” but rather a part of the global “bowl” – maybe, just maybe I can make a small dent.   This is why I support the “Green Zone Council’s” efforts, why I volunteered to be on its steering committee in the early days of the former CPA, and why I feel so passionate about the future of the Boy Scouting movement in Iraq as well as in my own country.

Recently the Cable News Network (CNN) and the Associated Press (AP) both ran stories about the revelation of a set of videos displaying young Iraqis – as young as our Cub Scout aged boys — involved in training sessions to become fighters:

“Al Qaeda in Iraq wants to poison the next generation of Iraqis,” said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith during a Baghdad news conference about the release of the tape.

The video, he said, showed boys, “many below age 11” being used “to produce the next generation of al Qaeda.”

Masked boys are seen in the tape armed with grenade launchers, AK-47s and pistols. They’re standing in front of a black banner hung on a wall, shouting slogans. Another video shows a boy, surrounded by automatic weapons and wearing a suicide vest, according to The Associated Press.

Also in the video, armed boys in black hoods, with weapons pointed, shout and force a man off his bicycle, search a car, and clear a building while a male voice off camera instructs them.

Scouting – that program some of us want to distance ourselves from – could provide a counterweight. Even out things.  Provide an alternative – another choice for those youth.   This is why guys like me are constantly asking people like you to help us rebuild the Iraqi Scouting Association through your prayers and good thoughts as well as through your financial support.

It may be a little too late.  I sincerely hope not.

Settummanque!