Who here was a scout/guide

[HEyHEY]

I was for two years I think. It was mostly one of those experiences where you don't know why you stay in but you do. I was in a patrol full of badasses too, which was funny cause they all happened to come from my neighbourhood. My best friend and I were mostly inoccent bystanders but some of the shit they did was priceless.
I remember once they knocked down the outhouse at camp, once we all peed on the entrance to other scout's snowcaves. 8 on 1 beat up a 13-year-old venture for facewashing one of our crew.
Man it was nuts. Throwing snowballs at cars was another, til one time someone turned it to rocks and my patrol wasn't allowed outside during meetings anymore. The campouts always sucked though, I'd always end up shaking with fear and cold at five am.

Were you in scouts? How was it?

[Screaming Lord Byron]

1. I was a Patrol Leader.

I massively abused my position.

[HEyHEY]

3. "Wash my bike"

I was AP for about two hours....but I couldn't stop laughing so I was stripped of my prestigious title.

[Beware the Beast Man]

2. I was in scouts, up to First Class.

Got high at camp once! (that was right before I quit)

[CO Liberal]

9. Me, Too

I was also a Patrol Leader, for about a year. Then they took all us Patrol Leaders and moved us in to a Senior Patrol to give other guys a chance to advance.

[GOPisEvil]

4. I'm an Eagle Scout.

I have to say I learned a lot during my years in Scouting. I met some people who are still my friends 20 years later. Overall, it was a positive experience for me.

Having said that, I feel the Scouting in the US has been overtaken by narrow-minded bigots and has deviated from it's true course.

[HEyHEY]

5. I remember being pissed when they tried to make us go to church

That lasted about one campout before the revoloution happened

[GOPisEvil]

6. Very few in my troop attended church regularly.

We were sponsored by the PTA of a school. Religion wasn't pushed on us at all.

[HEyHEY]

7. I was such a little savage I didn't understand what we were doing

until halfway through the "service" then I got angry...then my mom freaked out when I told her because she hates religion

[GOPisEvil]

8. We were much more interested in partying and heavy metal music.

:D

[Xithras]

13. Same here.

Technically the oath swears allegiance to god, which makes the BSA a quasi religious organization. They have fuzzed their definition of God so that it can apply to pretty much any religion (there are even special badges that can only be achieved by people of various faiths...like Islam), but they do require some type of religion. I'm sufficiently agnostic so that it's never been a problem, and we have never asked any of the boys in our pack to attend any kind of religious service or say any kind of prayer.

What happens on occassion, sadly, is that a fundie will get into a position of power and try to use that religious requirement to push religious indoctrination. This practice is actually opposed by the BSA (all children should be allowed to practice their faiths how they see fit), but the organization is so decentralized that it's difficult to do anything about these pack and den leaders.

[Xithras]

10. Was a scout, now a den leader.

Loved it as a kid, still love it today :) Of course, my kids (wolf scouts) aren't quite old enough to do campouts in the forest yet (we did a campout at the local elementary school recently), but we have a lot of fun building boats for the raingutter regatta, taking dayhikes through the local state parks, and educating ourselves about the environment and our responsibilities towards the world and each other. We're a very liberal bunch :)

[Birthmark]

11. I was in Scouts for a long time.

Got about three or four merit badges away from Eagle when we moved to the boonies where the nearest troop was too far away.

[HEyHEY]

12. DAMN YOU MOM AND DAAAADD!!!

[Birthmark]

15. I'm optimistic that your curse will be granted.

:)

[Bonhomme Richard]

14. LOL, I never made it past tenderfoot because all..............

I wanted to do was go camping.
As it turned out my oldest son earned Life Scout and my youngest son earned his Eagle.

Where did they come from????????

[Gothmog]

16. I am scout leader and my son is an Eagle

Scouting is a great program except for the issues on gays. Luckily there are a large number of people inside the program who are working to change Scouting from the inside. It is a slow process but some results are being achieved.

Scouting was great from my son and I am still active as a leader.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. I was in Brownies and absolutely loved it

We met at the home of a classmate whose family business was raising Shetland ponies. Can you imagine a more enchanting meeting place for a bunch of girls ages eight through ten?

I was in Girl Scouts for a while, too, and earned my Second Class badge. I was all eager to keep going and get one of those cool badge sashes and my First Class badge, but we then moved to another town that didn't have a decent Girl Scout troop.

[Kellanved]

18. I was:

about one decade in the DPSG (in theory that's catholic scouts; but catholics were a small minority in the group)

Alos it was very different from what many American scout packs seem to be.

No ranks, no commands, no patrols, no girl/boy separation - basically just having a good time camping, hiking, and hiking to get a few casks of beer and cider to the camp. We did have uniforms though.

[liontamer]

19. I was a girl scout

I really liked it. I gave it up for external reasons but I really think that girl scouting is a great empowering thing. Heck the slogan at the time was "the girl always come first in girl scouting". How funny is that?

[tigereye]

20. GIirl Scout from Brownie all the way to Senior- 12 years?

had all the badges, pins, sash, etc. out the wazoo. It was a lot of fun. Lots of camping and time spent with cool mentoring adults. My brothers were Scouts too. Unfortunately my husband is opposed to my son becoing a Scout due to the homophobia thing. :( Maybe if we could find a really liberal pack - which shouldn't be too hard around here. I don't ever remember religion or weird politicization ever entering into Scouting in the past.

[liontamer]

21. girl scouting is free from it

It's boy scouting that's weird. Maybe you can find a girl scout troop that would accept your son? I knew boys that did girl scouting with us, of course they generally had sisters in the troop but you never know.

[tigereye]

24. weird huh

wonder why it is a problem with the Boy Scouts and not the GS. Not a bad idea actually. Thanks.

[pscot]

22. I was a scout until one day at a camp-out

the scoutmaster showed us how to suck the insides out of a raw egg. I felt that this was more information than I needed. I never went back.

[greekspeak]

23. Boy Scout here

My father thought it built "character." I was a Boy Scout from 1984-1989, before which time I was a cub/webelo scout. I was a patrol leader for several terms, and made it to Assistant Senior Patrol Leader. I got a lot of merit badges, and camped out all the time.

I use "character" loosly. There were fights at nearly every meeting. Any chance for adults to act like children wanting to be adults was taken advantage of. There were men a lot of the children were literally frightened of because they might "touch" them. There were secret rituals at camp that I was scared to death of having to go through, because I did not know what happened. People would be snatched from their tents in the night and taken out for induction. Then they would reappear in a day or o and not be allowed to talk for the rest of camp.

Strangely, it was at boy scout camp that I started my journey to atheism. One year at camp, I reached the height of my fundie fervor. I made a friend of mine cry because I told him he was going to hell for not going to vespers every night. By the end of the week, I was questioning what I was saying. What did it was that a religious leader at te camp informed us that everyone who did not accept Christ would go to hell. Including those that died before Jesus "came to earth." I began wondering what kind of God would be so aweful.

Boy Scouts...what an experience.