I Am An Eagle Scout

I joined the Boy Scouts in 1962 directly out of Cub Scouts. Webelos was just being offered as a test program, and boys had the option of doing that for six months or going directly into Boy Scouts. I opted for the big boy program.

In the Fall, of 1963, we moved from Mentor, Ohio, and I did not get around to joining the Boy Scouts again until the Summer of 1964. I also never got around to transferring my membership from Troop 104 in Mentor, so I started again with Troop 11 in Paducah, Kentucky.

I was, therefore, a Tenderfoot, a Second Class Scout, and a First Class Scout twice.

Thus, I only made Eagle Scout just a few months before my 18th birthday - at which point I would have aged out of Boy Scouts. I ended up with 36 merit badges - 15 more than the 21 required for the rank of Eagle, and enough for three palms. I never received the palms, however, because of the six month required waiting period between becoming an Eagle Scout and receiving any palms. Oh well, I am still an Eagle Scout.

I wrote that I am "still an Eagle Scout" for a reason. Over the years, when discussing my career in Boy Scouts - including several years working as an Assistant Scoutmaster with Troop 5 in Petoskey, Michigan - people have invariably asked me whether "I was an Eagle Scout." I invariably have replied, "I am still an Eagle Scout!"

I have also told them that I have only ever heard of one person who had their rank of Eagle Scout revoked. That would be Charles Whitman, the shooter in the Texas Tower Massacre, who killed 13 people, and injured 31 others in Austin, Texas in 1966, shooting from the bell tower at the University of Texas.

I believe shooting all of those people with a high-powered rifle is a violation of the admonition in the Scout Oath to "keep myself morally straight" as well as being a violation of multiple of the Twelve Points of the Scout Law.

I don't know about the recent Las Vegas shooter, but if he was an Eagle Scout, his rank needs to be revoked as well!

Quakertrucker