Running With the Turtles - Scene One

Running with the Turtles               The bags lay packed on the living room floor; my old Army duffel bag, an old Army ruck sack donated by another Scout parent who serves in the National Guard, and a few smaller bags, plastic grocery store bags containing coffee pots, flatware, cooking utensils, and random sundry items for camp.  A few short hours later our vehicle would be loaded and headed down the highway to the local Boy Scout Ranch where my son and a group of his fellow young men along with myself and a couple other adult volunteer leaders would be camping for the week in those waning days of June in Missouri, when the temperatures would hover around ninety degrees or mostly closer to a hundred.  It was going to be the experience of a lifetime, not just for those boys but also for myself.             As a young boy I had joined Cub Scouts along with several of my friends, it was to be an extension of our friendship, a place to continue our make believe playgrounds wars fought against pretend enemies, a place to hone our woodcraft skills; the ability to build fires, make shelter, survive off the land.  But our experience never got to that point, after several meetings in a Den Mother's home and a failed Pinewood Derby experience, the Den was dismantled after it came to light that she would often yell and curse in front of us young Cub Scouts.  I had earned my Bobcat rank and was close to completing my Wolf requirements but I never had a chance to complete those requirements.  I became an ex-Cub Scout, forever resigned to never feel the exhilaration of being awarded that red rank badge with the Wolf's head on it.              My father encouraged me to join the Cub Scouts, I believe, out of a chance to correct his own failures in Scouting.  I learned much later, after his death, that he was a Boy Scout in the days leading up to the Second World War.  His family lived in a small home on the edge of farm country.  The Depression had hit them hard, his older brothers already gone to Tennessee to work for the government.  Father had followed in the tradition of his own parent, and his older brothers, with a love of the outdoors.  Hunting, fishing, and camping were not new to him as he joined the local Scout Troop.  When the war broke out, his older brothers left the work camps and joined the military, one in the navy and one the army.  Far too young to join the military service, his father and his Boy Scout Troop led recycling drives, collecting tin cans, tires, and old newspapers.  He, according to his old Scout Master, whom I had the chance to interview before he died at the age of 97, was a natural born leader.  It all changed, though, his chance to become an Eagle Scout, Boy Scouting's highest rank in America, when his family received the worst news possible.  Both sons had perished, within days of each other, in two separate accidents.                        The eldest brother, a Private in Uncle Sam's Army, had been shot during a live fire accident during his Basic Training.  An explosion during a training exercise had gone off close to his crouching position, causing him to reflexively stiffen up, sitting up a bit too much it seemed, because a machine gun round caught him on the side of his skull.  His father had told the story many times; his uncle had not been killed instantly but lingered in the hospital for a week before finally succumbing to his injuries.  He died three days after his brother, the Navy electrician that was caught in an accident with a floating mine.  The electrician, my father's idol growing up to that point, was a handsome man with plenty of potential.  A star athlete for the High School basketball team and baseball teams prior to a three-year study at a University in the East, he was forced from his studies by the Depression and the family's need.  He was aboard ship, which was scheduled to depart the California coast on its first mission, just gathering his gear before going dock side for the evening when a shipment of floating land mines fell on deck.  The crane that had been loading the mines, along with other last minute gear and supplies, malfunctioned and the shipment fell twenty feet.  The former star athlete and college student had been maybe twelve feet from the explosion, according to ship mates I had found online, and was killed instantly.              The family was devastated by the double fatality.  Grandpa began to drink heavily, barely able to maintain his meager employment at the local laundry.  My father's mother, ever the stoic woman, immersed herself into her work, at a local shirt factory that had been converted to make uniforms for the military.  She worked longer hours, leaving her only son to care for his father, making meals and dealing with his drunken outrages and drunken depressive mood swings.  Father was never able to finish his Eagle Scout rank, never returned to the Scouting program again.  He was denied the exhilaration of earning the rank, denied being able to impress his parents and his brothers, now forever taken from him.  His boyhood ended that summer.             By guiding me into the Cub Scouts, my father was trying to fulfill his own dream, but after the other parents, my mother included, basically dissolved the Den because of the Den Mother's behavior which was discovered after one of my friends repeated one of her more colorful expletives in front of his own mother when they removed us all from it.  My father was a very busy, he had just began his own business, which had been so successful he had launched two franchise locations and was branching off into another, separate venture, and this prevented him from being able to focus on my own Scouting career, short as it was.  He was unable to take over the Den, and in those days Den Mothers ran the Cub Scout program, except the head spot, Cub Master, a leadership position which was still required to be held by a man.  My experience with Cub Scouts, and Boy Scouts, was limited and would never be fulfilled as a youth.             Father later encouraged me, as I approached adulthood, to join the military.  He thought the experience would be good for me.  "It will make you a man," he used to say.  I always thought turning 18 made you a man; at least it did in the eyes of the law.  Legally you were an adult, you could vote and you could be called to serve on a jury, you could be drafted, if there was a draft again, and you were for all intents and purposes an adult.  It was not until I joined the military and faced reality and the global world on my own that I realized what he meant, and I had not been prepared.  But that was years ago, and as we approached the Boy Scout Ranch I began to wonder if I had been pushing my own son.             I hadn't, if anything I had tried to dissuade him.  I had not sought out Cub Scouts for my son; in fact the opposite was true.  My only son, sandwiched between two daughters, had brought home a flyer during his first grade year.  JOIN CUB SCOUTING, the flyer proclaimed.  A meeting was being held in the Elementary School Cafeteria giving parents and students the opportunity to learn about Cub Scouts and, if interested, the ability to join a local Cub Scout Pack.  My son was hooked, before we ever arrived, he was bound and determined in wanting to join.  Perhaps he also wanted to extend his playground activities beyond the playground and into the Den Meetings with his school chums, perhaps he wanted to learn scout craft; learning to build shelters, live off the land, and build fires, learn how to whittle, about animals and bugs, I am not certain but want to learn he did, and does.  The price wasn't very expensive, a few dollars but it was also a commitment.  As a first grade student, barely seven-years old, your son, a new Tiger Cub member of the Cub Scout Pack had to be accompanied by one of his parents.  No matter my work commitments, no matter my hobbies, or other distractions, my son, my children, always came, and always will come, first.  I was a Cub Scout Parent and would be as long as my son wanted to be a Cub Scout.              I was content to be a Cub Scout Parent.  I would attend Den Meetings and Pack Meetings with my son.  We participated in parades, food drives, and fundraisers.  I even began to attend Committee Meetings, where the activities and ceremonies, where finances and outings were discussed.  Not content to just set back when my son's Den lost its leader, I found myself an Adult Volunteer.  The first year, his Tiger Cub year, he graduated along with three other boys.  The next year those four, along with two others who joined, earned their Wolf rank, that prized red badge I had been forever denied.  Most of the boys remained the next few years, some dropping out only to return later, a few forever gone and a couple new faces.  Through their Bear rank and through both years of the Webelos program, my son and his buddy were the only ones to see it through, each year.  Through numerous camp outs, five Pinewood Derby races, several food drives, and fundraisers, the two completed all the requirements and earned their Arrow of Light award, the highest award in the Cub Scouts program.              When he was first joining Cub Scouts, as a barely seven-year old boy, I asked him what he wanted out of the program.  He gave me two answers; "to spend time just you and me, dad" and "to earn my Eagle Scout".  Together we worked him and me, both of us learning, both of us growing.  I had already made my life decisions long ago, but his future was, and continues to be, one of his own making and I wanted him to be prepared.  If his experience in Cub Scouts, and his experience as he continued into Boy Scouts, has taught him anything it is that he should be prepared.  More than just a motto, it should be a mantra for each and every American, each and every human being; be prepared.  Be prepared for anything and everything.  Which is exactly why when the rains began to fall that first night of Boy Scout Summer Camp we all had our rain gear; ponchos and rain jackets, the whole entire Troop was prepared.              My son's buddy, the one that completed the Cub Scout program with him, didn't move on to Boy Scouts.  His focus was on sports, particularly football, and as much as he enjoyed himself on outings and events, he didn't see himself as a Boy Scout and had gotten everything he thought he wanted out of the program.  I tried to talk my own son out of continuing.  Was he positive this was what he wanted?  Was he committed to it?  He wasn't going to join, making a commitment to another six to seven years of hard work, just to quit if it got difficult.  "I want to be an Eagle Scout, Dad," he told me again.  Together we both became members of the local Boy Scout Troop, him as a youth member and me as an Adult Volunteer, again.  I continued to stay on with the Cub Scout program, helping other young Cub Scouts earn their red Wolf badges, orange Tiger Cub rank patch or blue Bear rank patches but now I was a member of the Boy Scout Troop Committee.  They wanted me to become the new Scout Master after the long-time Scout Master took time away from the role.  I refused, at first.  I was not experienced enough, in my opinion.  I had served with the United States Army during the First Persian Gulf War, in the early 1990s, but I was not ready to become a leader of pre-teen and teenaged boys in the woods on outings or on the water during canoe trips, I was not responsible enough, approaching forty-years old myself, I was not mature enough.  Of course, I didn't tell the Committee that, I told them I refused until I had become fully trained.              I had been a Cub Scout leader for six years, through my son's own five-year commitment and an additional year before I became a fully trained Cub Scout leader.  The Cub Scout program requires Adult Volunteers to receive training within six months of joining, however my work schedule always made catching the training sessions difficult, and after an old war injury prevented me from continuing the type of work I had been doing and forced me into an early retirement, then finances proved to be the problem.  I eventually did attend Cub Scout Leader Training Classes.  I had attended Youth Protection Training, a mandatory, no getting out of it, training that was held at our Cub Scout Pack's meeting location, a local church.  Those training sessions, held every year or two, were free of charge and convenient.  They protected the Adult and taught the Adults how to recognize if a child was being abused and how to react and report it properly.   But the training of how a Cub Scout Pack should operate, how to run a Den Meeting, how the District and Council works, all that was old hat to me.  When my son had joined, as a Tiger Cub, we had gone to the nearby city, like my father and me those years ago, to buy a uniform for my son and his handbook.  I had also bought myself the Adult Leader manual, even though I was not an Adult Leader at that point.  It had made sense, almost as if I could tell I would one day be a leader, but it made sense to me to know as much as I could about the program.  To this very day, that Manual stays near by bed side, where I've often taken out it, or my Boy Scout Handbook, or my Boy Scoutmaster Handbook, and referenced it when I've had a question about the program, or how to deal with a particular situation.  So Adult Leader Training, Cub Scout Adult Leader Training, seemed redundant to me and I didn't see the sense in going, but to be on the level, and to be considered fully trained, I finally did attend.  But I wasn't going to be a Boy Scout Troop Scoutmaster without becoming fully trained, and I still don't think  I ever will be.             Standing in the pouring rain, just thirty short minutes after all our tents, green canvas wall tents, had been erected, the whole Boy Scout Troop was not too discouraged looking.  They each had a rain poncho on, except the new boy, a year younger than my own son, who wore a yellow slick rain jacket and pants combo, some of the ponchos were red or green with my son and I both wearing clear, see-through rain ponchos.  Besides the rain ponchos they each wore an expression of excitement, well not all of them wore an expression of excitement, three did.  Two of them wore smiles, those two young men were always smiling, as if in their mind's eye the world was always funny and always entertaining, even in miserable, to us adults, situations such as the one we found ourselves in at that moment.  One had a serious look on his face, with his yellow slick rain jacket and pants, this first year Boy Scout seemed to be all business.  He was a cut-up and a clown, or had been during Webelos meetings back in Cub Scouts, but now as a Boy Scout he was ready to get down to business.  This was the Boy Scout Troop.  This was almost the entire Troop, two older Boy Scouts, both Life rank Boy Scouts, were taking on the Ranger program that Summer Camp year.              The Ranger Program saw the Boy Scouts taken out into the over 6, 000 acres of the Boy Scout Ranch and learn to live off the land.  They did not stay in one camp.  They did not sleep in tents, not even small pup tents.  Each Boy Scout took only what they could carry on their back and were taught to survive in the wilderness.  The only other member of the Troop, an recent Eagle Scout, was in the Summer of his 16th year and was all about his summer job and his summer girlfriend.  The Eagle Scout did come out and spend two evenings with the rest of the Troop; he kept his commitment to the younger Scouts, trying to be positive example of continued service back to the Troop beyond your own personal goal accomplishment.  For the first time since most of the young men assembled there in the rain that Summer afternoon had joined, and a couple had been in the Troop over three years, they were really in charge of something new, without the benefit of others showing them what to do and doing the majority of the work.  It was on this new group, this new Troop, this new Patrol.  They had held elections prior to Boy Scout Summer Camp to decide who would be Senior Patrol Leader, who would be their Youth Leader during the week of Camp, responsible for waking up everyone each morning, responsible for attending Senior Patrol Leader Meetings to find out program changes and updates, responsible for creating a Duty Roster and making sure that each member of the group preformed their assigned tasks.  They had also held elections to determine a new Patrol Mascot.  The Boy Scout Troop had elected my son, a recently promoted First-Class Scout to Senior Patrol Leader and they had chosen to become the Turtle Patrol.  A more apt and appropriate Patrol Mascot could not have been chosen, and as that Patrol, that Turtle Patrol, stood in the middle of their Swamp of a Campsite we all knew, each and everyone of us knew that this was going to be no ordinary Summer Camp experience.