We weren’t angels or model kids. But we got a gift from scouting that might have been invisible to us at the time, but I bet most, like me, see it now.
It is the gift of knowing how to accomplish things. Whether it is building a fire in the rain, teaming up with a bunch of guys to design a travois to carry all your gear several miles to the campsite, or doing a mile swim, you learned that you COULD accomplish something if you tried and gave it your best shot.
You didn’t always succeed. When we made our travois, it was a darned disaster. The wood was too heavy and already somewhat rotted, and as we dragged, over time, it just wore down and disintegrated. But we tried...it was a requirement for a jamboree we went to, and we didn’t know in advance what the challenge was going to be. So, we had to put our heads together, think of the best way to do it, and execute it. In this case we failed. But I know for a fact that if I were in a position today to have to do something like that, I could do it successfully because I failed at it once before, using my own ideas and those of others as part of a team.
(Interestingly, I saw a television program on the selection process for special forces training, and they had them do the same kind of thing, though much more advanced and a LOT harder. They gave them a full 55 gallon drum, and their team objective was to use the tools given to design (as a team) a way to transport that drum to the destination fifteen miles away in a specified time frame...their task was a LOT harder than ours, but the concept was similar. We only had to go a few miles, maybe two or three)
We weren't exactly perfect, either, but we learned a lot. Out of our patrol came a USMC Sgt. Maj., a Navy SEAL, a Fire Chief at a Naval installation, and a Geologist, as well as some fine tradesmen and business owners.
My nephew made Eagle this year. I'm darned proud of him.