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1. I joined the Boy Scouts when I was 14. Late start, but I figured I needed all the "resume" meat I could get for a West Point application. Too many sports plus scouts equals bad grades in school - I enlisted as a jarhead instead!
2. Got my Eagle the week before I turned 18, by the skin of my teeth.
3. Four months after reporting into my fleet unit, we flew to Bridgeport, CA for a month of mountain warfare school. My scouting experience gave a me huge advantage over 99% (+ or -) of the battalion due to field crafts such as pioneering, survival, and orienteering. 19 year old kid as a team leader felt pretty good.
4. I'm not SF, but it definitely gave me confidence as a grunt.
5. Maybe it's just my experience on the "Left" coast, but it seems to me that much of the moral integrity of the scouts is being eroded away. I think it's the finest organization any boy could be a part of, but it's under relentless attack by deviants in America.
Quick side story: One summer camp I attended a few times; Camp Parsons. My troop was a bunch of studs and we won EVERY competition. Well, until an all-Korean troop from San Fran flew up to camp one year. These kids were ultra militant - uniforms gigged up, close-cropped hair, and motivated like you wouldn't believe! And this troop was massive! At least 100 strong. They cleaned house and stole our thunder.
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