I just got this email from Scouting America. What a week for Pete Hegseth’s Department of Defense.
Yesterday, attacking a war hero astronaut senator for insisting on the rule of law. Today, repudiating a youth organization with whom it’s partnered for a century. It’s genuinely disgraceful.
I’m an Eagle scout. I went to the Philmont and Sea Base high adventure camps, and Goshen every summer through high school. All three of my kids participate in our Cub Scout pack, where I co-lead two of the dens. Our youngest went camping before he could walk. Here are my daughters doing Scouting for Food earlier this month.
I got a lot out of scouting, thanks in no small part to Troop 647’s exceptional adult leaders. I am thrilled to see what my kids are already getting from it and excited at the prospect it holds for them as they grow. It was and is very important to me. I doubt I can express what it meant that scouting began offering programming for girls in 2017, the same year I became a parent of one. No shade to the Girl Scouts! But the BSA–recently renamed Scouting America–is the program I know and love.
Scouting’s transition toward gender inclusivity been approached carefully and gradually. It’s also totally voluntary: each pack and troop can decide what makes sense for them. But as of December 15 the coed troop option will be out of its pilot phase and an official, permanent part of Scouting America. I think single-sex troops will make sense for some scouts and communities, but our family is thrilled about what this change means for us, for scouting, and for the girls who will benefit. It works. My kids are cubs, but I’ve already seen it working at the troop level while attending a district Camporee.
But apparently Pete Hegseth’s DoD is less enthused. The stated rationale for withdrawing support is that scouting has abandoned “meritocracy”. A word about that. I don’t speak for Scouting America and don’t mean to contradict its chairman’s statement. But to me, scouting has never been a meritocracy. Meritocracy is about identifying and elevating the most talented, and leaving the rest to go find something else to do.
That is not what scouting is about. It can offer something to every child. What it does–why I am such a fervent believer in it, why I think it is distinct from other youth activities–is to untether effort and achievement from competition. It teaches young people that if you work at something, you will see results. You will get that badge, master that knot, finish the trek, persist through discomfort, survive in the wild, and learn to lead others.
Any scout can do any of these things. The scale of how they do it might vary wildly according to the kid. But every one, absolutely every scout, can come away a better human being for having made the effort.
The people in Pete Hegseth’s DoD that made this decision seem not to understand this. Instead, they are dragging scouting into their imbecilic culture war, venerating sexism for its own sake.
I have no opinion on how many burpees our “warfighters” ought to be able to do. But I know that debate has nothing to do with scouting. I wonder what the people behind this decision think of scouting’s efforts to serve kids with disabilities.
This decision will have consequences, particularly for kids in the Sea Scouts program, which is closely affiliated with the Coast Guard. I am pretty sad about what this will mean for the kids in DC’s own Ship 25.
Scouting has had a long and fruitful association with the military–its structure is inspired by that tradition, after all. But scouting will be fine. Ultimately, this is more of a loss for America’s Department of Defense than anything else–a sign of the myopia and degradation of its leadership, and its inability to understand the true nature of the virtues that characterize our finest citizens–virtues that keener minds have understood since antiquity, that our military should seek out, and which scouting is designed to nurture in anyone.
It’s another sad day in a pathetic era. But I am confident that the scouts I saw collecting food for the hungry last weekend will someday be part of making a better one.
