Posted on 2/24/2005, 10:10:52 PM by WestTexasWend
Scouting best prepares boys to become the leaders America needs as it faces new challenges in an unstable world, said Texas A&M University President and former CIA Director Robert M. Gates.
"There is no finer program in developing Americans for leadership than the Boy Scouts of America," said Gates as he spoke Wednesday morning at the 2005 Character Counts Breakfast for the Last Frontier Council, Boy Scouts of America.
The breakfast, served at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, was the kickoff of the 2005 Friends of Scouting Campaign.
"We are at war again as a nation," Gates said. "We are also in the middle of another struggle, this one inside this country. It is a war for the very souls of our boys and young men ... Every boy that joins the Scouts is a boy on the right track."
Gates, an Eagle Scout and member of the National Board of Boy Scouts of America, became the CIA director in November 1991 after a lengthy and contentious confirmation process tainted by the Iran-Contra affair.
Gates served as CIA director until January 1993, retiring after nearly 27 years as an intelligence professional, serving six presidents.
Gates is the author of "From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War," published in 1996. Three times he received the CIA's highest award, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal.
Gates joked about his time in Washington, calling the city "a place where those that travel the high road of humility find very little traffic."
The theme of his address was to stress public service at a time when boys are increasingly becoming couch potatoes, "or worse."
Gates urged the crowd of about 300, including Scouts and their supporters, to continue to believe in the Boy Scouts as a way to build a better community, country and world.
"Public service still beckons the best among us," Gates said. Scouting can "transform the rhetoric into action."
Bump & Ping
BTTT!!!!!!!
"I wanna go back to Oklahoma" ping!
"We are at war again as a nation," Gates said. "We are also in the middle of another struggle, this one inside this country. It is a war for the very souls of our boys and young men ...
We want you back in Oklahoma! Start using your feminine wiles on R. ; )
That may get me another baby, but (move-wise) so far it hasn't even gotten me to Missouri!
Maybe I'll start looking for jobs for him ... something in education, maybe :-).
LOL If you get him a teaching job you may end up in hidious liberal Norman.
No problem - we know the conservatives in Norman. But without a PhD, he couldn't work at OU. Maybe Muskogee or Tahlequah; he is part Cherokee.
A breath of fresh air here. The left has been engaged in a war against masculinity for some time, and the leftist "jihad" against the Boy Scouts is just a part of it, in my opinion.
It is this "Oprahfication" of America, getting in touch with your feminine side, trying to make men ashamed of being what they are.
I appreciated hearing Laura Bush state the obvious, that we need to pay more attention to our boys. Because it is not a zero-sum game, and that doesn't mean paying less attention to our girls. I think it means letting them be boys, and Scouts is part of that.
Tahlequah is close enough for us to visit!
I am bathed in Scouting this week: Eagle Scout Court of Honor ion Tuesday, 75th Anniversary Blue and Gold Banquet last night and another B&G on Saturday. Scouting will help make well-rounded boys who know how to function in society.
Sorry...here's the non-print link, but it'll require registration. (I posted the entire article, BTW) >>>
http://www.newsok.com/xml/cox/1430947/
If you still need a link, FReepmail me and I'll give you my password.
Great post. I hope Mrs. Bush will really push on this issue. When our country lets ideologues get away with attacking Boy Scouting, we're telling boys they're worthless ... that they don't deserve to have a fun program that also develops skills and character, where they're protected, as much as possible, from abuse.
Far too many boys have already been left behind by their fathers, and put down by their schools. To deprive them of Boy Scouts is inexcusable.
Couldn't agree more. My sisters, all retired teachers, have been saying for years that boys are disparaged, discriminated against, and, yes, medicated, for being boys.
I believe in miracles :-).
If he has a GED he can probably take Churchhill's job @ CU.
My tagline says it all.
LOL - and welcome to official FReeping.
Can't be said enough. I am so proud of my Eaqgle Scout. And he did it all with almost no help from me. (A little heavy lifting and some instructions on pouring concrete, but that's it)
I can't wait to see where it takes him in life. Actually, I can wait. I miss that little boy that used to run trhough my house.
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