Posted on 03/04/2011 5:03:09 PM PST by SandRat
DALLAS, March 4, 2011 Recalling his own experience as an Eagle Scout, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last night praised scouting for instilling principles, integrity and honor in tomorrows leaders.
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The secretary told the audience of 1,500 that he could fit everything he owned in the back seat of his car when he went to Washington, D.C., at age 22 to work for the CIA. At that time, he said, earning his Eagle Scout badge was the only thing he had done that made him believe he could make a difference.
It was the only thing I had done that distinguished me from so many other high school kids, he said. It was the first thing I had done that told me I might be a little different because I worked a little harder, was a little more determined, a little more goal-oriented, more persistent than others. Earning my Eagle gave me the self-confidence to believe, for the first time in my life, that I could achieve whatever I set my mind to.
Much has changed, and not all of it for the better -- especially for young people -- in the 50 years since he was a Boy Scout, Gates said.
One thing, however, that has remained the same over the years is the positive experience of scouting on boys and young men, he added, and the ability of so many of them to surprise us and inspire us with their determination, their character, their skills, and their moral and physical courage.
Good homes and good parents produce good boys, but scouting tempers the steel, the secretary said.
At a time when many American young people are turning into couch potatoes and, too often, much worse, Gates told the audience, scouting continues to challenge boys and young men, preparing them for leadership.
One way scouting creates leaders, the secretary said, is by presenting new challenges that build confidence, self-reliance and the spirit of adventure. Another benefit, he added, is that Boy Scouts learn the importance of service to others.
The scouting movement shows dramatically that service -- public service -- still beckons the best among us to do battle with complacency, neglect, ignorance and the emptiness of the spirit that are the common enemies of social peace and justice, Gates said. Adults like you who support scouting are generously investing in our collective future - in [columnist] Walter Lippmans words, you are planting the trees we may never get to sit under.
Caring beyond ones self, the secretary added, is fundamental not only to scouting, but also to democracy and to civilization itself.
Scouting also prepares boys and young men to live lives based on unchanging values such as trustworthiness, loyalty, honesty, kindness, and the respect and dignity every person deserves, he said.
We in scouting believe that personal virtues -- self-reliance, self-control, honor, integrity and morality - are absolute and timeless, Gates said. There are in too many places too few people with scouting values -- people who say, On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty, and mean it.
The secretary noted that scouting allows adults who are leaders to teach boys to be leaders.
In challenging boys to learn skills, to master challenges, to strive to live up to high principles and moral values, to find the greater beauty in a life of cheerful service, to build strong character, scouting tempers them into strong leaders for tomorrow, Gates said.
Former President George W. Bush introduced Gates to the audience. Gates service as defense secretary dates back to December 2006, during Bushs administration.
Biographies: Robert M. Gates Related Sites: |
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Oh man... Keep this sick animal Gates away from the Scouts.
Next thing, he’ll want to sodomize the Boy Scouts the same way he supported sodomizing the US military.
I flew off half cocked as usual.
I was blessed, (or cursed) to be a Scout Masters second son.
By the time my older brother had made Eagle I was still only a Cub in my best friends moms Den, moonlighting with my Dads Scouts.
By then Dad was burnt out and so I guess was I.
Understandable. It's easy to see red whenever the name "Holder" appears.
Or maybe that's just see a red when we see Holder.
Thanks Kathy,
From a Troop ScoutMaster
Bullfrog
But he’s ok with fags running rampant through the Military openly? Gates is a joke and a bad one at that.
Boys don’t need to be sponsored to join Boy Scouts. They need to find a local troop and be of the right age. There is no invitation involved. A registration form is required, and there area annual dues which can vary a bit from troop to troop. Our troop charges about $40 annually, of which part of the dues payment stays with the troop and the rest goes to our district council. Working from memory now, I believe the boys have to be 11 or to have finished the 5th grade. Many come from Cub Scouts, and cross over about this time of year in their 5th grade school year. Cub Scouting is not a requirement, however.
He also thinks its ok for the fags to serve openly in the Military.These people disgust me.
Thank you. I’ve been wondering for some time. As I remember the local troop was far away from where I lived and the boys in the troop all lived in that area.
Distance makes it more difficult to participate in any organized activity like this. Scouting tends to be a family-oriented activity, and there can be a lot of connections among the youth and their families - school, neighborhood, worship communities, sports, etc. I’ll really miss our Scouting family when our boys finish and move on to college. We have spent a lot of time with some of these youngsters and their families over the years, and it’s a part of our lives that I’ll always treasure.
Well ya know... I don’t want to name a particular person (not on FR, but elsewhere in my life), but it seems you can lead a horse to water and he still won’t drink. It’s possible for someone to go through the Scouting program even to Eagle Scouts and he can still act like a bastard afterwards.
I don’t ever recall Don Rumsfeld commenting on the issue...
He was on with our local talkshow guy one morning last week.The Al Ganey show on am 550 in gainsville Georgia.It was a phone interview.His stock went in the shitter with me and I always admired him up till then.
I wouldn’t trust anything Gates says about the Boy Scouts after his derisive comments to Marine Corps flag officers on how their rejection of homosexuality was simply an opinion and he proceeds to mandate tolerance of homosexuality throughout the military.
If he likes boy scouts, it is a strong indicator he’s a pervert looking to groom his future sexual immoralities and he’s running to his lust.
I respectfully disagree with that broad statement. For the last eleven years, my main role in Scouting has been in International Scouting.
Although the United States has a single national Scouting organization (Boy Scouts of America), this is not the norm in most countries.
In most countries, there will be separate Scouting organizations based on religion, adherence to early (Baden Powell) Scouting principles, labor unions, and other groups. Germany has over 150 different Scouting organizations.
Scouting in Germany started in 1909 but was abolished in the 1930s in favor of the Hitler Youth. As was the case with Japan, the Boy Scouts of America helped start Scouting again in Germany after WWII.
It's simply not correct to say that "homosexuals founded the boy scouting units in Germany."
Do some, or most, Scouting organizations in Germany permit homosexual leaders? Yes. Most Scouting organizations throughout the world, other than the U.S. and the Middle East, permit homosexual leaders. Scouting in the U.S. differs from the international norm in other ways. For example, Scouting is coed throughout the world, with the exception of the U.S., primarily Moslem countries, and a few other places.
The United Nations doesn't run the World Scout Organization.
The United Nations doesn't run the World Scout Organization.
Direct quote from Pink Swastika—a well documented book that is trying to be hid by the homosexual fascists....the Hidden Hitler is another book that is being “hid” and defamed by the MSM. The Truth must NEVER be heard.
The extended-arm Sieg Heil salute, for example, was a ritual of the Wandervoegel (Wandering Birds or Rovers), a male youth society which became the German equivalent of the Boy Scouts. The Wandervoegel was started in the late 1800s by a group of homosexual teenagers. Its first adult leader, Karl Fischer, called himself der Fuehrer (the Leader) (Koch:25f). Hans Blueher, a homosexual Nazi philosopher and important early member of the Wandervoegel, incited a sensation in 1912 with publication of The German Wandervoegel Movement as an Erotic Phenomenon, which told how the movement had become one in which young boys could be introduced into the homosexual lifestyle (Rector:39f). The Wandervoegel and other youth organizations were later merged into the Hitler Youth (which itself became known among the populace as the Homo Youth because of rampant homosexuality. - Rector:52).
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