Boy Scouts Celebrate 116th Anniversary; Columnist Celebrates Boy Scouts
Photos courtesy Andy Chandler
Boy Scouts Celebrate 116th Anniversary; Columnist Celebrates Boy Scouts
To do what’s expected of them.
It’s human nature to look at one’s own upbringing as the apex of virtue: to hold one’s beliefs and lofty morals in juxtaposition to the worst actions of a younger generation. I’ll admit I hold a similar opinion. A few years ago in December of 2022, I sat at a book presentation in Dana, Ind.: “The Soldier’s Truth” on Ernie Pyle by author David Chrisinger. Someone asked Chrisinger what Pyle would think of today’s generation of youth and if they could aspire to such virtue.
“Like the greatest generation they would do what was expected of them,” Chrisinger replied.
After photographing a wreath laying at William Henry Harrison’s tomb in February 2023, I sat at the large table in a restaurant in North Bend, Ohio and a member of the DAR, Elizabeth Rosenacker, pointed toward two Scouts, asking if I’d met Brock and Jacob.
She insisted and begrudgingly, and not wanting coffee and clam chowder to get cold, I went over and made my introduction and we started talking. Come to find out, both Scouts present were history enthusiasts and for the Assistant Scoutmaster, Eagle Scout Brock Huebner of Troop 26 of Pickerington, Ohio, he was using the visit as a means for the Scouts to learn about the value of Reverence.
You read that right: coffee and clam chowder lunch.
Like myself, Brock is a presidential history enthusiast and so he had a plans to visit and lay wreaths at every presidential gravesite with the other Scouts in his troop.
That was two years ago and every so often I’ve met with him and the other scouts in Troop 26, and photographed some of the wreath laying ceremonies they’ve done at other presidential graves.
Over the course of two years, we’ve been to Hoover’s, Lincoln’s, Benjamin and William Henry Harrison, and my second cousin 10x removed, Rutherford B. Hayes. They’ve been to others when I wasn’t present. We’ve braved rainy days at Speigel Grove, Ohio and sweltering hundred degree days in Iowa.
February 8th this year was the 116th birthday of the Scouts. It has been more than 25 years since I aged out of the Boy Scouts at the rank of First Class, and with that time has come perspective: it’s human nature for a present generation to question the virtue of the generation that comes after them. Are the institutions and structure they are in still valid and what form should that validity take? However, having met Brock and the Scouts from Troop 26, I believe that as long as virtues like courtesy, kindness and reverence are being taught in a fluid yet structured environment, is it worth it? Can we of the older generation still hope? Absolutely.
Our future leaders have always risen to the task and have done what was asked of them time and time again. They’ve recognized and revered the leaders of the past who had made the same decisions they may one day have to make. To deliver when it was asked of them. Who knows? Maybe one day another Eagle Scout will sit behind the Resolute Desk.