rhino

A lot of people are complaining about the De LaRenta uniform, now I am a post 1981 scout so it has been the "official" uniform all of my career but we still had plenty of green collarless uniforms circulating in my day (I had two) and this was the early 90's. The shorts ARE dorky, henece I have never worn them. However what is not functional about the uniform as a field uniform? Before I became a minister I was a park ranger. We had a seperate field and dress uniform. Our fiel uniform was a khaki shirt (admittedly with no epaulets)and green dickies work pants. We had shoulder and qualification badges sewn to the sleeve and a cloth badge sewn to the front. In other words, it was almost identical to a scout uniform. As far as practicality was concerned I often spent 6-7 hours a day doing heavy trail manitenance in this get up. It did not tear easily it wicked out sweat and dried qucikly and lasted much much longer than a T-Shirt ever would. At any point if another ranger needed assistance I could go from maintenance to public contact (where it would need to be visibly obvious that I was a ranger) without changing clothes. Say the scout uniform is outdated if you want (although how a plain khaki shirt becomes outdated I don't know) but it isn't impractical for scouting activities.

The troop I was in as a boy (254 Chattanooga, TN) strongly encouraged boys to have a full uniform shirt, trousers or shorts, baseball cap, and red and black neckerchief. I never owned the shorts, wearing trousers all the time. We always wore the uniform when traveling to or from a trip and every morning at summer camp (with one exception, explained below). No scout was required to own a uniform, but if you wore one you wore the whole thing, except that we sometimes left out the neckerchies or allowed boys to wear a camp neckerchief instead of the troop one. The uniform taught boys to take pride and put effort in to their appearance, without getting in to a materialistic idea of having in style clothing (many boys were wearing experienced uniforms. some even still had old style green uniforms). We encouraged boys to learn to sew their own patches and let their pants out when they grew. So the uniform taught us life skills. I also learned to iron by taking care of my uniform. When we alone of all the troops at camp turned out for the morning flag raising in full uniform, other troops noticed! traditionally on the next to last day of camp, we would all turn out in beach wear and or bath robes (one boy wore a towel once) and the look on the other troops faces was always priceless. In contrast to other troops that had more lax uniform standards such as shirts with "whatever" pants you wanted. Our troop was and apparently still is the largest in the council. We managed to produce at minimum, two eagle scouts a year. I think when boys see scouts uniformed propperly, looking like their uniforms are a source of pride many of them are drawn to scouting. When we look like a bunch of kids who dess slopily and like we don't care, they don't want to become part of us.

Sorry, I didn't post what I was doing. I'm an Assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 3 in Hagerstown, Indiana Crossroads of America Council

Well, I was a Boy Scout, a number of years ago. Back then there was a section in the handbook titled "once a scout always a scout" true to that section I've come back a decade later to become a scout leader. I am a minister in Hagerstown Indiana. When I was a boy, I made it to life scout before I turned 18 and couldn't finish my eagle. Things have changed a bit, not only have they done away with skill awards, but the lady, who is also a scoutmaster (that is new too), working at the scout shop had never heard of them. Wonder if she knows the uniforms used to be green? It's good to be back, but I have catching up to do.

Oddly, I was just reading my scoutmasters handbook which explicitly states that no boy is required to own a uniform and that the uniform is not a requirement to participate in scout activities. That seems pretty straight forward right out of a BSA publication.

the rule used to be, at least when I was a boy, as long as the shirts and pants matched you could use them. This meant Old Style Shirt with Old Style Pants. Did I miss a uniform? I had a green one with no collar or epaulets, but a tan one like that? I thought tan cam in to being with the current uniform.

I just got back in to scouting as a leader after being out since I was a boy. I would REALLY like to find a neckerchief from the Skymont Scout Reservation (Tennessee, Cherolee Area Council). Either a generic one (no year) or one from between 1986 and 1993. I realize this is a long shot.