smt75

Congrats! ASM84 and SPOTTEDBEAR! That is what I think earning Eagle is all about. I think that sometimes there might be a pushy parent, but we never know. My son earned his Eagle at the age of 13. I was not pushy, but I was there for him. He made his decisions on what he wanted to do, my wife and I supported him. Since earning his Eagle he has helped his Troop in many ways. He is a strong boy leader. He has the opportunity to appreciate his Eagle rank. He is now 17 and will be aging out soon as a boy. His skills learned and earned as a boy has helped him in many ways. If he was stopped from earning his Eagle at an earlier age, he may not have earned his either. He may have been turned against the "long" process of waiting on a time limit. It has also allowed him to to other things, he has used his talents to do missonary work internationally and nationally. I am proud of his accomplishments,he has done things that I did not have the opportunity to do. I earned my Eagle when I was 16 1/2 and I only had 1 1/2 years to to enjoy that rank as a boy. I personaly don't think age equals maturity, like some people. I have been working with youth a long time and I have not been shown that to be a true fact. Keep up the good work!!

I am glad to see other people that don't believe that National has cheapened the Eagle rank. Yes the requirements have changed over the years but mostly the the betterment of scouting or to bring us into a more modern era. Many of the required badges have changed with some of them being eliminated as required badges. The first one that comes to mind is the Cooking merit badge. It is no longer required for Eagle like it was for me. Many people believe that it should be still required. That could be a good argument. If you have noticed National has addressed that argment by changing the cooking requirements within the first 4 ranks. (up to 1st class). Those requirements have became more intensed for those ranks. Thanks National for improving those requirements and trying to instill safe food handling and cookig practices. With all of the increase health problems dealing directly with food handling and cooking, it has been a great improvement. These requirements are more difficult than they were in the 60's, 70's, 80's or 90's. In the 70's they included new alternates for required merit badges for the Eagle rank. This is the most drastic change I have seen in Scouting in the past 90 years. It has improved the program tremedouosly. Yes I believe that Swimming and Lifesaving is important, but so is Emergency Prepardness. In Emergency Prepardness we are taught how to "save lives" in the water as well as other places. Recently they have added Hiking as an alternate for swimming. If I remember correctly the requirements are fairly difficult for that badge. It also instills factors dealing with the great outdoors, the basics scouting was founded on many years ago. I also believe in not penalizing a eager, mature, and qualified 13 year because he is not "old enough" to be an eagle. I have met many students or scouts who were only 13 that were more mature and qualified than a 17 year old. I am not jealous of a 13+ year old scout for earning the Eagle rank. (it seems that many people are) Instead I admire him for his commitment and eagerness to earn the Eagle rank at an earlier age. Yes I know that there are some "eagle factories" out there, I feel sorry for the injustice that is implied to the boys and the Scouting progam as a whole. Many of those boys who were "handed" their rank without earning it know who they are, they sometimes stick out like a bruised thumb. They do not soar with us real Eagles, they are only papered. It reminds me of how many people go to college to get a degree while the rest of us go to get an education. We both have the same piece of paper, but our actions show much different. With those Eagle factories I hope the boys and not the committees are earning those badges. And like someone mentioned earlier most scouts recognize the real eagles from the papered eagles. Unfortunately in our society many people do not require the best, they should because they are a decay for the rest of us who do. I do know that in the earlier years we also had young Eagles and people were also questioning if they were mature enough. It will probally continue for years to come. I am glad that they boys now have more oppertunities than I had while growing up as a Boy Scout. And look at all of the trained leaders now, Where were they in the 50's, 60's and 70's? Modern era, and more resources might have helped this problem. I think as a whole scouting has improved over the years and not declined, unfortunatley more boys do not take advantage of it. Maybe if they did we could live in a better world. Just think....

I keep hearing everybody say that "National" has cheapened the Eagle rank by making it easier for boys to earn the Eagle rank. How specifically has National cheapened the requirements? How are they easier? What has changed since I earned my Eagle Rank over 30 years ago? The only thing that I have seen is that the requirement that a scout must have service to the troop for a year before he could be considered for Star rank. If my math is correct, adding 4 months for star, 6 months for life and 6 months for eagle adds up to 1 year and 4 months plus 1 year for First Class that gives you 2 years plus 4 months to earn Eagle rank. You could join Boy scouts at 10 1/2 years of age add that to 2 years and 4 months, you could physically earn before the age of 13. It was too hard to do that because of the lack of trained leaders both locally and through the council. I really don't understand what people mean when they say it has been cheapened. How? can someone please point out the specific changes other than removing the time limits on tenderfoot, second and first class? I don't see any major argument with that at all because other things have been added like attend 10 outings,add so many days for physical improvements and other things which cause scouts to take about a year to obtain first class. Can anyone point out all the major changes?

I don't think that the boys of this generation is that much more intellegent than the other ones. I do believe several things, one being that they have much more oppertunity to achieve a rank. The comment about the 60's brings back memories. It was much harder for us to earn the eagle rank than it is now, not because they changed the requirements but because of the oppertunities that we did not always have in our troop. The Scoutmaster was not able to pass off merit badges per the BSA national. The troops in our area only had one or two adults helping us at the time, and one of those was the Scoutmaster. We had to search for other people in the community to help us with our merit badges. It took a great deal of time to find these people and complete the requirements for the badges. We have developed over the years great leaders with our training in the local councils. With the help of these dedicated leaders and their traing it makes it much easier for some boys to obtain rank within the troop. When I made Eagle in 1970, my commitment was to return to my troop what was given to me and more if I could. I am going on 34 years now with the same troop. We have people that help us now and basically unlimited oppertunities for the boys. I think these thing has helped to improve Scouting and made it possible for boys to mature and complete requirements at a much earlier age. The boys eally have not improved but the leaders and opertunities have improved.

Ditto to he last remarks!!!