service stars

[lasteagle83]

First, a little intro to you all. I'm currently in the process of "rejoining" Scouting after a 18 year (!) hiatus. During my youth Scouting experience, I was involved in Cubs, Explorers, and Scouts (Eagle 1983; last one in this troop before it went belly up around 1986); and served for 1.5 years as an Assistant Scoutmaster before college had to become a priority. Middle age has convinced me that it's time to step back in to the program, and I've submitted an application with a local troop to assist on the Committee. This troop is very much a uniformed adult troop; including committee members.

 

Anyway, back to the questions at hand: I have service stars for Cub, Scout, Explorer, and Leader.

a. Is it appropriate to wear service stars earned so long ago? I'm not a "fruit salad" type looking for decoration (after all, I do remember those things get WARM in the summer on bare skin), but I'm PROUD of the experience I have in Scouting as a youth and I'd like it to be an example to others.

b. Explorers used to use the RED backer; that is now designated for Venturing. Since I'm obviously too "snowy-headed" now to have ever been in Venturing, is it still appropriate to wear now as a sign of being an Explorer in my youth? I would almost view it similarly to a discontinued merit badge; it was earned at the time it was valid for the service, so it should be ok to use.

 

Your thoughts?

[Bob White]

Yes.

[FScouter]

You can wear separate stars for each phase of your Scouting service, or as a leader, you may combine all your youth and adult tenure into one (or two) stars with the blue background.

 

I usually only wear service stars for more formal occasions, but only because of the inconvenience of removing and replacing them when the shirt goes into the laundry.

 

Welcome back to Scouting! I too came back, but after a 25 year hiatus.

[k9gold-scout]

My scout handbook ('59 edition) ended with a little phrase "once a scout, always a scout". I had forgotten how much I had learned from scouting. About 10 years ago my son wanted to become a cub scout, he joined a pack and he loved it. The first night he went to sleep in his uniform. Today he is an Eagle Scout and active in his Venture Crew and working on his Ranger Award.

It was a long road but it sure feals good to be back where I started.

 

Welcome home from another scout! - I wear my green, red and blue stars with pride.

[fschebor]

I wear my yellow, green, and red (Explorer) service star's for two reasons:

 

1. I'm proud of the effort it took to earn them as well as the memories they represent.

 

2. They serve as a constant reminder to the boys that scouting need not end at 18. Even if they wait until their sons are of age, they will know that that if they so choose, there's a uniform waiting for them.

[NJCubScouter]

Inspired by this thread, and having a 24-year hiatus to my "credit," what I would like to do is wear a service star(s) for my youth service to go along with the 2-year "leader" star that I just received from my cubmaster at our pack's Blue and Gold Dinner. If I recall correctly, when I stopped being active as a Boy Scout (actually as an 18-year-old ASM) to go to college, I was wearing a single 10-year star to denote my combined Cub and Boy Scouting. I do not remember what the backer color was. (Where this particular star is is currently under investigation; my brother inherited my shirt sometime while I was in college, and about 2 weeks ago I realized that none of the insignia that were on there at the time, including my Philmont pocket-arrow, OA arrow and Lincoln Trail medal with the second-time stovepipe hat device, and 70's-era ASM patch, are in my patch collection. I'd really like to get that stuff back, particularly the ones I just mentioned. Hopefully my brother, who is looking for his own patch collection, has been keeping my stuff in there for "safekeeping" for the past 26 years or so, but we shall see.)

 

Anyway, my question is, regardless of whether I find my old star or go buy a new one(s), what should the backer color be to combine Cub and Boy Scouting but not to include adult service. Obviously a 10-year star with the Boy Scout youth color would not look right. But I'd like to differentiate my youth star from my adult star, so putting the light blue backer on both the 10 and the 2 wouldn't do the trick either.

[Bob White]

NJScouter

You can combine all your scouting years onto the light blue backed star or you can separate the youth and adult years. iof you choose to separate them your adult years go on the blue backgraound, Cub years on yellow and Boy Scout years on Green. There is no option for combining all youth years onto one background, unless you were in only one phase of the program.

Welcome Back,

Bob

[FScouter]

NJCubScouter - In your case, if you combine all your years, you would need two stars with a blue backing to signify your 12 years. As a lawyer, you may appreciate that the rules regarding service stars can be found in the Uniform Insignia Guide #33006.

[yaworski]

A couple comments on this old thread.

 

To make it easier to place my service stars on my shirts, I marked where they go with a couple stitches of khaki thread.

 

The center of the stars go 3/4" above the pocket (well, if you do all the math it works out to 11/16") and they are 3/4" apart. Simply measure, mark with a pencil and then put in a couple tiny stitches.

 

The stitches are all but invisible if the stars aren't worn and putting them onto the shirt is a breeze now.

 

As for the stars being painful on bare skin, wear an undershirt. A snug fitting cotton t-shirt works wonders for making those polyesther shirts more comfortable on hot days. They keep the plastic from sticking to your skin and when the cotton gets soaked, it acts as an evaporative cooler. Loose t-shirts do not work as well.