"...to help other people at all times..."

[KoreaScouter]

The best thing about this one, is that I didn't have to say a word.

 

Our Troop Court of Honor late yesterday afternoon, under the outdoor pavilion at our Charter Org'n, the Coast Guard Air Station. Along with the pot luck, advancements, etc., CC has planned a "passing of the flag" from the SPL to the COR, to symbolize our recharter. Everything's greased; COR's already out there, since he's got Search and Rescue alert duty for the weekend (C-130 pilot). These guys are very involved with us; one's at every meeting, they sit on our BORs, they know many of the Scouts and the Scouts know who they are, too. He goes back to the hangar; I'm going to ring him up on his mobile when it's time.

 

We're about 15 minutes away from when he needs to be there, so I ring his cell phone; no answer. Coast Guard C-130s are parked just a couple hundred feet from the pavilion, and when this Air Force guy hears a ground power cart start up on the ramp, I get the feeling the COR won't be joining us, and it's because someone's lost and needs to get found -- right now. Another Coast Guard pilot shows up, confirms that our COR is flying a SAR mission in a minute, and he's there as a stand-in.

 

C-130's aren't that loud when taxiing and taking off, compared with fighters on full afterburner. But, it's loud enough, when it's close enough, that conversation is near impossible. The timing was perfect. CC tells everyone that the COR is flying out momentarily to search for a lost boater, and had to send a substitute. Right as his words tapered off, engine noise rose and forced all of us to pause and watch as the COR's orange and white SAR bird gradually (it's a -130, after all) lifted off the runway behind the pavilion. Nobody could say anything because of the noise, and afterward, nobody said anything because that was one picture that was worth a thousand words.

 

Every time we meet, we drive past the big sign out front that says "United States Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security". I hope that like a Chinese Water Torture, what's going on out there drips into their heads a little at a time. When I saw them watching that airplane bank toward the South Pacific, and them knowing what he was going to do, I couldn't help feeling we have a leg up on two of the Aims.

 

What did I do do deserve a gig like this?

 

KS

[dsteele]

What did you do to deserve a gig like that? You signed up for it, and for that I thank you.

 

To all veterans on this Pearl Harbor Day 62 years after the fact, I say thanks.

 

DS

[KoreaScouter]

No thanks necessary for being a Scouter DS, I often think I got a much better deal than they did!

 

Here's an irony; my Girl Scout daughter's at Pearl Harbor as I write this, with her Troop, dropping flower leis at the Arizona Memorial, just like she ought to be doing. Our Troop could have been doing one of several flag ceremonies out there, today, too. However, majority of leaders are military guys, and we're on duty up to our ears in a command post exercise and couldn't participate. BSA is represented though, and that's the important thing.

 

As I walked into work at 4:30 this morning, in a building that was here on Dec 7th and took tremendous hits during the attack, I looked at the lovingly- and deliberately-maintained bullet holes and shrapnel gouges in the side of the building with special reverence.

 

KS

[dsteele]

Deny it all you want, KoreaSCouter.

 

I am an admirer of yours and I will continue to admire you for all that you do. Like it or not, you're one of my heros.

 

Relax, enjoy and continue to lead in the Boy Scouts of America.

 

I take delight in saying thank you to you.

 

DS

[mk9750]

Right On DSteele!! Couldn't agree more with you about KS!

 

I think everyone of you folks in the military should be thanked every chance we get. I think everyone one of you folks in Scouting should be thanked every chance we get. Thank you, Thank you!

 

KS - I'm curious as to how you ended up as SM after your move (I am assuming you are the SM in your new Troop). how'd that work out?

 

BTW, I agree 100% with you. A few years ago, I moaned constantly about having to pay to volunteer. Now I realize that I don't pay enough for what I get out of this program. I am convinced I have been exposed to some of the finest people I will ever meet because of Boy Scouts. I've learned some of the most important lessons I will ever learn from Scouts (well, except for putting the toilet seat down!). And my sons will have had an oppotunity like no other in Scouting. I am indeed a very fortunate man.

 

Mark

 

 

[KoreaScouter]

As they say, "timing is everything". I took mini-me to his first Troop meeting here, with him in full regalia of course, and me in shorts and an Aloha shirt. I'd called ahead of time for directions, but didn't say I'd been a registered leader previously. After giving his transfer paperwork to the CC, shaking hands with the SM, and handing him off to his new SPL, I backed into a corner to meet some other parents, mind my own business, and watch.

 

That lasted ten minutes, then the CC and SM came up to me as skill instruction was getting underway. Seems they were about to carve a Venture crew out of the Troop, the SM was going with it, they needed a replacement, and would I volunteer?

 

Well, what are you going to say, "no"? Turns out, the properly filled-in transfer form, with the TroopMaster IHR, with the $1.00 transfer fee and the boy's current registration card paper-clipped to it, was an unintended tipoff that this wasn't my first rodeo. Curses, foiled again, as Snidely Whiplash would have said!

 

The heroes are surrounded by sand and bad guys, not mango trees and friendly natives like I am. I've been in places and situations like that, but I ain't now. The most dangerous thing I do here every day is merge into the H-1. Rocky Baragona was a hero -- he was a friend and coworker who got killed in Iraq last spring. And today, I learned that an intel officer I work with closely here is leaving tomorrow night for four months in Baghdad. This guy is a walking encyclopedia of all things related to terrorism in the Pacific -- I'm going to miss him professionally and personally, and I hope only temporarily.

 

KS

[mk9750]

KS,

 

As the movie critics might say, as I ready your response, "I laughed. I cried. it was a terrific story."

 

Good stuff on the transfer. Kind of goes to prove a saying I have heard once or twice: Don't ever do anything too well. You never know when it will cause you more work. But I'll bet you didn't drive home swearing under your breath about it, did you?

 

As to your status as a hero, OK, I'll buy that to some degree. The guys who are in places that make them unsure whether they will ever get home sure qualify for a higher level of hero. But they can't do what they do without guys like you doing what you do. If your humility won't let you accept it, fine. But I've got tremendous respect for ALL of you.

 

OK, I'll end the lovefest now.

 

Mark

[dsteele]

I'll admit, KS, that the guys who lay their lives on the line (whoops -- guys and gals) are perhaps greater heros than those who simply do what they feel needs to be done.

 

I don't lay my life on the line on a regular basis -- unless people suddenly take to making death threats against line professionals in the BSA (I've yet to receive a death threat, but I have been threatened in my home and for my physical safety.)

 

The fact remains that all volunteers who give their time and are of a reasonable team-playing attitude with their local council and primarily have the interests of youth at hand are my heros.

 

That's wy I enjoy these forums.

 

The heros here are too many to name, but they are here and I am honored to be able to participate.

 

Those heros are here to, among other things, "help other people at all times."

 

DS

[KoreaScouter]

DS:

 

I remember seeing on CNN or Fox, I can't remember which, right after the full combat phase in Iraq was over, in one of the southern cities, a "how's it going" type story. Among the scenes they showed was about ten seconds of a very young soldier on the hood of his HMMWV, with about 20 Iraqi kids in a semi-circle in front of the HMMWV. He's leading them in one of those "keep -em busy while we find the soccer balls" songs. Through the reporter's voice-over, it sure sounded like "Robert Baden-Powell had many Scouts, and many Scouts had Robert Baden-Powell...". Only one place he could have learned that, and it proves your point...

 

KS