Scouting Urban Legends Redux

[Kahuna]

Eamon writes: I know some Ships wear the Blue Uniform, but I was led to believe that this was not an official uniform. Of course I'm aware that as Sea Scouts are part of Venturing this entire uniform thing is a real mess.

I think BW is speaking of the blue cracker jack uniform for youth. The 3 uniforms are chambray blue, white cracker jack, blue cracker jack. The 3 adult uniforms are blue naval type dress, khaki, and whites. Some adults, of course, wear the blue chambray work uniform.

[Kahuna]

The current SSM is pretty clear on what are the uniform options for youth and adults, males and females. It is? :)Must be a misprint. It will be corrected soon. And then we still have the option to modify our uniforms and many units seem to do so.(This message has been edited by kahuna)

[Bob White]

emb021 is correct. The Sea Scout Manual states what a sea Scout with the Quartermaster rank would wear on each uniform. Those are the positions that I posted previously.

 

Do some ships wear the incorrect uniform or wear the unifoprm incorrectly? Absolutely. Just as some troops and some packs wear the uniform incorrectly.

 

At the Seabadge training I attended most the staff wore incorrect uniforms treating the Sea Scout Adult Work Uniform (Khaki) shirt as a Boy Scout Uniform shirt hanging all kinds of things on it that did not belong on a Sea Scout Uniform.

 

But then they had a very unusually attitude toward uniforms to bein with.

 

 

 

 

 

[Kahuna]

At the Seabadge training I attended most the staff wore incorrect uniforms treating the Sea Scout Adult Work Uniform (Khaki) shirt as a Boy Scout Uniform shirt hanging all kinds of things on it that did not belong on a Sea Scout Uniform. But then they had a very unusually attitude toward uniforms to bein with.

 

Ya gotta love it!

[Eamonn]

Kinda looks like I was wrong!!

I somehow got the impression that the "blue cracker jack" wasn't really an official uniform!

I tried looking up the Sea Scout Uniform at

http://www.scouting.org/media/insigniaguide/09A.aspx

It wasn't there (Or at least I couldn't find it!!)

But as the Sea Scout youth jumper collar insignia,is available in white cloth, No.04146; and also in black cloth, No.04147, I'm happy to admit that I was wrong.

I have never seen an adult wear the blue work shirt.

Not to high-jack the thread.

But has anyone heard anything about a new National Sea Scout Commodore?

Eamonn.

 

[ghermanno]

Getting back to the original post, I am saddened by the fact that most Scouts are NOT taught how to handle a sheath knife. I have checked with youth from various troops from Second Class through to Eagle and found they were never trained how to hand a sheath knife to another person. Large or small, the technique is the same but not taught.

 

I understand the BSA rule and agree. Things like the Bowie knife has nothing to do with "basic" outdoor skills and camping but a standard sheath knife still does for skinning, making a spear, basic cutting,... All the things a "lock blade/folding blade" will do.

 

My new District bans ALL sheath knives because they are afraid the boys will sit on the knives and hurt themselves. (Guess I shouldn't take them out in the woods for fear a tree would fall on them too?)

 

By the way, when I earned my first Toten Chit, I had to demonstrate handleing a sheath knife. (early 1970)

 

Just my $0.02 worth.

 

Rick(This message has been edited by ghermanno)

[Bob White]

"I am saddened by the fact that most Scouts are NOT taught how to handle a sheath knife."

 

Just how many scouts and scout units have you talked with in order to establish that fact? Is it really most scouts, or just most of the scouts you have met?

 

"My new District bans ALL sheath knives because they are afraid the boys will sit on the knives and hurt themselves. (Guess I shouldn't take them out in the woods for fear a tree would fall on them too?)

 

Your district has no authority to do that. They can ban sheath knives on council property or at council events, but they cannot prohibit a unit from the general use of any tool other than a log splitter and a chain saw.

 

"By the way, when I earned my first Toten Chit, I had to demonstrate handleing a sheath knife. (early 1970)"

 

I will check my handbook but I am pretty sure that the care and handling of a sheath knife was not a part of the Totin' Chip at that time.

 

(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[ghermanno]

BW,

 

Guess you msut be right agian. I can NOT have asked the units I have not met. But those in Panama, Washington State, Oregon, Guam, Korea, California, Texas,.. That I talked to all seem to know the "Urban Legend" that BSA bans them. I know they don't as was pointed out. As to the multiple units I have not met, of couse I can not speak for them.

 

As to the Distict Banning them. They do. Wether they have the right or not, YOU FIGHT THEM.

 

As to wether or not sheath knife handling was a requirement for my Toten Chit back in 1970, ask my Scoutmaster. Troop 7, Fitchburg, MA. CO - Salvation Army. I tried to find it. It does not exist anymore.

 

You can also argue with this response if you like. I will not reply.

 

Rick

[Bob White]

The difference between facts and legends. Facts can be proven.

 

My point of course ghermanno is that what you state as fact based on your personal knowledge...is neither. Certainly if what you say is true you, do not have the data or the knowledge to proclaim it as fact.

 

This is a problem that we find ourselves in from time to time on a forum and in scouting and this is how the legends get started. One person proclaims it as fact and other blindly follow.

 

You have not talked with most the scouts in Texas let alone most the scouts in the Northeast or the Midwest or the Northwest. You have met a very small number of the BSA membership and a very small number of unit leaders upon which you have claimed a "FACT".

 

The facts is no one has any idea how many scouts have been taught sheath knife use or safety now or ever.

The fact is that your scoutmaster did not determine the requirements for Totin' Chip the BSA did, and by the way I looked in the handbooks from the 70's and there is nothing on sheath knives in the requirememnts or in the Handbook contents. So while your SM may have taught it it was not a part of the BSA program.

 

And the fact is the District cannot ban the use of anything in your troop except on council property or at a District or council event.

 

Those are facts. They can be sustantiated, your "facts" cannot.

 

No need to reply, I just felt is was related to the thread topic to show how legends are born.

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Way back in the last Century, I took New Leader Training. I don't know what its actual title was, the course names and content have changed a bit.

 

Anyway, I was at training, it was a weekend campout and by patrol we were going on a round robin series. We got to Wood Tools and there was a long time District Committee member who went over Wood Tools. He did state, rather emphatically I may add, that sheath knives were prohibited by the BSA. I now know that he was wrong. But I wouldnt say I blindly followed what he had to say. I accepted it because he was the instructor. When people take training courses, its not generally in their nature to question the reference to everything taught. Leastwise not in my nature

[Bob White]

And he probably got that idea from someone who told him that when he got trained, etc. etc.

 

I do not diagree that it is important for trainers to stick to the syllabus and avoid including other information unless they have varified its accuracy.

 

"Back in the dyas" we had fewer resources. The Guide to Safe Scouting has only been out for about twenty years now. Those of us who got trained for the first time prior to than had very little in the way of resources to varify that kind of information. But with the abundance of resources available today there seems to be little reason for such falsehoods to continue.

 

Many or the urban legends of Scouting can be easily dismissed simply by reading the Boy Scout Handbook. The bottom of page 78 in this instance.

[Twocubdad]

Another myth for your consideration:

 

Units and Councils may adopt health and safety policies more stringent than those of national, but may not relax national policy.

 

True or false?

[Rooster7]

I don't know about Councils. But I'm pretty sure a CO can adopt their own health and safety policies (if they are more stringent than Nationals). But I defer to someone with more direct knowledge. That said - I find it difficult to believe that BSA would tell a chartering organization that they cannot adopt a policy like "three deep adult leadership" vice "two deep adult leadership".

[click23]

According to the "Annual Charter Agreement"

 

"The chartered organization agrees to:

 

Conduct the Scouting program according to its own policies and guidelines as well as those of the Boy Scouts of America."

 

I would say that as long as the COs rules fall within BSAs I would say that can pretty much make any rule they want, remember they are the ones that owns the unit.

[BulldogBlitz]

Sheath knives... I have one distinct memory of them - urban legend or not - they were not allowed within our troop. When I was a scout through the 80s, this was the time when Rambo was big. Shortly after Rambo hit the movies, there was a scout that brought this ridiculously large sheath knife (complete with compass on the end, and hidden compartment for him to carry matches, fishing line, etc.). He wore it with pride - and of course believed himself to be the real life incarnation of John Rambo. One camping trip is all it took for the leaders to institute the new rule of "no sheath knives". This scout was running through the woods with the knife attached to his belt. He tripped and fell....

 

 

 

 

 

no, that didn't happen, but the hilt did put a hefty bruise on his stomach. Upon inspection of the knife and the comparison to the boy, it was not the right tool for any job that he'd need to do (the next summer that boy did end up with stitches because even the smaller knives were unsafe for him).