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Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

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Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#21

Post by themodelplumber »

prometheus76 wrote: post #8
themodelplumber wrote: post #2

Holy smokes! Reading this over, I'll bet there were more than a few injuries among the groups that practiced it. Imagine sending your kid off for a fun weekend and then watching them come home Sunday morning with an acute elbow injury from an arm bar... Scouting was dangerous enough without that stuff. You could get lost and even die in any number of unexpected ways. I watched a friend take a full swing of a wood axe…

Part of learning to defend oneself is getting injured along the way. It's part of the learning process. You can't learn to fight by reading a book about it. If you start to participate and learn through that participation, sometimes your efforts (or someone else's) will lead to injury.

> You can't learn to fight by reading a book about it

Just to say that this is untrue, as long as your opponent has not read any books or had any training. A lot of scouts or just bullied kids who visit the library will tell you that.

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#22

Post by themodelplumber »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #18
UberFly wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sheesh. Some of the best things I ever did involved the risk of getting hurt. And yes, I guess I could see someone very left-leaning hating on an Eagle Scout but it would still probably be rare thankfully.

What's the liberal complaint about scouting?

For the big ones, read about the history of scouting, including when BSP visited Portland OR. You'll understand right away.

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#23

Post by Dlanv »

irrational wrote: post #19

1925 in Great Britain? So, this was published just a few years after the end of World War I. I presume it was written by people who actually fought in the war. I wonder how much of this reflected the skills they had learned or used as soldiers in that war?

I'm not sure they fought with quarterstaffs or rapiers in WW1.

The boxing and jiu jitsu perhaps.

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#24

Post by ilamont »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #17
themodelplumber wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When multimedia was a huge thing in the late '90s and early '00s, you had a lot of small businesses with tight groups of graphic designers, illustrators, developers (full stack web + Flash & Director), and animators. Usually one of the creatives was in charge of hiring. It was totally obviously not a pro, and in many cases they'd make fun of it outright, or politely advise to take it off.

Well, sure. I was a quiz bowl captain, president of the national honor society, and placed yearly at the state science fair and I didn't list those on a professional resume either. It takes very little effort to be an Eagle Scout. I completed all requirements including the community project aside from the board review before I turned 13. Our scoutmaster suddenly quit on us to attain his MS in engineering (his employe…

> It takes very little effort to be an Eagle Scout. I completed all requirements including the community project aside from the board review before I turned 13.

It really varies from troop to troop. Ours is old-school, by the book, multiple leadership positions required for half-year terms. No one got an Eagle who was under 15 and the projects are very involved with construction or logistics. Tearing down and rebuilding a long wooden fence at a women's shelter, constructing display cabinets at a nature center, working with a local charity to collect hundreds of food boxes. Someone built a real footbridge over a stream, which not only required decent carpentry skills but also driving rebar through 8x8 posts into the stony bank with sledgehammers. I got poison ivy twice while clearing brush to make a nature trail and rebuild a garden at a local temple.

These projects are often the first time many youths have ever picked up a power tool or project managed anything.

The bureaucracy associated with the service project and application was stunning.

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#25

Post by themodelplumber »

kiernanmcgowan wrote: post #15

I'm just thinking back to my time in scouting and can only imagine what it would be like to teach a bunch of 14-16 y/os the 1920s equivalent of MMA. Probably about 30min of fun until kids just start hitting each other as hard as they can with sticks. Still sounds more fun than the basket weaving merit badge though.

Did you do basket weaving? Basket weaving was super chill and could make you feel like an adult in some important ways. My baskets were a disaster but talking to friends about favorite video games while weaving them was like free therapy.

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#26

Post by dctoedt »

kiernanmcgowan wrote: post #15

I'm just thinking back to my time in scouting and can only imagine what it would be like to teach a bunch of 14-16 y/os the 1920s equivalent of MMA. Probably about 30min of fun until kids just start hitting each other as hard as they can with sticks. Still sounds more fun than the basket weaving merit badge though.

Former longtime adult Scout leader here (and Eagle Scout) -- you're absolutely right about the kids hitting each other

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#27

Post by convolvatron »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #18
UberFly wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sheesh. Some of the best things I ever did involved the risk of getting hurt. And yes, I guess I could see someone very left-leaning hating on an Eagle Scout but it would still probably be rare thankfully.

What's the liberal complaint about scouting?

i think it was the 90s or early aughts, there was a lot of media-heavy and forth about gay scoutmasters. and I guess gay scouts too.

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#28

Post by gcheong »

kiernanmcgowan wrote: post #15

I'm just thinking back to my time in scouting and can only imagine what it would be like to teach a bunch of 14-16 y/os the 1920s equivalent of MMA. Probably about 30min of fun until kids just start hitting each other as hard as they can with sticks. Still sounds more fun than the basket weaving merit badge though.

I get it but when I took martial arts as a kid it didn’t devolve into a free-for-all so I guess it would depend on the effectiveness of the teacher to maintain order.

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#29

Post by dctoedt »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #17
themodelplumber wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When multimedia was a huge thing in the late '90s and early '00s, you had a lot of small businesses with tight groups of graphic designers, illustrators, developers (full stack web + Flash & Director), and animators. Usually one of the creatives was in charge of hiring. It was totally obviously not a pro, and in many cases they'd make fun of it outright, or politely advise to take it off.

Well, sure. I was a quiz bowl captain, president of the national honor society, and placed yearly at the state science fair and I didn't list those on a professional resume either. It takes very little effort to be an Eagle Scout. I completed all requirements including the community project aside from the board review before I turned 13. Our scoutmaster suddenly quit on us to attain his MS in engineering (his employe…

> It takes very little effort to be an Eagle Scout.

The actual requirements aren't that demanding for reasonably-intelligent kids. As in so many areas of life, one's work ethic and persistence matter a lot because of the time-in-grade and position-of-responsibility requirements for each of the upper ranks, namely Star, Life, and Eagle, and those requirements must be completed for each rank in series, not in parallel.

> I completed all requirements including the community project aside from the board review before I turned 13.

I was an assistant Scoutmaster, and then the troop committee chair, in my son's troop, which we think is the largest in the U.S. (some 250 boys and around 50 registered adult leaders during my time). The troop is known as an "Eagle factory," but the Scouts have to put in the work. Hardly any of them make it to Eagle before about age 15 or 16 because they also do sports and other activities and eventually get distracted by the scent of gasoline and perfume (as the saying used to be in the days of all-male Scouting). Not a few Eagle Scouts, including my own son, complete their final requirement, a Scoutmaster conference, with just a couple of hours to go before they age out at 12:00:00 a.m. at the start of their 18th birthdays.

https://www.boyscouttrail.com/boy-scouts/eagle-scouts.asp

Re: Master at Arms Badge for Boy Scouts (1925) [pdf]

#30

Post by dctoedt »

jimbob45 wrote: post #4
eckmLJE wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you apply that being an Eagle Scout counted against you?

The problem is that people who become Eagle Scouts tend to be successful enough individuals that the jobs they apply to don't understand why they would put such a low-grade achievement on their resume (compared to the other higher achievements they most likely have). It's like putting that you won an Olympic Gold in gymnastics when applying to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Yes, it's impressive to everyone, but at…

I'm an Eagle Scout (note the use of present tense) and I've had that on all of my resumes my entire adult life. When I got my Eagle, an uncle who was a senior executive at a Very Large Bank said that he would always give an Eagle Scout at least an interview.
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