The NY Times this morning has an article on a group of Explorer Scouts acting as a quasi military team equipped with pellet guns ready to storm some Bad Guys' hideout.  This was not what I had in mind when I became a Boy Scout back in the 1930's about the same time I was preparing for my first Bar Mitzvah.

Now, it was easy to be a Scout in those days.  You needed a group of boys 12 or older, an adult leader and a place to meet.  You would get together for weekly meetings and prepare to go on hikes and overnight experiences in campgrounds.  I have a lot of good memories from those days.  When WWII broke out with the attack on Pearl Harbor I was on a weekend camp experience in Boonton, N.J.  When we got home we found that our country was at war.  I, and others, volunteered for Civil Defense and at the same time I joined the Sea Scouts which was an early Explorer organization.  We got to row a lot and sail out in Newark Bay.

Now, the scouts had meetings where we lined up in military fashion, saluted and marched.  All the outdoor survival stuff gave me a head start for when I enlisted in the Army when old enough.  It was the "Old Enough" thing which has troubled me over the years.  How old is old enough to learn to be a soldier and take training with guns in order to make you a soldier in case of war?

Evidently, there are two or more minds about this.  The NRA organization wants to train young people how NOT to blow off their heads while shooting weapons.  The NRA, however, does NOT prepare young people to become soldiers with regimentation and the rest of the paraphernalia of uniforms and following directions to just do as you are told and do not ask questions why you must to what seems to be chancy and dangerous things.

I liked the Scouts.  I became a Cub Master for the Cub Scouts which, to me, was pushing the regimentation of young people down too far.  I emphasized helping Mom and keeping clean and watch out for dirt under your fingernails.  I put in my time and then soured on the Scouts because they, as a group, strayed away from the founding fathers' ideals to be honorable.  Most kids find that too hard to do because their models are their parents and other adults. Scouts in my days were NOT integrated.

I think the Explorer's idea is basically good like a good grounding in moralistic religious training.  Making the Scouts into quasi-military groups and train them with "weapons" sound as if the NRA has won the fight for young minds.

For a while, I was part of Sea Ventures as the College Representative.  This was a program which taught about the waters around Sandy Hook to children from landlocked towns like East Orange.  The Police Athletic League brought bus loads of kids down for instruction on science, math and English without any formation up into rows of soldiers.  I think that was pretty sound but it didn't last.  Neither did similar programs I dreamed up about Land Ventures, Sky Ventures and variations on this theme. We do a lot FOR our children.  I sometimes wonder what we DO to our children.