piper
Berk Moss (mossfam@TELEPORT.COM)
Mon, 17 Mar 1997 19:30:56 -0800
Ronald W. Fox wrote about a piper at his Woodbadge final flag retreat.
May I tell a story?
Our summer camp is large and although we did a flag ceremony after
breakfast and at dusk in our Troop campsite, we did not hike the mile to
the main camp flagpole to participate in the camp ceremony every day.
Troops camped closer did, but we didn't. This was not unusual at that camp
for a troop to do this. We cultivated the staff with cobbler etc. each
night. One staffer said they'd missed us at flag. Being a large troop we'd
taken some pretty good ribbing from the staff and other troops. All in good
nature, but we decided to show them what we had. We are an outdoor troop,
we pride ourselves on nights camping and miles hiked, but we can carry off
a ceremony when we need to. Our depth is our people, our boy leadership,
and our dedication to eachother.
We sent one ASM 15 miles into town to make some calls home and have some
resources and people brought up camp on Friday night. Our SPL volunteered
to conduct the end of camp flag ceremony on Friday Night when many parents
would arrive for the all camp barbeque.
Our procession started at our Troop campsite, passed through the log
entrance for our site we'd lashed and carved. We wound down the trail past
the lake and back up to the camp parade ground. All 60 of our scouts were
buffed up as best they could after a week of camp. They were followed by
about 18 of our 24 ASM's in unifrom most with Smokey Bear hats. To lead the
whole Troop, we'd brought out the 1924 Troop flag with all its award
ribbons and at the very head was our piper. He's 23 years old 6 foot 6
inches and 240+ pounds and an Eagle from our troop. He was in full uniform
for an ASM with the modification of a kilt and on his official BSA socks he
had Scottish Boy Scout garters and his dagger. When the Troop turned into
the flag area we got applause from the whole camp. "Scotland the Brave"
never moved me more. Two of our Troop members were serving on staff and I
could see them whispering to other staffer "That's my Troop!"
At the appropriate time, our SPL called out our color guard which with a
series a gate turns moved to the flags. At his command, the flag was
lowered, our bugelers sounded off and our black powder rifles fired. Yep,
we could do a ceremony with class!
For members of our troop from age 10 to 55+, this was a time to be proud of
allthe things we could do when we worked together. Every boy deserves
memories of group accomplishments.
Thanks for allowing me to tell my story.
YiS
Berk Moss Pioneer District Advancement Committee
Assistant Scoutmaster Troop 427 Cascade-Pacific Council
Multnomah Village, Portland Oregon O/A Brotherhood
e mail: mossfam@teleport.com Bear Patrol Woodbadge WEM 492-1-94
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