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All,
I have sent a comment or two to the list over the past month, mainly about
the Hornaday Award, but have just re-read the instructions and see I am
supposed to introduce myself.

Right now, I am sitting in Atyrau, Kazakhstan as the General Manager for a
oil well drilling company that is drilling the first offshore oil well in
the North Caspian Sea. My family moved here with me in January (yes, it was
very cold and very hot in the summer). We are the first western family to
move to this part of the former Soviet Union. I have 3 kids, ages 14, 12,11.
The 12 year old is an active scout in Troop 1 in our home city of Tulsa. I
am an Eagle (1969) that dropped out of scouting a few months after earning
Eagle just before I turned 15. Now that my son is involved, I have gotten
"re-lit" in my enthusiasm for the movement. While here in Kazakhstan (recent
James Bond movie carried a theme that is actually real and is of concern
over here), I have worked with my son on a variety of MB's. The most
interesting has been Citizenship in the Nation and World along with
Environmental Science. You see, we live right on the Ural River, the
geographic boundary between Asia and Europe. We live on the Asia side. It is
badly polluted with raw sewage being run into the river directly from homes
and apartments. Oil and garbage are dumped directly into the river, which
flows into the Caspian Sea. It looks a lot like our rivers in the US did
before Earth Day and the EPA. I used to curse the EPA until I saw what
happens in other countries. THe city has about 200,000 people. It is truly a
third world country, limited phones, poor electricity, bad water, bad
pollution - the usual stuff. These three MB's have opened our family's eyes
to just how good we have it in the USA. In a country that just became free
from the Soviet Union, they struggle with the concept of freedom in all
areas of their lives. Freedom to travel, to say what they want, to have
choices in cars and food. They have no real concept of what it means to
govern themselves, the way we do. Elections are just now being held but the
concept is the opposite of what JFK said in his inaugural speech - "Ask not
what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country".
That doesn't hold in very many of the 30 countries I have worked in, not
even in European countries. We, as Americans, are a light in the darkness-
the entire third world wants to be like us, to do what we do, to have what
we have. Working on these MB's has focused my son and family on that. I plan
to take both sons to the World Jamboree in 2002-03 due to this experience.

I go back to the USA in November after this assignment. When home, I am an
adult leader in our troop. I am anxious to get more plugged in and am
working on some scout related projects here for use when I get back. I
tagged onto this chat group to get a more global perspective of what
scouting has turned into since I dropped out in 1969. The issues have
changed slightly (cargo pants, woman leaders, venturers, co-ed anything,
quality of programs) but many things are the same (character counts,
volunteers run the movement, camping is "the" thing, Philmont, boys, and
leadership). We seem to be packaging the program differently, but it is
still what it needs to be- a movement for boys to grow into men of character
and integrity. Our movement will never be popular - it stands out as
contrary to the world's values, but we must never abandon the principles of
the Law and Oath. We are right and we should always stand for that. End of
Sermon.

Ross Murphy

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