Order of the Arrow
Discussions for OA Members and those interested in Scouting's Honor Society. Also includes a private sub-forum for OA Members only.
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LATEST POSTS
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By vol_scouter · Posted
I am reposting what I wrote earlier on the other thread: So in my profession of medicine, documentation is very important with time as the medical record has become much less about communicating the condition of the patient to other physicians and is mainly for medical legal and accounting purposes. When I have reviewed one of my charts or been an expert witness, I am often struck about obvious omissions. The mantra is if it is not documented, it was not done. It is far too common to find a situation where I am certain that things were done but there is no supporting information. Lawsuits can turn on such evidence. In reading some of the IVF that have been released, it is clear that little was documented. We can infer that more was done than was documented but cannot prove it. So in some cases, proper steps were taken and there wo7ld have been little ways to have detected the perpetrator before the incident. In those cases, the BSA could have done as well as could be expected in that time but lacks documentation to prove it. Then there are cases like some have shared with us in these forums when the BSA had warning signs and even knew of potentially abusive situations and failed to act. There is no way to paint a happy face on these situations - the BSA failed the Scouts. In the former cases, the BSA could not prove that it did the right thing. I have no idea how many cases would fall into either category and in some ways, it does not matter. All of us failed those Scouts. From what I have seen, the BSA has tried to prevent abuse and seems to have done far better than other youth serving organizations. While that is comforting that we as the volunteers have done better than other groups, it does not exonerate us on our failures. So the survivors deserve our concern and care. We must say that what happened was not acceptable and that we are all dedicated to making Scouting as safe as we can possibly make it. A survivor who feels that the BSA is not redeemable needs to be understood. Had I been abused as a boy, that could well be my attitude and if we are all honest with ourselves, could apply to many of us. Doing better than others just says that we did not fail as badly as others. I believe that Scouting has been beneficial to far more Scouts than it has harmed so I hope that it survives. It should survive only if we as volunteers can make it far safer than it has been. -
By 5thGenTexan · Posted
This chart really stood out to me. Kind of weird language for the discussion. -
Was the flowchart designed to convey the message that if a CO decides to not recharter they 1) don't "care for youth in the community" and 2) doesn't "love scouts"? Words, and in this case the absence of words, have meaning. -
Let's see if anyone joins me. I am genuinely interested in all views and any history that can be added. I admit, I am keenly interested in this topic because my case to defeat the potential SOL defense is based on fraudulent concealment. As I've said and again just a few hours ago, the situation with my SM abuser and SE is the linchpin. Anywho, let's see who shows up, or not. I wish we had been allowed to give notice of a new thread before the holiday hiatus ruling came down. Oh, wells... Has any of this been debunked, in whole or in part? If not, the word used in the other thread from which I migrated, which starts with a 'c' has an 'eal' in the middle and concludes with 't. is simply the only accurate term I can think to use. Okay, I didn't use it by I will claim it for these purposes. Seems to moi it doesn't fit the definition of an oversight, an inaccessible database , an oopsie, an innocent mistake or simple conformance to the "standards of the day." Well, I might be missing something. Slight might. I have emphasized a few important pieces of the concealment puzzle. A Boy Scout publication put out in 1981 did discuss males infiltrating troops for sex—but focused on children as the perpetrators. The Scoutmaster Handbook, after discussing the problem of sexual experimentation among boys, said, "It is important to distinguish between youthful acts of innocence, and the practices of a homosexual who may be using his Scouting association to make contacts." The Boy Scouts of America saw a need to warn about 12-year-olds joining troops to have sex with 12-year olds but saw no need to issue the same warning about men. In part, BSA's paralysis on this issue reflected society's ignorance of what to do about abuse. However, few Americans had the collection of reports on pedophiles that the BSA had in its file cabinets. Although Anglim says that "almost all we knew about this problem was what we read in the papers, he could have learned much more if he'd read the files he was stamping. Anglim's stamp is on the cover sheet of virtually every Confidential File from 1975 through the 1980s, including several hundred files on child molesters. By dealing with these cases as a series of unrelated events rather than as a pattern, the Boy Scouts of America was behaving just like Carl: minimizing, rationalizing, assuring itself it had no problem. "The Scouts believed their own image. They believed their own publicity," says Mike Rothschild, a California attorney who represented an abused Scout. No one, therefore, reported the cases to the BSA's health and safety committee, which routinely got reports on injuries and deaths at Scout functions. When Scouts got hurt or killed while boating, the committee developed rules to make boating safer. During America's Bicentennial celebrations, the committee studied whether the gunpowder used by troops in some ceremonial muskets was dangerous. But Dr. Walter Menninger, a psychiatrist who headed the Menninger Foundation in Kansas and who chaired the committee, says he did not believe sex abuse was a problem in Scouting because no one had informed him of any cases. Thus uninformed, Menninger sat in a 1987 deposition for lawsuit filed by an abused Scout and declared, "There is a greater threat to Scouts of drowning and loss of life from accidents than there is from sexual abuse by a Scoutmaster." In fact, BSA reports show that sex abuse is more common in Scouting than deaths or serious injuries. From 1971 through 1990, an average of 13 Scouts died during Scout activities each year, and 30 suffered serious injuries, defined by the Scouts as life-threatening or requiring hospitalization of at least 24 hours. For each of those years, however, the BSA banned an average of 67 adults suspected of abusing Scouts. The number of their victims is higher although there is no exact figure. Even without knowing this, Menninger's committee tried to grapple with sex abuse [and that's commendable, but done in a relative vacuum]. Committee members wanted to educate Scouts about abuse or teach leaders how to respond when a boy said he'd been abused. Here they ran into a roadblock: religion. Religion is a cornerstone of Scouting… Scout's Honor, Patrick Boyle -
Clarification - For an Naval Officer perspective, promotion to O2 and O3 is automatic (so long as you qualify). O4 is the first promotion determined by a board and it is 100% what is in your record and based on your time in the Naval service. In short, Eagle scout in and of itself will help you get into an academy, or ROTC, or OCS. That is it. What you learned from earning Eagle (leadership, time management, project management, etc) are essential life skills in the military and can very much help you get promoted and be a successful officer. But not because you earned Eagle.
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