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Scouting ties in the Trump Administration


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Pending confirmations aside, I cannot recall any past administrations whose members had such strong connections to Scouting. Trump may have the most Eagle Scouts in his Cabinet of any President. How ironic is that?

 

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson - Eagle Scout, National President of BSA 2010-2012

Attorney General Jeff Sessions -  Eagle Scout and earned the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.

Secretary of Energy Rick Perry -  Eagle Scout and earned the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.

US Ambassador to UN Nikki Haley -  Chair for the 2006 Friends of Scouting Leadership Division campaign. Now that is hard-core!

Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon - Girl Scout

 

Please correct or add any I missed.

Edited by RememberSchiff
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Trump followed up on the military school with five draft deferments and, later, berating John McCain for being captured in Vietnam.

I don't understand why you think it is ironic.

Maybe the Eagle Scouts in Trump's administration should take him camping. Get the President out in the woods, away from the TV and Twitter.  Have a nice campfire with lots of coffee and dutch oven m

Donald Trump went to a military school. He speaks very highly of his military school education and credits much of his later success in business to the discipline and leadership skills he learned as a cadet.

 

I think this is reflected in the number of former military officers he has chosen for his cabinet.

 

Of course, scouting is not military school, but scouting also teaches discipline and leadership skills which can be beneficial in business or public service.  

 

So, it does not surprise me that President-Elect Trump values scouting.

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Oh boy... well, at least this is already in Issues and Politics.

 

Now I have to figure out if I want to say anything about it.  I suspect most people who have been around here awhile can probably guess where I stand without me saying anything.

 

The whole time the campaign was going on, I was expecting that someone(s) would start a thread (or many threads) about it.  But except for one or two stray remarks, you wouldn't have known that a presidential election was happening around us.  There was more discussion here during past presidential campaigns.

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Like the police officer said at the scene of a horrific car accident, "Move on, people, there's nothing here to see."

 

Well, one might argue that there is a lot to see, but whether it is productive to talk about it, at this place and time, is up to the assembled multitudes.

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I decided to look for lists of Eagle or Gold Award recipients who were Cabinet members in past administrations.  What I found were the usual lists of Eagle Scouts who held a wide variety of government positions (Congress, Governor, top military leaders, big city mayors as well as Cabinet members), took one of them, and then cut it down to include just the Cabinet members or Undersecretary positions or other very high positions in the executive branch (including the White House.)  I also found a similar list of GSUSA alumna (but not specific about whether they were Gold Award recipients and cut it down according to the same criteria.  I did a very small amount of editing of these lists to remove some extraneous information; the comments in [brackets] are mine alone.
 
Eagle Scouts in U.S. Executive Branch positions
 
Lamar Alexander - Governor of Tennessee, Secretary of Education, presidential candidate
William Bennett - Secretary of Education
Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. - Treasury Secretary & U.S. Representative from Texas
James Brady - Press Secretary to President Reagan
Rear Admiral Jay M. Cohen, USN - Undersecretary of Homeland Security
Robert M. Gates - Director of Central Intelligence (CIA) and Secretary of Defense [and of course, BSA President 2014-16]
Donald Rumsfeld - Secretary of Defense
William Sessions - FBI director
Sam Skinner - Secretary of Energy during the Bush administration
Togo West - Secretary of the Army and Secretary of Veterans Affairs
 
Girl Scouts in U.S. Executive Branch positions
 
Albright, Madeleine - Former US Secretary of State
Barshefsky, Charlene - US Trade Representative
Browner, Carol - Former Administrator-Environmental Protection Agency
Herman, Alexis M. - former US Secretary of Labor
Hills, Carla - US Trade Representative
Kirkpatrick, Jeanne - Former US Ambassador to the United Nations
Ray, Dixie Lee - Former Governor of Washington, Chair of the Atomic Energy Commission
Reno, Janet - Former US Attorney General
Rice, Condoleezza - US Secretary of State
Richardson, Margaret M. - Commissioner IRS
Clinton, Hillary - 67th US Secretary of State and Presidential Candidate [Never heard of her]
Shalala, Donna - Former US Secretary of Health and Human Services

Edited by NJCubScouter
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We have heard how many billionaires and generals there are in his tentative Cabinet. But sonuvagun, he has a lot of Eagle Scouts and others with scout backgrounds.

 

I am skeptical that Trump will have much interest in scouts beyond a photo op (sound familiar). But if the Honorary President was extended to him, I could see him defer the honor to the Secretary of Interior and what scout would not want to meet an Eagle Scout who was a Navy Seal!

 

IMHO, It would be great if Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke ordered the National Park Service to remove the Boy Scout Memorial from Washington and ship it to Irving or recycle. It would be replaced by a new sculpture by an American artist. Make it a competition where every scout gets to vote like the USPS did with the Elvis stamp, put ballots in Boys Life.

 

Boy-Scout-Web_2.jpg

Maybe people meant well but this just ended all wrong.

 

Disclaimer: I voted but not for either major candidate.

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interesting list there, NJCubscouter!

 

What I find interesting is the depth of just Eagles.....

While as far as I know some of those girl scouts may have only been a Brownie for a couple years.....

 

Oh, the Eagle list left off President Ford....

 

I would be interested in seeing a similar list broadened out to say Scout Rank or above....

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Oh, the Eagle list left off President Ford....

 

That was me.  I was looking only for Cabinet members and other very-high-level presidential appointees, though I suppose I could have included Ford on the basis that he was appointed VICE president.  It was not a very scientific process.  :)  

 

The same site also had a list of famous non-Eagle Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts.  First in alphabetical order on that list was Hank Aaron.  (Our still-current President is also on that list.)  That page is here if anyone wants to see the whole thing:  http://usscouts.org/eagle/bsfamous.asp

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While as far as I know some of those girl scouts may have only been a Brownie for a couple years.....

 

Nothing wrong with that, I have a daughter who was "only" a Brownie for a couple years; actually she was a Daisy before that.  My other daughter made it to whatever it is you are in the 7th grade before losing interest.

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We have heard how many billionaires and generals there are in his tentative Cabinet. But sonuvagun, he has a lot of Eagle Scouts and others with scout backgrounds.

 

I am skeptical that Trump will have much interest in scouts beyond a photo op (sound familiar). But if the Honorary President was extended to him, I could see him defer the honor to the Secretary of Interior and what scout would not want to meet an Eagle Scout who was a Navy Seal!

 

IMHO, It would be great if Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke ordered the National Park Service to remove the Boy Scout Memorial from Washington and ship it to Irving or recycle. It would be replaced by a new sculpture by an American artist. Make it a competition where every scout gets to vote like the USPS did with the Elvis stamp, put ballots in Boys Life.

 

Boy-Scout-Web_2.jpg

Maybe people meant well but this just ended all wrong.

 

Disclaimer: I voted but not for either major candidate.

 

The Boy Scout Memorial was sculpted by an American artist. 

 

I am a conservative, but I am not a prude. I don't mind the neoclassical styled nude/semi-nude statues.

 

In neoclassical style, nude figures are usually not supposed to be seen to represent actual people.  They are meant to personify heroic or virtuous ideals.

 

The semi-nude figures do not represent the scout's parents, or any other adults. They represent the values of the scout.

 

I don't think we need to dummy down our art.

 

I once chaperoned a group of fifth grade students to an art museum showcasing an exhibit of neoclassical art. Once it was explained to them, the kids got it, and they were able to identify the ideals personified by each of the nude figures.

 

Kids can be a lot smarter than we give them credit for. I support art education.

Edited by David CO
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