Now GI Joe had returned, been fruitful and multiplied and over 50,000 scouts attended. I was not one of them. If I recall the troop only had a couple of slots to send people and there were scouts senior to me so I missed out.
Still, I remember reading that the Army, Marine Corps, and Navy were ordered to send observers to see how the Boy Scouts managed to feed so many people for the nearly weeklong event.
Later on in the army I improvised setting up my tent on bivouac. My Drill Sergeant asked me where I learned how to do it that way and I told him I learned in the boy Scouts.
He asked me if I knew the difference between the Boy Scouts and the Army. With a straight face I told him that the Boy Scouts have adult supervision and that was the only time I ever saw a Drill sergeant speechless. My guess is that one made the rounds of the NCO club.
An awful lot of what I needed to know in the Army I had already learned in Boy Scouts. Seriously. I already knew how to run an effecient camp. I could safely handle a rifle and was a pretty good shot and knew what I could eat to supplement my C-rations. I knew how to run a military radio and the current phonetic alphabet and basic training was a breeze.
The WW2 guys that were my mentors and scout leaders knew how to treat young boys. They treated us like man and held us accountable for our actions. They cut us little slack in this regard. In return they gave us a lot of liberty.
Nobody batted an eyelash when some of us would show up on a camp out carring a surplus knife. I had an M-3 trench knife, my pal, Louie carried a KaBar and another guy had a Navy uility knife he had gotten from his father.
We marched into the camp site of a camporee and after we dug in Mr. Swan, who later earned the tough guy nickname of 'Mother' told us we reminded him of the Marines he had landed at Okinawa. we were proud to hear that said about us.
Of course not all thee adults were WW2 vets. On the camporee I am taling about there was an adult volunteeer that showed up at the last minute that was justplain stupid. He treated us like little kids which we hated. We avoided him like the plague.
He saw my M3 trench knife and started raising holy hell about it. I walked off and he went to the scoutmaster. Now the scoutmaster had gone ashore on Normandy as a second lieutenant running a platoon and after a lengthy walk across France he arrivedd in Germany as a captain running an entire company. He was pretty Old School.
"Piccolo has a big knife," he said.
The scoutmaster replied, "Yes. He has an M3 trench knife. I carried one for a while in France. Why? What's the probllem? He's responsible enough."
He started a big caterwaller and I guess my scoutmaster figured the easiest way to get him to shut up was to confiscate my knife. When he did take it I told him I knew why and he kind of reddened and told me that I was not to seek revenge. He looked at my angry face and said, "Seriously. No revenge."
Of course he knew people and knew by the look on my face that I would anyway. He softened. "Look, he's a pest. If you promise not to take matters into your own hands I'll get not one, but several pounds of flesh back for you." I stuck out my hand and he shook it. I knew he was good for his word.
Later I got a report from someone that my scoutmaster had humiliated the hell out of the troublemaker and he never came on another camping trip with us. He told him he wasn't going to protect him from us on the next trip and that he didn't know doodly squat about turning boys into men. He said young man that age don't like to be treated like infants because they're not.
By the next camping trip I had another decent knife, this time it was a KaBar I had bought for about a buck. I had forgotten about the M3.
Over thirty five years later. I was in my fifties. Out of the clear blue I got a phone call from my old Scoutmaster. He asked me to drop by the house the next time I was in town. Several months later I knocked on his door and he invited me in. His wife had passed a year earlier but the house was still immaculate. I gave my condolences.
He said he had been going through things and had discovered my old trench knife he had taken away from me as a kid and handed it back to me. I was floored.
A couple of years after 9-11 I found a local youngster had enlisted and 'gone airborne'. When he came home on leave I handed it to him and told him that when he left the service I wanted it back. A few years later I heard he was staying in and was making it his career.
Betcha $50 he gives me my knife back when he retires.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this:
http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
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