I spent 10 1\2 years in scouting starting with Cub Scouts and Webelos and then making up to the rank of Life in Boy Scouts and Iw as also a brotherhood member of the Order of the Arrow.  I had the honor of camping and working at the first and oldest Scout Reservation in the US, Owassippi Scout Reservation near Muskegeon, MI (western central MI near the shore of Lake Michigan and just a little south of the White River, which flows through the towns of Whitehall and Montague, MI before flowing into the lake).  Boy Scouts was a lot different back then.  It was about acceptance and tolerance and helping others.  This current rash (and I use it in the medical context) of homophobia and religious fundamentalism would have been totally frowned upon back in my Scouting days.  It led me to a life of service.  After high school, I joined the Army as a Combat Medical Specialist and carried through all of the first aid skills and my desire to help people that I picked up in scouting. I also made ample use of the survival skills I learned and taught at the Wilderness Survival Outpost at OSA as well as the generall camping skills I picked up with all the camputs we had.  I also developed a deep respect, reverence, and love of nature.  The ideas of sevice and duty to my fellow man also translated later in life when I became a minister and helped run several charitable services theough my temple.

While working at Owassipe, I saw the positive effects on the campers that Scouting had, especially when they brought in inner city scouts, who's only run in with nature was a raccoon pilliaging thier garbage cans or a squirrel jumping through the trees.  Here they saw the majestic Eagle and other raptors as well as the various forms of wildlife that lived inthe wilds of the Scout Reservation.

Scouting left an indelible mark on my life and my spirituality.  It was a very positive force.  My fear is that the current regime that controls scouting is taking it down a very negative path...one that Lord Baden Powell would never have approved of.