An Eagle Scout Weighs in on Department of War Cutting Ties With the Boy Scouts

(Daily Signal)—The Boy Scouts of America taught me valuable lessons about tying knots, lighting fires, and what it means to be a man, but I’m glad to see the Department of War reconsidering its historic partnership with the Scouts.

Founded in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America taught young men wilderness survival skills, fostered friendship, and trained boys to become citizens and leaders. In order to attain the rank of Eagle Scout, a young man must not just demonstrate mastery of many skills but also plan his own project, leading others.

For these and other reasons, the military awards an automatic rank increase to Eagle Scouts who enlist. A 2017 post for Scouting Magazine noted that 20% of West Point cadets, 12% of the Naval Academy Class of 2016, and 10% of Air Force Academy cadets had attained the highest rank in Scouting.

Yet the Boy Scouts of America no longer exists, and the organization that replaced it, Scouting America, leaves a great deal to be desired. It is high time the military reconsider, and establish clear benchmarks for a scouting program that fosters virtue, rather than virtue-signaling.

The Trans Scouts of America

As a young man, I learned the Scout Law: “A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”

Tragically, the Boy Scouts of America abandoned these commitments. In January 2017, the organization endorsed transgender ideology, which I’ve long argued is fundamentally at odds with both trustworthiness and reverence:

‘A scout is trustworthy’ means more than just telling the truth. It means living with integrity, not presenting a false sense of yourself to others. There is a fundamental falseness in presenting yourself as a boy when you are in fact biologically a girl. But I think there is a worse loss of integrity among those who encourage biological girls to identify as boys.

‘A scout is reverent’ means honoring God, or at least a principle greater than yourself. Christians—and most Jews and Muslims, to my knowledge—believe that God created humans male and female, and that their sexuality is a good gift from God. Rejecting that gift—or encouraging others to reject it—is arguably irreverent.

Endorsing transgender ideology is a fundamental rejection of the virtues the Boy Scouts of America once championed.

The Boy Scouts of America also faced 82,000 claims of child sexual abuse in a scandal that led the institution to declare bankruptcy in 2020. I thank God that I never experienced any such abuse, but I am horrified by the fact that an institution tarred by such a scandal would go on to embrace an ideology that arguably makes young people more vulnerable to predation.

The Boy Scouts drifted from a non-political home for Democrats and Republicans alike to a left-leaning institution. The transgender policy came after the Boy Scouts allowed open homosexuality among boys in 2013, and then among adult leaders in 2015. In 2020, it announced solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and introduced a “diversity and inclusion” merit badge, now mandatory for the rank of Eagle Scout.

When the BSA changed its position on homosexuality, former scout leaders banded together to form Trail Life USA, a Christian alternative. The BSA encouraged a faith in God or a higher power, but Trail Life USA is explicitly Christian. By 2023, Trail Life USA had grown to more than 50,000 members in all 50 states, with 1,200 troops across the country.

Perhaps fittingly, at the beginning of this year the organization changed its name from Boy Scouts of America to “Scouting America.”

The Department of War

Last week, NPR published a story claiming that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth had written a memo cutting off Scouting America. Hegseth reportedly wrote that the Scouts no longer promotes “masculine values,” instead focusing on “gender confusion” and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

A War Department official told The Daily Signal that “the department will not comment on leaked documents that we cannot authenticate and that may be pre-decisional.”

I support the Department of War’s connection with scouting institutions. Scouting trains young boys—and girls—to develop important skills, and the military should reward scouting achievements with a higher initial rank.

That said, I think Scouting America has taken this important relationship for granted, and it is high time the Department of War develop clear guidelines for what kind of scouting program it will honor. Since Scouting America aims to indoctrinate kids on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and rejects the distinction between men and women, Hegseth would be well advised to reconsider this relationship.

I’d recommend two things. First, the Department of War should set forth clear standards for scouting partners: standards focused on key skills and virtues, not political correctness. Second, the Department of War should seriously consider partnering with Trail Life USA and American Heritage Girls, the conservative alternatives to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

Perhaps, if the military establishes clear standards, it may not just send Scouting America a well-deserved wake-up call, but also encourage reforms to restore the Boy Scouts to their own high ideals.