Scouting experience has given two Army brats a leg up in their military careers.

Army 2nd Lt. Kirstin Strobel and her younger brother, Air Force Academy Cadet 3rd Class Nicholas Strobel, made it to the top of the scouting world: Kirstin Strobel received her Girl Scout Gold Award and her brother made Eagle Scout.

Now they are applying some of their scouting skills to what they are doing in the military.

Both credit scouting for boosting their confidence, giving them leadership skills and other abilities they said can only help them in military service.
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Kirstin Strobel, who was commissioned in May 2008 by her father, Army Col. Lawrence Strobel, used those skills to direct ROTC cadets through a leadership course at Fort Knox, Ky. She is now in the process of becoming a medical services officer at Camp Humphreys, South Korea.
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Nicholas Strobel said being outdoors in the Boy Scouts and learning survival skills have given him an advantage over his Air Force Academy peers. The academy sophomore plans to be an A-10 Thunderbolt II pilot.
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The skills that the pair learned before ever putting on a military uniform are qualities that their father said he recognizes in many former scouts who serve under his command. Lawrence Strobel is commander of the Headquarters Support Group for Joint Force Command in Brunssum, Netherlands.

And now the youngest is working on his Eagle rank and wants to fly helicopters. Scouting hones leadership skills. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

One of the leadership positions that is rarely used or if used it is commonly misused is that of the Junior Assistant Scoutmaster or JASM. The JASM is a youth leader in the Troop that has the primary purpose of serving as the youth leader and scout advisor. The JASM’s primary job is to assist the other leaders in carrying out there responsibility with as little direct contact as possible. This leader should not be the frontlines commander but should be someone who has lots of leadership experience to share with other leaders in order to ensure the Troop runs efficiently. For my Troop in particular the jobs would be as follows:

It’s too good and too lengthy for me to quote here. Now that you have a tiny taste go see what Mark has to share.

About 700 girls in Spartanburg and Cherokee counties are on a waiting list to join the Girl Scouts, according to a local staff person with the organization.

Though many want to be Daisies, Brownies, Juniors and Cadettes, there aren’t enough Girl Scout leaders and other adult volunteers, said Teresa Foster, a community development manager with Girl Scouts of South Carolina – Mountains to Midlands.

Parents call and tell Foster they filled out a card, but no one has called about a troop.

“Our response to them is, ‘I’m sorry, but all our troops are full and we don’t have a troop for you, but we’re looking for more adult volunteers, would you like to volunteer?’ ” Foster said.

Some do volunteer, but Foster said many times the response is no. The parent may work long hours or have other children to care for.

So, what’s really going on? Are the girls not joining or are the parents telling their daughters they can’t join when they find out they have to do more than just drop them off at a weekly meeting? I actually agree with the GSUSA that leadership is important. I disagree with them on the method of teaching it, but I agree on the basic premise. Too many parents are gravitating toward an attitude of “somebody else will take care of it”. Maybe the GSUSA shouldn’t be spending so much time trying to figure out why girls are joining. Maybe they should be trying to figure out why parents aren’t stepping up to lead a troop. 700 girls on a waiting list? That doesn’t sound like a lack of interest from girls.

Just months before Amanda took on the opportunity of a lifetime, she wasn’t sure how long that lifetime would last. She was having seizures.

“Anytime I ate anything I’d start going like that. My head would just snap to the right,” she says.

Dozens of tests later, doctors discovered that Amanda had a brain tumor. Her mother got the phone call.
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Surgery was an option; but not only was it dangerous, there were no guarantees. One day, under the weight of the burden, Amanda broke down.
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On the morning of January 3, Amanda went into the operating room. Twelve hours later, she was wheeled into recovery.
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Five days later she was out of the hospital and attended a scout meeting.
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She doesn’t talk much about her ordeal but she doesn’t deny it’s changed her.

“She’s more nurturing to other people. She’s more understanding,” says her mother.
“I learned over the last year: don’t put off something you can do today until tomorrow,” Amanda says, “because last year I didn’t know if I would have a tomorrow.”

It’s been said that facing our fears make us stronger and after everything she’s been through, the Boy Scout motto could be her own.

When it comes to the future, Amanda Vogt will be prepared.

What a phenomenal story. Somebody contact Walden Media. Here’s your tough cookie!

QUESTION: Christine Lagarde, which I’m sure, as you know, is the French Minister of Finance, spoke to our school last year. And she’s also a Holton graduate. She spoke about the importance of creating a network amongst female leaders, much like the old boy network. I was wondering how you try to further that community. And how important do you think it is?

SECRETARY RICE: I think it’s very important. The one thing you should never let people tell you is that, well, it’s not a good thing to draw on contacts or to have people. It is important. Everybody needs to draw on people that they know. There’s nothing wrong with calling somebody who might know somebody who might know somebody who can help you. There’s nothing wrong with that. And so it’s – it is good to have networks.

And I’ve actually gotten together with other female foreign ministers and a few female leaders around the world, and we actually have a women’s foreign policy network. And we’re going to meet for the third time in – at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

And we do several things. We try to encourage young women to become interested in foreign affairs, to become – in countries where women are not really well represented in political processes, to become engaged in politics. We try to encourage business leaders to engage young women and help bring them up through the system. We also do work on foreign policy issues of concern to women. For instance, we have recently been working on women and violence in warfare, the fact that violence against women is sometimes used as a tool of war, and we’ve tried to focus the United Nations on that problem; on access of women to justice and to courts and to legal counsel. So we’ve taken that up as a cause.

Because this is a pretty powerful group of women. I think there’s several women leaders now: the President of Chile; the president of – the Chancellor of Germany; the President of Liberia; the President of Argentina. And if you put that together with the fact that you’ve got a lot of women foreign ministers, we think it’s become an important network for addressing these issues and for saying to young girls, “You can do this too.”

Hm. Well, I’m not a big fan of limiting contacts on that scale based on anything: race, creed, or gender. I do understand the interest in promoting specific items regarding female issues in the world. I just think anyone can work on those issues. However, if establishing an old-girl network gets a little more freedom to women elsewhere in the world then I’ll hold off judgement for now.

(hat tip: Libby Leist of NBC News)

Scoutmaster Nancy Welton describes her service work as a faith response to the corporal work of mercy to “visit the imprisoned”, and as a charitable action towards her neighbors, reflecting a great sense of God’s love for all.

Nancy remarked that her “drive, initiative, and willingness to serve as Scoutmaster for incarcerated youth” was a result of having been a Wood Badge participant and Wood Badge Troop Guide. “My experiences with Wood Badge taught me to reach beyond any self-imposed limitations when it comes to serving youth. Wood Badge gave me the confidence, initiative and desire to serve others more in a servant-leader fashion,” she said.

Amazing. My experience has been that guys who stay in the peer group that acts out doesn’t tend to end well. I have needed to isolate them from those friends and put them with others to get them out of the repetitive cycle that keeps them from achieving. Ms. Welton seems to have done what I would have deemed impossible by succeeding within that group. No wonder the article says she is receiving the Whitney M. Young Service Award from the Boy Scouts of America. She is a great inspiration.

Ambassadors Preparatory Academy in Galveston was the first school to reopen on Galveston Island after Hurricane Ike.

But amidt the chaos and devastation, there’s a glimmer of hope for its students and school director, Patricia Williams, who decided to start a Girl Scout troop at the school to help students get over the remnants of Ike.

On Oct. 6, about 70 girls donned pink Girl Scout shirts to take the oath to exemplify the Girl Scout Mission and agree to live by the Girl Scout Law. Many of these girls are currently displaced and essentially homeless, so going back to school and joining Girl Scouts was important to them.

Williams said once school resumed, the first thing the girls asked about was Girl Scouts.

“Their little faces lit up with joy. This is exactly what they need because some are without homes, displaced and unhappy. This will change their lives forever,” Williams said.

Williams is the new troop leader and teacher Shealamarie Tiangco is co-leader.

Getting back on your feet and getting on with life. That’s an all-American story. Thanks to Galveston’s Daily News for letting us know how they’re getting back to normal after Hurricane Ike.

Updated: Words and link removed by request of the original blogger

This goes back to my ability discussion. Do you really want someone else to be the leader? Are you sure your daughter will enjoy her experience as much? Well, if you’re sure, then okay.

Update: The mom said she was venting and wasn’t comfortable with having her words on my blog. Okay. I was just using her post to illustrate my belief that when a parent doesn’t step into a leadership role she can often be disappointed by the program that her daughter is receiving or not receiving as the case may be. If you are sharp enough to notice that things should be different then you’re sharp enough to realize that the only way that can happen is if you get it to happen. That usually means being a leader, but it can also mean taking a leadership role as an involved parent. My Girl Scout troop has many involved parents who are not leaders. It’s one of the ways we know we’re doing what the families enjoy. They participate. If your child is in Scouts and you want it to be done better then make it happen. Both you and your kid will be happier for it in the long run.

“We definitely need help,” said Scoutmaster Roy Pratt. “I think we’ll have enough kids. But will we have enough adults?”

Troop 34 counts seven scouts as members, Pratt said. Five are needed to register as a troop, Pratt said.

And later,

Adult involvement is just as crucial, Pratt and Rowbotham said.

“We really need another adult or two,” Pratt said. “(Regulations require) at least two adults for any activity. Tim and I are holding down the fort, and we don’t have any kids in the program anymore.”

“We want scouts and parents to become involved like they should be,” Rowbotham said. “It’s family bonding.”

This is where I feel the decline of Scouting, both for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, is. Most parents think it’s fine to have their kids in Scouts – as long the parents don’t have to do anything. Thankfully that situation doesn’t exist in my own troop, but there are troubling signs there, too. Some parents never help out or perhaps once every year. What do you do? I talk to the parents, but they just shrug and talk about the reasons why they aren’t there as if they can’t be dealt with or worked around. Busy at work? Fine, take on a paperwork job (keep up the parent roster, maintain the car insurance list, check on training opportunities from the council, etc). Don’t really like to camp? Merit badge counselors don’t have to camp and there are many subjects that can be taught that have nothing to do with camping. Weren’t a Boy Scout and so you don’t feel prepared? There are more training classes in our council than you can shake a stick at not to mention the online training available. After dealing with the objection you’ll usually get a maybe.

The objection isn’t a real reason; it’s the symptom to the problem. They just don’t want to do it. How do you get around that? I try to hit them up with a few methods.

Excitement. Just be excited about the program. What a great outing the next one is going to be! Your son is going to have such a great time. You should be there with us to see it happen. When parents catch the excitement of what the boys are doing they start wanting to help make it happen. Every year I appreciate more and more the part of the law that says a Scout is “cheerful”. A good attitude, even when it is partially forced, makes a world of difference in every aspect of the program. People like having fun. A cheerful attitude makes even mundane tasks more bearable, especially if you have a group of cheerful parents.

Another method is finding their interests and matching it to a part of the program. Not skills. Interests. I know dads who are carpenters or electricians who hide out because they know they’ll have to do work additionally for Scouts if others find out. However, if they used to do a mondo snow camp-out when they were kids and you tell them that the boys have a similar outing planned, that dad will generally want to help out. People like to pursue their interests. You just have to match theirs up with the troop’s.

A method that works, but not as successfully is ability. I’m priming one of my dads to take over as Scoutmaster after the current Scoutmaster’s term is done in another year or two (we’re playing that by ear). He’s an army veteran recently back from Iraq. He’s a likable guy with a good personality and a very good role model for the boys. He can also be strict and that can go either way, but I’m sure he won’t be an unfair martinet. When I was talking to him at summer camp and he was wondering if he would have the time and if he would be okay given that he hadn’t been a Boy Scout I played the ability card. “Are you willing to let someone else become Scoutmaster of your son who might not be able to do the job as well as you?” He had to acknowledge my point. He’s not convinced he’s the best man, but none of us generally are. We need others to point out our good points; we’re well acquainted with our bad ones.

So, this Ohio story just reinforces what my theory on the decline of Scouting is. It’s not as much the controversy, although I’m sure that plays a part, as it is a failure to step up on the part of the parents. 7 families and no leaders from any of them? That’s the story right there.