Boy Scout’s Honor
The more you hear about the way the Boy Scouts of America did their business, the more infuriating it is. The organization can be such a beacon of positive values for young boys during a transitional time in their lives, but the stranglehold of organized religion- which led to their long ban on homosexual and atheist members- and an image that needed to be upheld has tainted the organization, and their potential for good. The documentary “Boy Scout’s Honor” will shred any last vestige of positivity that might have existed for people who were associated with the program.
My parents encouraged me to start scouts after we moved to Georgia in 1988. The Cub Scout troop we joined later turned into a Charter Boy Scout troop out of our local Presbyterian church. The members were very tight in those early years, and the support system as each of us went for our Eagle Scout rank was strong. It’s interesting that this documentary is coming out 30 years to the day of my own Eagle Scout Court of Honor, which I remember vividly even now. As long as I was a part of the troop, there were not issues with scoutmasters molesting the scouts in their care, and even as people went their separate ways, there were no whispers of such things. As I grew older, and read more about the organization, I counted myself among the lucky ones.
We often talk about the courage of survivors coming forward after being sexually assaulted, but the truth is, whether you come forward to call out the person who assaulted you, or are unable to do so, it takes courage simply to survive that ordeal. What Aaron Averhart and others whom are speaking out about William (Bill) Sheehan are doing here is heroic and harrowing, because hopefully, they could inspire a survivor whom is suffering in silence to step forward, and try and make sure someone else never has to go through what they are going through. That, for so long, Boy Scouts of America could never assure the scouts in their program of that is grotesque.
The bare minimum an organization can do when faced with a sexual abuser is nothing; next to nothing, apparently, is the file folder BSA maintained on people whom molested boys in scout troops. That these files stretch as far back as the 1920s, and the public didn’t even know about them until recently, is chilling. How many scouts would have never been enrolled has this been public knowledge? Would the response to pedophilia been more effective, so that these files wouldn’t have been so large? Would Bill Sheehan and others been stopped after the first victim, and rotted in prison like he deserved? (Given society’s history of not believing victims, sadly, I’m less inclined to believe that.)
As a former Boy Scout, who is proud of what they accomplished in their time in the organization- and grateful for the friendships they built- “Boy Scout’s Honor” shades my view of my time there, and makes me more thankful than ever about the people we lucked into being involved with in scouts because, as this harrowing and moving documentary illustrates, several kids were not so lucky, and my heart goes out to them.
