Once An Eagle

He stood at the landing halfway down the steps that led to the basement of his parents’ house, gazing at the medals that hung in a small shadow box on the wall. His father had made the shadow box out of cedar and glass. The inside of the box was covered with dark green felt. The medals were Boy Scout medals, lined up in two rows. The top row consisted of Tenderfoot, Second Class and First Class Scout medals. Centered beneath them were the Star and Life Scout medals. To the right of the two rows hung the Eagle Scout medal with the Bronze, Silver and Gold Palm medals mounted below it. As he stood staring at the medals, the man felt nothing. He didn’t feel pride or any sense of accomplishment. All he felt was nothing except for maybe a little bit of shame and embarrassment. He turned and walked back up the stairs.

“Momma, can I have the shadow box with the Boy Scout medals?” he asked his mother. “Why sure you can, sweetie,” said his mother. “They’ze yores.” His mother was in her early nineties and still active. Born and raised in Texas, her voice had a southern accent with a deep twang. Her grammar was atrocious. “Y’gonna a-hang ‘em on the wall at yore house? Y’ort to,” she said.
“I have something in mind that I want to do with them.”
“Well, you take ‘em. Yore daddy was so proud o’them medals.”
“Yes, ma’am, he was.”
“And you, too.”
He walked back down the stairs and took the shadow box off of the wall.

He had joined the Cub Scouts when he was eight years old. A friend of his at school was in the local pack and encouraged him to join. He enjoyed his time in the Cub Scouts with his friends. The pack was divided into four dens, which were groups of about eight to ten boys. His favorite times were the den meetings. They took field trips together, did crafts and had refreshments. The memory that he most cherished now was when his den was on The Popeye Club, a local children’s television show. He progressed through the Cub Scouts at a normal pace and entered the Boy Scouts at age ten.

His father had become Assistant Cubmaster while the boy was in the Cub Scouts and became Assistant Scoutmaster when he moved into the Boy Scouts. The boy had earned his Tenderfoot rank with relative ease. The requirements were fairly basic. They consisted of knowing the Scout Oath, the Scout Law, the Scout Motto, U.S. Flag history and, of course, tying a few basic knots. It was when he began his requirements for his Second Class rank that things began to happen.

One of the main requirements for the Second Class rank was to take three five mile hikes, including a hike plan. The boy was eager to go on the hikes and wrote up a plan for his first hike through the woods adjacent to their house. His father told him that they would prepare by walking from their house to the local high school, a distance of about a mile and a half. They did it three times and his father signed off on the requirement. It was the same with some of the other requirements. One was to sharpen a knife and an axe. His father sharpened them both on his emery wheel in the basement while the boy looked on. Another requirement was to build a fire with not more than two matches. He and his father went into the back yard and built a fire using tinder purchased at the hardware store. It only required one match to light the tinder. The boy found out later you could also light it easily using a magnifying glass in the bright sun. The next requirement was to cook a meal on that particular fire without utensils. The meal was to contain meat, fish or poultry and at least one vegetable. They cooked the meal using cut up chicken, green beans and potatoes his father had wrapped in an aluminum foil packet with water inside. They placed the packet on top of the fire for about forty five minutes. When the packets were opened, the meat and veggies were steamed perfectly. It technically filled the requirement, but even at that age the boy realized that it did not seem quite right. The sharpening, fire and cooking requirements were signed off on in one afternoon.

The boy went to Scout camp for a week after he had earned the rank of First Class Scout. His father had to work and could not go. He almost got into trouble soon after arriving and not by short sheeting anyone’s bed or holding pepper under someone’s nose while they were sleeping. One of the First Class requirements was to be able to swim fifty yards. The truth of the matter was that he could barely swim at all. His mother was deathly afraid of water and could not swim. Hence, the boy was not allowed in the water without strict supervision. He had taken a basic swimming class at Misty Waters Country Club and swam the length of the Olympic-size pool there. The only catch was that he had done it holding onto a paddleboard. That didn’t matter. He swam fifty yards and his father convinced the instructor to sign off on the requirement sheet.

That backfired in a big way. The first day of camp each troop was to be at the swimming pool at a designated time. Each Scout and leader was required to take a swimming test. If one could not swim at all or could only float or dog paddle, he was classified as a non-swimmer. The pool was not Olympic-size, so less than a lap of the pool was a beginner. One lap was a swimmer. There had to be at least one leader per troop who was a swimmer. Doing a combination of the dog paddle and a rudimentary version of the Australian crawl, the boy swam a length and a half. He was classified as a beginner and his rank was First Class Scout. That threw up a red flag. The Scoutmaster called the boy into his tent that afternoon. He wanted to know why he had only made it as far as a beginner swimmer, yet his rank was First Class. The boy told him that he had cramped up, which was not true. The Scoutmaster informed him that the matter would be discussed further when they returned home. He must have called the boy’s father and told him about the situation, because as soon as he returned home lessons had been arranged with a former collegiate swimmer who taught lessons in his private pool. The boy arrived home on Sunday and the lessons started Monday. After the weekly Tuesday evening troop meeting the Scoutmaster, the boy and his father met with the president of the Civic Association, which was the troop’s sponsor. They were both grilled on the fact that the boy was a First Class Scout but had only met the beginning swimming requirement at camp. They stuck by the cramp story, which the boy knew was wrong. It was determined that they would meet at the president’s home the following Saturday and the boy would take a swimming test in his backyard pool.

The boy’s swimming teacher was excellent. It was a group class and in the space of six days he had learned the Australian crawl, the breaststroke, the elementary backstroke and his favorite, the sidestroke. The boy’s final lesson was on Saturday morning and that afternoon he and his father went to the president’s house for the swimming test. The president had a beautiful backyard pool. The boy jumped in and swam like a fish for about an hour, demonstrating all four of the strokes that he had learned. He finished up with a few dives and swam the length of the pool underwater. He passed the test and they were off the hook.

That winter the church the boy attended with his parents announced that they were sponsoring a Boy Scout troop. The boy’s father quickly agreed to be the Scoutmaster and that is when things really began to accelerate. The requirements for the ranks of Star Scout and Life Scout mainly consisted of earning merit badges. One day he arrived home from school and a number of merit badges were on the kitchen counter. A Court of Honor was coming up and several of the boys in the troop had advanced in rank and earned merit badges. There were about five or six more on the counter along with those. “Whose are these?” the boy asked his father.
“They’re yours.”
“I didn’t earn these three here.”
“Yeah, you did. You did this one up at the lake and these at Scout camp.”
The boy didn’t argue with his father. He just went into his room, sat down at his desk and started on his homework. But he knew that it was very wrong.

It began happening more and more. He would come home from school and there would be merit badges and the accompanying card on the counter. His father had signed the cards. By the time he became eligible for the rank of Life Scout he had “fulfilled” all of his requirements, including ten merit badges and five from the required list for Eagle Scout. As he was working on his Eagle Scout requirements, the church dissolved the troop and the boy and his father went back to their former troop. The Scoutmaster had left, so the boy’s father stepped in and filled the position. The same things continued to happen. The boy had quit saying anything about the merit badges. It simply didn’t do any good.

The boy’s final requirement for the rank of Eagle Scout was a community service project. His father had arranged for him to clean and landscape the park area of the local civic center. He spent two weekends raking pine straw, bagging leaves, moving rocks and cleaning walkways. It was October and the weather was perfect for working outdoors. After finishing the project, the boy was quite pleased. The area looked good and it was a project he had completed all by himself. He came home from school a couple of days later and his father called him downstairs. In the basement garage sat four picnic tables neatly built and stained. The stained boards for the tops were all cut and stacked against the wall. “You’re going to put the tops of these on,” said his father. “What are they for?” the boy asked, even though he knew the answer. “We’re going to take them down to the civic center,” said his father.

The boy nailed the tops onto the frames after his father had put them in place and checked them with a square and a level. They then took the tables to the civic center and arranged them in the park area. When the president of the Civic Association inspected the park area he was very impressed, especially with the picnic tables. “These tables are really nice,” he said. “Tommy built them,” said the boy’s father. “Didn’t you, Tommy?” The boy dropped his head and said, “Yes, sir.” “Great job, very impressive!” said the president. The boy had fulfilled his Eagle Scout requirements and was presented with the award in January. At the age of twelve years, six months, three weeks and six days he was at the time the youngest boy ever to reach the rank of Eagle Scout in DeKalb County.

That spring the boy went to the Spring Jamboree and summer camp at the Scout Reservation with his father. In the fall he started high school, went out for football and quickly forgot all about the Boy Scouts. He was thirteen years old now and was only interested in sports, girls and a social life. His father was adamant that the boy continue going to Boy Scout functions. Merit badges kept appearing on the kitchen counter and he was awarded the Bronze Palm, Silver Palm and Gold Palm awards for merit badges earned after attaining the rank of Eagle Scout. One day his father told him that they were going to the Fall Camporee that weekend. The boy said that he didn’t want to go. His father told him that he was indeed going and paraded him around like a prize horse while they were there.

That was the last Boy Scout function he ever attended. The following spring the father told him that they were going to the Spring Jamboree and the boy flatly refused. He was in the middle of spring football practice and told his father that he was not going. The father would not budge and neither would the boy. It was the first time that he had ever stood up to his father, who finally relented and went alone. The father continued to go to functions at the Scout Reservation for several years without the boy. He could not understand why his son no longer cared about Scouting and was more interested in girls and football.

The boy’s cousin earned the Eagle Scout award a few years afterward. And he had actually earned it. His uncle was also his cousin’s Scoutmaster and had moved to another troop when it became obvious that his son was going to achieve the award. The boy always wondered if it was due to the example that his father had set with him.

The relationship between the two of them became very strained as the boy grew into adolescence, especially after he began to form opinions and ideas that were not shared by his father. There were periods where the two hardly spoke to one another. As the boy grew into adulthood he began to resent his father and the fact that he was still trying to control aspects of his life. The young man very seldom mentioned to anyone the fact that he was an Eagle Scout and eventually never brought it up at all. Every job application that he filled out his father wanted to know if he had put on there that he was an Eagle Scout. He would tell his father yes, even though he hadn’t. Over time he actually began to feel ashamed of the award. He knew that he had not earned it and did not feel comfortable at all when he was around someone who had actually done so.

Over the years the young man came to terms with the past. He was a man now and had managed to let go the feelings of resentment toward his father. He came to realize that what had happened to him also happened to countless others, particularly those who had grown up as an only child. The boy loved his father very much and knew that his father loved him. He had truly enjoyed his time in the Scouts and learned many valuable lessons that he carried into adulthood. He thought that maybe if he would just have been left alone to advance at his own pace without getting caught up in the race for the rank of Eagle, things would have been a lot better. But that was not to be. It was simply a classic case of a man living through his son.

The two of them had become very close by the end of the father’s life. He passed away at the age of sixty after suffering his fourth heart attack. The son did not handle it well at all and it took a number of years for him to eventually get over his father’s death. But he continued to think about the Boy Scouts and the Eagle Scout award in particular. He would look at the medal hanging in the shadow box each time he walked down the stairs and into the basement of his mother’s house. Over time he began to realize what needed to be done.

Now the time had come. “Are you sure that you want to do this?” asked the man’s wife. He had taken the shadow box apart and the medals sat on the kitchen table. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” he replied. “There’s only one Eagle Scout in this family and it’s not me.” “I’m going to leave you to it,” she said and kissed him on the cheek. He carefully wrapped each one in cheesecloth, starting with the Second Class Scout medal, then the First Class Scout medal, the Star Scout medal and finally the Life Scout medal. He did not wrap up the Tenderfoot medal. He then took the Bronze Palm, the Silver Palm and Gold Palm awards and pinned them to the red, white and blue ribbon on the Eagle Scout medal. He carefully placed the Eagle Scout medal in the jewelry box it was in when it was presented to him a lifetime ago. He looked at the medal for a long time. A big lump came up in his throat and tears welled in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” the man said, “but this is the honorable thing to do.” He closed the case, wrapped it in cheesecloth and placed it in a small cardboard box along with the other medals. He placed the envelope containing the letter that he had written to the Director at the Boy Scout National Headquarters on top of the medals. He then closed the box and taped it shut.

In the letter he had explained to the director that he was relinquishing the award and asked to be taken off of the National Eagle Scout Registry. He explained that relinquishing the award in no way reflected that he felt any animosity toward the Boy Scouts. As a matter of fact, the man explained, he felt that if more young people were involved in Scouting that the world would be a better place. He told him that the main thing that the Boy Scouts had taught him was honor. He explained that through a series of events that were beyond his control, he knew that he had not earned the award and that his name did not deserve to be alongside of the names of those who had done so. Returning the award was the honorable thing to do. He told the director that he had chosen to keep his Tenderfoot medal, as he felt it was the only rank that he had truly achieved.

The next morning on the way to work he stopped by the post office. He stood in front of the parcel drop for what seemed like an eternity, his thoughts and emotions churning. He took a deep breath, opened the door and dropped the box through. That was it. It was done. He never heard one word of response from anyone at the National Headquarters. So much for honor.

The man had many times heard and the slogan, “Once An Eagle, Always An Eagle.” That is true of those who earn it. But the man knew in his heart of hearts that he wasn’t a member of that fraternity. He was not once an Eagle. He had never been an Eagle.

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