The first disclaimer in this diversion into Blogland is that the above image of a scoutmaster is from a Google search for a photo for this "expose" of the Boy Scouts of America. The photo being from a newspaper article about criminal and civil charges as to claims of molesting scouts is apt. Your not-so-humble reviewer has no personal knowledge of this case beyond what the article reported.
The modern relevance to the following story as old as the first Bush administration is that things apparently never change at the BSA. The latest large chapter in the seemingly never ending story of scoutmasters preying on scouts has once more triggered memories of a horrific 18-month tenure as a district executive. This has culminated in a recent vivid stress dream from those bad old days.
The callous disregard by current boy scout employees and volunteers literally has added insult to the old injury. Most current BSA officials whom I contacted this week ignored my calls.
When asked to respond to my report of regular emotional and verbal abuse by my direct BSA supervisor from the perspective of a human being, a scout executive, and a HR professional, a high-ranking national office staffer characterized my experience as "unpleasant." He added that no one is guaranteed a "nice" manager. I hung up on him.
The lack of response has included no follow-up as to a call for a hotline set up to address misconduct by scout volunteers and employees.
As mentioned above, our story occurs in the era of clunky wireless landline telephones and MS-DOS. The names of the not-so-innocent have been changed or omitted to protect your not-so-humble reviewer from legal action by the evil scouting empire.
I was a relatively fresh-faced recent college graduate with dual interest and experience in non-profit management and in making the world a little better place. This dated back to running the blood drives my junior and senior years at my boarding school.
Meeting a BSA employee at a party led to what I thought was the "capital" idea of applying to that organization. I naively believed the hype that the BSA merely was an organization that let kids spend weekends in the great outdoors and that taught them the importance of being excellent to each other.
This was just before the anti-gay and other offensive policies of the BSA made headlines. I soon learned of the broader fascist nature of the organization.
My boss being a retired Marine and not grasping the realities of civilian life warrants referring to him as The Great Santini. This also provides the perspective that the BSA provides a haven for former jarheads, squids, flyboys, and dogfaces without doing enough to get them to accept that the war is over.
It is worth noting that a BSA employee could have been fired in this era for living with a girlfriend. Santini told me as well that the fascism extended to ANY UNSUBSTANTIATED report of ANY unscoutlike behavior also being a terminable offense without ANY chance to respond to such a claim. I would joke with friends that the BSA was lucky if at any one time I met two-out-three elements of the scout ideal of being physically strong, morally straight, and mentally alert.
Conversely. numerous consistent statements as to a district-level female volunteer regularly sweating up the sheets with the married Santini and equally wed male volunteer did not cause any concern. My knowledge of these events is limited to what other volunteers told me. The behavior of my boss toward this woman and his habit of hulking out on me on a few occasions on which I dun her wrong PURELY in his mind is consistent with the word on the hiking path.
My background made my service area of predominantly nice suburbs apt. Unfortunately, the BSA neglected to consider whether Santini would respond well to a typical boarding school boy who was a boy scout "virgin." His calling me "preppy scum" within five minutes of our meeting set the tone for the next year-and-a-half.
The event that epitomizes the abuse that I endured and that INDICATES that BSA policies that are designed to protect scouts from pedophiles are not worth the paper on which they are written occurred roughly one year into my employment. These policies include a statement that essentially directs an abundance of caution as to a questionable candidate.
The rest of the background as to this incident is that the BSA is designed to be an ENTIRELY volunteer-run organization. We over-worked and under-paid staffers are supposed to let them call the shots and to just provide the resources that they require to complete their labors of love (and sometimes lust). In that regard, I was an excellent and well-liked "soldier."
My fateful trip into Hell this time began with returning a call from a man, whose name I do not recall but will call Mr. Horton in reference to a "very special episode" of the '80scom "Diff'rent Strokes." Horton reported that the volunteer who oversaw the merit-badge program, whose name I also do not remember, rejected his application to be a photography merit-badge counselor.
My spidey sense was tingling as to Horton appealing a decision to deny him a position that literally would allow him to be alone in a dark room with boys. Horton saying what sounded like a very creepy tone "I like working with boys" sealed his fate in my eyes.
I explained to Horton that volunteers decided such matters, but that I would call the volunteer. In speaking with that volunteer, it was very cleat that we were on the same page. I thought that the matter was resolved when I called Horton back and politely told him that his appeal failed.
I was sitting in my desk in the large cubicle farm where all district executives of every level "grazed" when Santini came blustering in as usual the next day. He walked up to my desk near stairs that allowed virtually the entire building to hear what occurred there and glowered at me as was oft the case.
Santini growled that Horton had called him; the fact that Horton was trying alarmingly hard to get in a darkroom with scouts apparently did not concern Santini.
In stating the reasons for my action, I told Santini about Horton stating in a creepy voice that he likes working with boys. The face of Santini got even redder than it typically did when he spoke to me, and he bellowed at the top of his voice that he likes working with boys. He then just as loudly repeated that statement at least five times, naming a different high-ranking volunteer each time.
For the record, I NEVER got a sense that Santini did bad bad things with scouts.
Santini then told me to give him the merit-badge application, grabbed it out of my hands, scrawled his signature on it, and ordered me to bring it to the registration office. NO ONE in our office EVER responded to that misconduct.. I still sincerely hope that Horton never molested a scout and am deeply bothered that I never will get peace-of-mind as to that.
The converse this time is that I once escorted one group of scouts and their leader on a trip to a scout camp in Maine and another group back. My spidey sense did not tingle at all as to either scout leader.
BSA policies require that adult leaders shower separately from scouts and sleep in different rooms. I, but not the scout leaders, diligently adhered to those rules,. Although I have a strong level of confidence that nothing improper occurred as to either group, this journey INDICATED that adult leaders do not follow the rules.
Other tales of the sordid lives of BSA employees and volunteers must wait for another day. These include Santini forcing me almost literally to the breaking point as to a back injury after I repeatedly told him this 5'8" 150 pounds (which still are my stats) guy could not do the assigned literally hard labor.