Scouting … Memories and a Lifestyle

Post date: Oct 27, 2011 2:58:03 PM

The night was thick with humidity. These tiny little mosquitoes wakened me up. Scratching, turning on my side, I wondered what time it was. It must be late, very late. Those darn mosquitoes would not cooperate. The tent was always too small for all of us. We needed a good night sleep for the wide game next morning. Squinting, looking through the wide opening of our tent, I saw two shadows against the moonlight. They were sitting next to the subdued campfire talking in low voice. One was fanning smoke toward our tent’s opening and the other looked as if he was sipping something. What were they up to? Rubbing my eyes, I recognised who they were. They were my Scoutmaster and his assistant. They stayed up late talking most likely about the next morning game, while trying to smoke out the unfriendly and hungry mosquitoes hoping we would have a good night rest.

That was a night long ago at one of our camps in Vietnam. The image of my Scouting brothers fanning mosquitoes remains forever fresh in my memory. My scoutmaster… Let me pause for a moment to share with you some subtle differences in our languages. Scoutmaster is the term used by Scouts from English speaking countries to address their number one troop Scouter. This was an old terminology; in our mother language, we do not have a stiff, severe-sounding term such as “Scoutmaster”. He was our anh đoàn trưởng. The word “anh” means brother. The term Scoutmaster does not really describe what “anh” is to us. Yes, they were my brothers, my Scouting brothers. They were never a master or an assistant master. I will introduce this assistant to you later. Our troop scouters were young men in their early twenties. Like most of us they once were Scouts in our troop. Becoming patrol leaders and later accepting the responsibility of taking care of younger Scouts were part of that natural path in the troop. Our troop was more like a family. We did not have a sister figure at this time. Remember, this was years ago when there were no female scouters in any troop.

In our family, the younger brothers learned from their elders. What did I learn from my brothers in Scouting? I learned a lot. I learned that they cared for younger Scouts not unlike parents do for their children. They show us the love for the outdoors, and the skill required to live in harmony with nature. Growing up with these young men was an integral part of my youth. Together with a formal education and the nurturing of family life, Scouting left an impressive mark in the make-up of my present being.

Scouting has helped me to develop my potential in many respects: physical, intellectual, social and spiritual. Through its principles and practices, scouting also help me to understand the value of being a responsible member of our communities, be it local or international.

Back to my troop leaders, they were certainly not professional teachers or psychologists. Like us, they learned to enjoy scouting through their leaders, so on and so on. The reason for the Scouting movement has been so successful for so long is because of its solid foundation and its very flexible and adaptive framework. We practiced what we have learned. This process repeated itself year after year with an occasional updated twist to fit the current generation of youth.

My leaders lead. They set examples for us younger Scouts. I still remembered the first big camp in the countryside. Our patrol leader showed us how to make a fire and prepare our own meal. He patiently went through the technical details of the air vents, the air direction, the fuel, etc. Oh, another thing, it was not, and would never be a hot-dog-on-a-stick even if we had hot dogs which we did not. It was a full course meal with soup and other delicacies. They were, of course, delicacies to me. That was the first time I cooked. All of these activities took place under a tarp quickly put up as the kitchen shelter with the rain coming in. It was pouring rain, summer rain in Vietnam. It is difficult how we felt. It is a grand achievement for boys in their early teens to learn that they are capable of doing things, which they thought, could only be done by their mothers. At home after the camp, I issued the challenge to my older sisters. They know how to cook, but not like us Scouts, cooking in the rain with nothing but a few branches of dry wood. Nowadays, with our new awareness of the environment, camp has become more lightweight and no-trace with the use of propane or naphtha stoves. I often recount this story to my children during our family camp outs or when we have an opportunity to setup a campfire.

My patrol leader was also the Assistant Scoutmaster we encountered earlier. He was my idol. I listened to him more than I did my own parents at times. He was the one I emulated, and looked up to. Jeez, he knew so many things. He was so smart. I thought I would be very happy if I could be half as good as he was. Have you ever tried doing some of the knots with one hand with the rope on the ground? Have you tried the climber’s knot also with one hand? I was so impressed with the speed at which my patrol leader transcribed Morse codes or semaphore, as well as his amazing logic shown in deciphering many coded messages. We were shown how to construct maps of the local area where we camped. We learned to say thanks to the owner of the property we used. Also, without fail, every single time we left the camp ground a little better than we found it. These were things we learned as young boys. We learned while being submerged in the beauty of nature, and in the freedom of the outdoors. We learned by doing.

Other interesting Scouting activities were camp skits and Scout songs. I do not have the analytical data to explain what gave most boys the courage to be bad actors and singers. Bad or good, most of us had in deed eliminated the natural shyness in front of a camp crowd. We sang and we acted before any audience without fear. The glare of the campfire may have had something to do with this phenomenon! Scouts see nothing, hear nothing, and thus fear nothing? Seriously, these camp activities brought out many comedians, actors, singers, and songwriters amongst us. In fact, many Scout leaders authored many Scout songs.

To this day, I attribute to scouting my many attempts – regardless how bad they are – at Seinfeld impression or some other stand-up routines.

In Scouting we learned to work with one another as a team using patrol system. It was transparent to most of us. We practiced and lived it. We were only conscious of the system at the Patrol Leader training camp where we were again reminded of how it works. As Scouts, boys have to learn the art of management. A patrol leader is responsible for training the younger members of his patrol. At the patrol level, there many decisions to be made collectively and many tasks to be delegated individually, be it the kind of skit the patrol will present at the campfire, the camp menu or record keeping or being the treasurer. That is one of many ways we learned about responsibility as well as accountability.

Growing older, as a Scout, I had opportunities to participate in other kind of troop activities: doing work for the community. Some project I remembered are public solicitation for donations to help typhoons victims, cement bloc laying in some less fortunate districts of the city, or on a bigger scale, cleaning up and helping erect temporary shelters for bombs and fire victims.

Earlier, I mentioned that my scouters, patrol leader and other Scouts were my brothers. Yes they were my brothers in the true sense of the word. There was no parents’ committee or local sponsoring body in Vietnam Scouting at the time I was a Scout. In our situation, there was not any need. My leaders were considered family members. They were informed of what their Scouts were not doing at home. For example, pots and pans were not restored to earlier condition, loss of utensils, over sleeping, etc. Amazingly, I find that today-Scouts also manage to do all of this immediately after camp just like we did. My leaders were thus naturally mandated to rectify the situation. In general, our leaders had a close relationship with the Scouts’ parents, in particular with mine. My two older sisters may or may not have something to do with it. I was not the only boy of my family who was a Scout. My younger brother joined the troop the same time I did. That was another reason that my parents were present at many camps we participated, especially in the early days. Later on, my two sisters also became members of the Scouting family. They joined the group as Cub leaders. As they came of age, my other two younger brothers also joined Scouting. Yes that was the confidence my parents had for the movement indirectly. Directly, they entrusted us to the guidance of our leaders.

Scouting is indeed an optimal environment to foster confidence, trust and love amongst fellow human beings, especially if the opportunity is given at an early age. Our friendship has lasted for thirty, forty and even fifty years and counting. We have made a group of great friends for life. There also have been many happy marriages in our Scouting family. I do not have to look very far. Many of my friends met their spouses in Scouting as one of my sisters met hers.

Duty to Self is another Scouting principle. A scout also has the responsibility for the development of himself. As a Vietnamese scout of the sixties, an obvious way to demonstrate responsibility to self was being a good student. I ventured a guess; universally, most parents wish their children a good education for a secure future. How did this fit into my Scouting days? Our leaders were not only guiding us with outdoors skills they were also our tutors if need be.

After I finished my high school getting ready to go to university, there were only one engineering school and one technical teaching college in the whole southern part of the country. It was Saigon of the late 60s, early 70s not North America or Europe. I decided to increase my chances by registering for the competition for a seat at the technical teaching college. Yes, you read it right, competition. Here is the Scouting connection. Remember my patrol leader? He was already a student of the said university. Learning of my intention, he set up a fast-track program to beef up my technical skills. There were the “T” and the “I” soldering techniques and the electric stove he showed me how to build. Of course, I also had to know all the theoretical calculations of all those Joules and Watts. Exam time came. I had no difficulties with the Math and the Physics. The challenge was really in the practical part in the laboratory. I was shown a huge mass of metal. I had never seen the thing before in my life, neither at school nor at camp. I was asked to make in run and produce 220 volts. I was laughing at the time thinking about a beautiful stove I could have made. The writing, as the saying goes, was on the wall. Of course, I failed.

My failure at the entry examination was nothing compared to the Scouting experiences I have had.

I was impressed and excited with the outdoors skills there were to learn: camp crafts, map and compass and many other. Not that we need to know knots or Morse code or semaphore for present day-to-day life. These activities and skills taught and learnt in Scouting are in deed tools and means helping leaders to help youth. With some creative thinking, today scouters and patrol leaders can easily find many other interesting and newer skill-developing activities to complement or to replace the traditional ones. These activities themselves are not the objectives. Developing the youth’s potential is. All these learnings did wonders for me and I believe they would the same for youth of any generation.

I became a member of this worldwide organisation, as you know by now, more than forty years ago. In our troop, one ought to be invested at a camp setting. A few months after joining the troop I was taught how to do knots, to sing the patrol’s and the troop’s songs. I also memorised the Scouts Law and Promise. I had the troop neckerchief. I was considered a troop member; however, I was not a real scout who is a true member of the world organization until I was invested. Imagine how long these months were for me. I want to be member of the world organisation even though my world at the time was a circle with a diameter not bigger than 200 km. I am really pushing it by including the family trip to the coast. Otherwise, my daily world would not be bigger than ten city blocks.

The day came. My investiture camp was not very far from the outskirts of the city. At nightfall, all the candidates to be invested were gathered by their patrol leaders in a remote quarter of the camp to meet with troop scouters. There in a circle we sat. The atmosphere was somewhat different than most troop activities, which were always filled with fun and laughter. The air was fresh; the moon and stars were bright. It seems to me that most camp I had as a scout, the nights were always filled with stars and the moon light. For hours, we were asked one by one by anh đoàn trưởng (the scoutmaster) to explain, in our own words, our understanding of the Scouts Law and Promise. Memorising was so much easier, my friends. We tried our best to verbalise our version of some of the abstract concepts in these Law and Promise. Some even ventured to offer sort of an argument with respect to certain Law that requires absolute obedience toward parents and leaders. With his usual gentle tone, our skipper explained the values of “doing our best”. Late into the night, we also learned that the deal was – and I believe it still is – only those of us who agree with and abide by these Law and Promise should join the troop in the investiture ceremony in the morning. As we part for our tents, our gentle scouter dropped a little smoke bomb:

- Before retiring, please take some time to write up what you, who want to join us in the morning, consider bad deeds you have done. I need that at the ceremony.

I could not sleep yet. I wanted to be invested. I have to write up the stuffs asked of me. Well, what do I do? These thoughts were with me till I got in my tent. On my belly – that is the only position you can be functional inside a little tent with four or five other Scouts – flashlight on, I pulled out my song notebook. No, no, I was not about to sing anything! I was contemplating what to write. Flashing back were bad things I had committed. Wow, these were bad! Writing all down for him to see? Finish writing, I carefully tore the page of my notebook. Neatly folded, it was put in my breast pocket, which was of course buttoned down.

Morning came; we were in full uniform gathering in front of the troop’s flag. There stood the scoutmaster and his assistants, facing us, the candidates. One by one, lead by our patrol leaders, we came in front of the scouters.

- May I have what you wrote last night please?

Reached into my pocket for the folded paper, I was looking at the scoutmaster.

What? Is this going to be a public announcement? I wondered.

Butterfiles were all over in my stomach anticipating what might happened next.

Opening my paper, he glanced at it quickly. Pulling out a match, he said,

- Good! As you see, what written here only the candidate and myself know. And that will be the way it remains. From now on, brother, you restart afresh.

Striking the match, poof! He burnt my sins.

Again, it is not easy to describe what I had felt at the moment. I am neither a Buddhist nor a Chrsitian; however, I bet what I felt was better than being given absolution.

My left hand on the troop’s flag, the other doing the Scout sign, I solemnly recited the Promise. From that point on, I was proclaimed a member of the World Organisation of Scouting Movement.(2)

Talking about Scouting days without mentioning my first leaders would be inexcusable. I knew them even before meeting my patrol leader and my troop scouters. Without them I would not be the scout I am today. They not only gave me Scouting, they also gave me life. They are my parents. My father was not a scout in his younger days, however. The Scout Movement at that time was fairly new in Vietnam and was only available to youths of better opportunities, we were told. Like most children of his time, my father wished to be in the movement because he heard that it was a lot of fun. Later as a parent, he believed that Scouting would be a good educational experience for us. He sent us to Scouting with the hope that we would not be deprived of the the fun he missed as a boy. He and my mother were in deed very supportive of my troop and its leaders, well before the day we have parents committees as in present day organisation.

At the Zoological Garden in Saigon, my hometown, I joined the Scouting movement as a scout. That was a Sunday more than forty years ago.

Dear friends, dear young friends, if you are yet to be a scout, please come forward and join us. To other young friends who are already my brothers, I wish you a beautiful Scouting life. I hope you will learn with excellent leaders and patrol leaders as I had.

To my leaders in Scouting, the one being here with us today as well as others who have gone home and all other scouters, I respectfully borrow Tagore’s worlds in dedication to you all.

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.

I awoke and saw that life was service.

I acted and behold, service was joy.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Montréal, Summer 1998.

(1) Theo ý thơ Nguyễn Gia Thiều, “Khóc Thị Bằng” (Đập cổ kính ra tìm lấy bóng, Xếp tàn y lại để dành hơi).

(2) There are more than 28 million Scouts, youth and adults, boys and girls, in 155 countries. (WOSM 2007)

Photos from author’s family collection: (1) Happy Scouting Days - Patrol Leaders Training Camp; (2) Anh đoàn trưởng, his assistants and us; (3) My patrol leader – Deciphering coded message; (4) Scouts – erecting shelters for 1968 Tet Offensive’a victims in Thi Nghe; The first image is the patch of our scouting district.

This was first published in a Scouts Special Edition released at the Vietnamese Scouting Jamboree and Reunion at Lake Faifax Park, Fairfax, Virginia, USA from June 28 to July 1, 1998 (Trại Họp Bạn Thẳng Tiến VI).