<p>fiterace 87</p>
<p>While I'm sure your intent was not offensive, do you realize in what goes on into achieving the rank of Eagle Scout? Of all of the cubs who begin as Cub Scouts, 4% of those will reach Eagle. But attaining Eagle doesn't just stop once the rank is achieved. There are Palms, bronze and silver that are earned with further merit badges, service projects, and recommendation. </p>
<p>Additionally, prior to an Eagle Scout board of review, they have to develop a project that will benefit the community as a whole and then "take the ball and run with it." </p>
<p>It's not as easy as it sounds/looks.</p>
<p>Give 'em a break, that comment is over a year old.</p>
<p>True, I just happened upon it. Not trying to rile anything/anybody. Just saying there's a little more work involved.</p>
<p>Wish my son's school had a CAP program or JROTC. Small school; only a few officers to pass around.</p>
<p>Your I-day is coming up? Good luck to you!</p>
<p>That's cool. As an Eagle Scout myself, I fully agree that there is alot of hard work, determination, and time management involved. </p>
<p>Yep, I fly out of town three weeks from today and start I-Day three days after that.</p>
<p>What was your project?</p>
<p>I refurbished my sister's school playground. I replaced the wood mulch used as the playground surface with 16 tons of rubber playground mulch making the playground safer and cleaner. I also replaced and repaired the fencing and some of the playground equipment.</p>
<p>How about your son?</p>
<p>nurseypoo,</p>
<p>Thanks for the information. I am well aware that the Eagle Scout is quite an accomplishment, and am somewhat educated as to what the project entails. I know that it is definitely not a walk in the park; however, the quality of Eagle Scouts varies, as does the quality of CAP cadet officers...it's part of the youth learning process. I've seen some awesome Eagle Scouts and I've seen some pretty lousy ones, just as I've seen some awesome CAP cadets and I've seen plenty of lousy ones.</p>
<p>I think what I was trying to say is this: The U.S. military looks at an Eagle Scout in the same way it looks at a Mitchell Cadet in CAP, as far as grade advancement is concerned upon enlistment (if the person so chooses to do so). Since Eagle is the highest a person can go in BSA, and Mitchell is only about halfway through the CAP cadet program, it may lead one to believe that going beyond Mitchell is an accomplishment in itself that a relatively small number of people achieve. In fact, the percentage of CAP Cadets who complete the cadet program (C/Lt Col) lies around 2%. The percentage of cadets who achieve CAP's highest cadet award (C/Col) is about .5%. There are lots of Eagle Scouts running around, but not many C/Cols.</p>
<p>I didn't mean to sound offensive or to put down the BSA, I just wanted to stick up for my CAP buddies. Thanks for understanding.</p>
<p>That is a HUGE project you did! Well done! The last day of playground safety week, five years ago, our youngest son broke his arm. He was rolling around in oversized tires on a playground. A safety no no. After researching playgrounds, you righted a definite wrong by replacing the mulch. Alex landed on hard clay. </p>
<p>We were living on base at the time and a contingent of base personnel were deployed to Afghanistan. The forward posts were far away from any supplies and were going w/out plain necessities (shampoo, toothpaste, you get the idea). Additionally, they wanted to adopt a village school, but had nothing to give them. Nick did a two pronged drive; one for the personal items for the troops, the other was school supplies for the children. He named his project "Ripple in the Pond." </p>
<p>The hard part was the shipping cost was OUTRAGEOUS and very prohibitive! I think that's where selling the popcorn hones your selling skills. You must have had to enlist very large donations of time, people, playground as well as other equipment and materials. I hope people were generous to you, but it sounds as if they were. He went to businesses, Officer's and Enlisted Spouses Clubs, and took private donations from people. </p>
<p>Everything arrived w/the exception of the box that had the disposable camera in it for the "after" pictures. We found pictures of it on the internet (thank God for internet). </p>
<p>Anyway, best of luck to you and have a wonderful time. Lord willing, you'll meet my son in 2007. </p>
<p>God Bless!</p>
<p>fiterace 87-</p>
<p>You and me both. Sometimes I wish there was a quality control on some of the projects I have seen (mostly my husband, since he's a scoutmaster and has had to say "NO" to several ideas). </p>
<p>There was one scout my husband refused to pass on an Eagle board scoutmaster conference; he had punched a kid at school, broken his nose, had been suspended, was on probation (at school), and had threatened other kids in the troop that if they didn't vote for him for SPL, he'd break their noses. This kids parents were enraged, quit and went to another troop, they passed him, and he met his Eagle board and snowed them over. Made us sick and really took something away from the meaning.</p>
<p>Sorry I didn't look at the date you originally posted and thank you for understanding. We did make sure both of our sons did a quality project.</p>
<p>I've seen or heard of similar things in CAP. The worst are the helicopter parents who are their kids' squadron commanders and basically move their kids through the program and give them all the breaks. It makes me sad to hear about such things because the well-meaning program is sacrificed for some kid's resume, and no one benefits...and then this kid goes to encampment and is a total buffoon. Hellooooooo? It's one of the flaws of the program that can't really be fixed--national standardization.</p>
<p>I'm glad to hear that your sons really learned from the experience and completed quality projects. Speaking of quality projects...</p>
<p>I have a friend who got his Eagle a couple years ago and his project was to build a fire-dog obstacle training course. This kid went all-out and spent like 2000 hours or something crazy like that building this thing. I think he was even recognized nationally for this project. Another example of a big, beneficial project...that's what BSA is all about!</p>
<p>One more CAP comment....nurseypoo - CAP is an Air Force Auxiliary and is not school connected. In fact - there ARE Squadrons in the Palmdale area and had your son been interested, he could have chosen to join. Our Squadron trains weekly on Camp Pendleton on tuesday nights. I can't tell you how many times my child only got 4 hours of sleep on a tuesday night - after dealing with all the CAP needs as she progressed through work and leadership there - and STILL had 3-5 hours of homework before wednesday school.</p>
<p>Peskemom-</p>
<p>We had young Marines on our base and the CAP was either up or down. It was never a very strong steady program (little to no visibility or information). We didn't move here (Palmdale- different county and about 40 miles from base) until last year and Nick was heavily involved in his Eagle project then.</p>
<p>I agree, CAP can be either a hit or a miss deal. I have been fortunate enough to be a member of a pretty active squadron, but I'm afraid it is on the decline. I think that is a national trend, however, but a lot of it has to do with the squadron itself, its location, civic support, and the availability and motivation of the cadets, and more importantly, the senior members. They have to be there for anything to happen...</p>
<p>I've been lucky enough to have benefited from CAP, but it definitely is not strong (or weak) across the board on the national level.</p>
<p>By the way, I believe CAP can be affiliated with schools in some places (though it is very rare). I know the largest squadron in the country (about 200+ cadets) is a school squadron (kind of like JROTC) in Texas. And a lot of squadrons in Puerto Rico are school-affiliated (which is a reason why the Puerto Rico drill team is so blasted good...;)).</p>
<p>Our CAP Squadron has had its ups and downs, too...when we joined 100+ were there every tuesday night. Now we have about 40. But we've had a tremendous change in leadership and since we are a composite Squadron with cadets and seniors - the senior side has been doing alot of growing. This past year my daughter was Cadet Commander of the group ( June 05-06) and in Jan of this year my husband became Squadron Commander. So I guess you can see we're pretty involved in the program. But it was my daughter's person searching on the internet for some way for her as a 12 year old in response to Sept. 11th, to find a place to 'serve her country.' CAP has met this desire of her heart, trained her effectively for her military aspirations, prepared her to deal with stress, and shown her that leadership/service is something she is not only good at, but loves to do.</p>
<p>I really am not offended by the comment about "just another Eagle Scout" or that Eagles come of varying 'quality.' I think the other comments did offend to some extent. I think it is a little bit erroneous to believe you can draw a line across the table and say Mitchell this is equal to Eagle, or whatever. That is a ridiculous supposition! Its two completely different programs that have different objectives, advancement systems, and aged individuals. </p>
<p>As far as your proposition that some Eagles are just paper, of course the academys consider this! Why do you think, certain individuals who are Eagles/Gold Award/Spaatz don't get in. Those things are just part of the whole picture. Parents being involved is inevitable, even in the 'real' world you are going to see people doing the same type of stuff for friends and what not.</p>
<p>Finally, Eagle Scout is probably the nation's best known youth achievement, not Spaatz, Gold Award, Quartermaster or anything else of the sort. I think that should speak for itself. In fact I never knew CAP existed until I applied to the USNA and I didn't know what Spaatz was until about 5 minutes ago.</p>
<p>fiterace87: there is no way you can say the military looks at it like that. You know as well as I that this is simply rumor and hearsay. Unless you have seen some sort of record (which exist but not in that type of depth), or have worked in admissions, you have NO conclusive evidence of your supposition concerning the relative value of Eagle and Cadet Colonel.</p>
<p>All I'm saying is that military recruiters look at Eagle and Mitchell the same way, as in those individuals get advanced grade out of basic. Anything beyond Mitchell (in recruiters' eyes) is just a pat on the back. However, there is an Air Force regulation (referenced at the beginning of this thread) that specifies that Spaatz cadets get "preference" in applying to USAFA (whatever that means...see post # 9). That is ambiguous at best, and in no way does it mean that Spaatz cadets get in every time...peskemom told of one who got rejected from USAFA first time around (post # 16) because Spaatz cadets don't necessarily match the whole person idea, though often they do...I never said that Spaatz cadets are better than Eagle scouts or Gold scouts or whatever; that's up to the individual. Spaatz is not necessarily harder to get than Eagle, or more prestigious, but there are a heck of a lot more Eagles than Spaatzen, so the Spaatz achievement stands out more than Eagle does [on paper at least just because it is more rare (not necessarily better)]...whether or not that means anything I cannot say. </p>
<p>I guess what I'm trying to say is that CAP and BSA are different organizations trying to achieve the same thing, even though CAP is a lot smaller and less well-known...the trivialities of the awards are really moot because you know as well as I do that Eagle is hard to get, and Spaatz is hard to get, and the individuals who reach those awards deserve to be commended. Let's just leave it at that, okay?</p>
<p>Like I said before, I'm just trying to stick up for my CAP buddies...you're doing the same thing for BSA. ;)</p>
<p>By the way, my comments on the first page are over a year old...FWIW</p>