On Mother’s Day, May 12th, 1968, Howard and Tim, my two best friends, and I were awarded the Boy Scout God and Country award. I recently came across a photo and newspaper article about the award. That minor event took place during one of the most tumultuous years in United States history, when the country was both figuratively and literally burning. When I saw the date of the presentation, I was shocked at the innocence of the photo, given the turmoil the country was going through. Vietnam, assassinations, race riots, student protests, police confrontations…

Growing up in Ottawa, Illinois, we were in a bit of a bubble as 12 and 13 year old 7th graders. While Ottawa may not have been Mayberry, it wasn’t far off. In the pre-internet age, there was a certain isolation and simplicity in the small-town Midwest. The paper might carry a story about Vietnam on the front page, but it mostly focused on news about the town, and the people in it. There were certainly Ottawans who served and died in Vietnam and I’m sure some OHS graduates protested at universities. But as a kid, I don’t recall a focus at Central Junior High, or in Ottawa, on the violence that was taking place across the country and the world.

Looking at 1968 historically, there was so much happening – In January, North Koreans seized the Pueblo and held it and the crew for two months. At the end of the month, the Tet offensive took place, marking the beginning of the end for the Vietnam war. Our presence in Vietnam would peak that year, with over half a million troops in country. The war would continue for another five years and 20,000 more dead Americans.

The bookends for Mother’s Day itself were Martin Luther King’s assassination in April and Bobby Kennedy’s in June. I remember my dad talking with our neighbor, Mr Classon, in the yard about whether the violence and burning taking place in Chicago following King’s murder would make it’s way to our small town of Ottawa, 80 miles away. They both thought probably not, and were correct in their assessment. The country was being ripped apart, but it didn’t seem to affect Ottawa. Looking back, Ottawa was a mostly white town and no one really talked about race.

Student protests and days of rage were taking place across the world that May and June, with violence commonplace. This culminated in Chicago that August with the protests at the Democratic National Convention. TV cameras captured the bloody clashes between police and demonstrators. Some thought the Olympics that October would bring relief, but then Smith and Carlos raised their fists on the victory platform during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner. The country seethed.

In November, Nixon won the presidency, setting in place the pieces that would evolve into Watergate four years later. In that same election, an avowed racist, George Wallace, won 13% of the presidential vote nation wide.

Quite the year. And yet, there were the three of us dedicating a year of our life towards our God and Country awards. We worked with Reverend Hearn, who was our Methodist minister from when we were even younger kids. We met regularly, studying church teachings and what it meant to be a Scout and a Methodist. Our final project was a map showing historical Methodist universities and institutions around the country. You can see the map board in the photo.

On Mother’s Day 1968, we were presented our awards at that Sunday’s church service. Our Scoutmaster, Farrell Brooks (not a Methodist) was in the congregation and watched our mothers pin the medals on our chests. A small piece of Americana taking place against a much broader, less idealistic backdrop. Interestingly, we all received letters of congratulations from the Governor, Otto Kerner Jr., who was later convicted of mail fraud, and sentenced to jail in 1973.

Tim, Howard and I continued in Scouts, with all of us achieving our Eagle awards. We pursued different paths in college and life, but have remained steadfast friends to this day. We occasionally talk about our innocence as kids, and the bubble that appeared to encase Ottawa. We ask ourselves now if it was really that idealistic, or whether as kids, we were just oblivious. I can’t answer the question, but for us, we all agree that it was a great place to grow up. We also agree that there were aspects of our maturity around racial and religious diversity that perhaps didn’t fully develop until adulthood, with greater exposure to life.

Fifty years later, and it’s now 2018. Today, we have an unending war, North Korea is in the news and racism seems on the rise. We don’t quite have violence in the streets, but demonstrations are taking place and the threat of violence appears to increase. Nike and Koepernick raise passions on both sides of the “respecting the flag” debate. With the internet and social media providing constant coverage of today’s events, I wonder how our youth will reflect on these times in fifty years. 2018 doesn’t appear to have as much room for innocence, as that crossroads year of 1968 did in Ottawa.

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A couple of interesting addendum from my research for this blog:

First, my Boy Scout Handbook from 1965 talks about some of the requirements for the God and Country award, which was focused towards the Protestant faith. It also talks to the requirements for the equivalent awards in the Muslim, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, and Mormon faiths, among others. Today, they have added other religions as well. Maybe there’s something for all of us to learn there.

Second, the Boy Scouts continue to progress. The twelfth point of the Scout Law is: “A scout is reverent.” In today’s world, with so many questions about organized religion, I wondered how the Scouts were handling that. I found this on their web page in a discussion of being reverent ( http://boyscouttrail.com/content/content/scout_law-1760.asp ):

“ From the Scout Handbook – A Scout is reverent. A Scout is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties. He respects the beliefs of others…..

…..Many outdoors people claim that the wilderness is their ‘church’ rather than a specific structure or organization. These people revere in the awesome power of God by being in the thick of natural creation. The reverence expressed for the world and its creation is common ground that all scouts can reach when struggling to understand the last point of the Scout Law…..

…… Respecting the beliefs of others can be a challenge. It does not mean to accept and believe those other beliefs. It means to allow other people the freedom to believe what they have found to be true in their lives….in troops with scouts from various beliefs, we need to be careful not to promote specific practices of one group.”

Just some food for thought.

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Thanks to my good friends, Tim Stouffer and Howard Johnson for their help on this blog, and the honest discussions we continue to have.