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Posted by Greg on 5/4/2006, 10:22 pm, in reply to "Re: Was this Hungarian a good cook? I met him at the swap meet." In my troop the young scouts (Tenderfoot & 2nd Class) were divided evenly among the patrols so that each patrol had the full spectrum of ages and skills. The younger scouts were taught by the older ones, or learned by example. Skills competitions between patrols encouraged the older scouts to teach the younger. In my younger brother's troop, they put all the young scouts in one patrol. As a result they didn't learn nearly as quickly. Instead of helping, the older scouts in other patrols were always irritated that the "idiot patrol" was always messing things up. They were too slow, didn't do anything right, etc. etc. I went on a couple of camp-outs with them and was quite dismayed how they operated. On one campout the older scouts wanted to hike up to a place called Silver Peak, which was about 4600' (if my memory serves). I looked at the weather and strongly recommended that we hike to Glacier Basin (3800?). It began to pour! Were we up higher we would have been buried in snow, and a have a very rocky and slippery trail back down. As it was many of the scouts got thoroughly soaked during the night - wet sleeping bags, wet clothes, wet coats, shabby rain-gear - I couldn't help but shake my head about their lack of skill in staying dry. As soon as we broke camp some of the older scouts high-tailed it back to the cars, abandoning the younger scouts. I and another adult stayed with the last kid - who was so wet his pants kept falling down. On the hike in the day before, one chubby kid was really struggling. We began distributing the items in his pack to other packs. When I took his 2-quart canteen and dumped out half the water the kid almost threw a fit. (No sense carrying a full canteen when the trail follows a river the whole way!) Another really irritating thing; these kids didn't know how to pack a backpack. They had canteens and mess kits and even flashlights hanging out all over the place jangling and bumping the kids as they walked. Sleeping bags were wrapped in garbage bags, that quickly tore, and attached to the pack with bungie cords (bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce - "Gee why does my sleeping bag keep unrolling and dragging in the mud?) (I volunteered to show the kids how to pack but the scoutmaster didn't take me up on it.) Since the older scouts didn't help the younger ones, and tended to give them grief, the troop had a hard time keeping the younger kids. They would quit after a few camp-outs. Wanna hear about the time I, as an ESAR explorer almost drowned in a "dry river bed". (That was the last time I ever believed a map)
69.109.11.20
My younger brother attended a troop that had no shortage of problems. Personally I think a large part of the problem was the way they had the patrols divided. 
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