die FAKTEN.

American Scouting was very much in its prime when Mr. Hubbard first donned the kerchief, khakis and Montana peak hat in 1923 with Tacoma, Washington’s Troop 31 Black Eagle Patrol. In addition to traditional skills of backwoods survival and forest lore, he was soon earning merit badges for firemanship, carpentry, waterfront safety and navigation.

Nevertheless, he writes, “Probably the most I ever learned was in the Boy Scouts in Washington, DC,” where he landed in late 1923, with his father’s posting at the Department of the Navy. If severance from his Black Eagle Patrol had been painful, he could not have been more content with his new Troop 10, and would particularly extend his appreciation to “a great many government civil servants...who taught them carefully on merit badge work.”

Despite these words, the Scout badges were not handed out casually. Included therein was the grueling test for his Personal Health Badge, the ordeal of the Lifesaving Badge in near-freezing water and many a more trial of courage and skill before uncompromising examiners.

Persistence paid off, however, and by the spring of 1924, Mr. Hubbard had not only earned an impressive twenty-one badges, but had led his Troop 10 to victory in the Washington Post sponsored Scout Advancement Competition. In recognition, he next served as one of four Washington youths to represent Scouting at the Presidential Celebration of National Boy’s Week. It was no inconsiderable honor, particularly in light of Calvin Coolidge’s very keen interest in Scouting.

Yet the real acknowledgment of the season came exactly five days later when, two weeks after his thirteenth birthday, L. Ron Hubbard was named the nation’s youngest Eagle Scout. It was an accomplishment not soon forgotten. (After all, only some three thousand boys achieved their Eagle Scout status that year.) Moreover, and precisely as Boy Scout founder Robert Baden-Powell had intended, Mr. Hubbard later cited nothing less than training received in Scouting as having seen him safely through the Second World War.