MassPrivateIThe Boy Scouts of America on Wednesday chose former U.S. Secretary of Defense and CIA director Robert Gates as its next president, who will face the task of repairing divisions in the organization from a heated debate over accepting gay scouts.
As Defense Secretary, Gates supported President Barack Obama’s withdrawal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that prevented gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. Congress repealed the ban in 2010 and it was lifted in 2011.
Gates will succeed Wayne Perry, who led the scouting organization through the emotionally charged debate in May when the council voted to lift a century-old ban on openly gay scouts.
The ban on gay scouts will officially end on Jan. 1, 2014. A prohibition on openly gay adult leaders remains in place.
Gates, 70, served in various roles in the CIA including head of the intelligence agency from 1991 to 1993.
President George W. Bush appointed him defense secretary in 2006 and he was retained by Obama, making him the only defense secretary to be asked to remain in office by a newly elected president, according to the Department of Defense.
He has also served as president of Texas A&M University.
BoyScouts trained to fight terrorists & more in the Law Enforcement Explorer Program:
The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters. (Germany had the Hitler Youth program, which bears a striking resemblance to the “explorer program”)
“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”
The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters,” like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.
“Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”
Many law enforcement officials, particularly those who work for the rapidly growing Border Patrol, part of the Homeland Security Department, have helped shape the program’s focus and see it as preparing the Explorers as potential employees. The Explorer posts are attached to various agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police and fire departments, that sponsor them much the way churches sponsor Boy Scout troops.
“Our end goal is to create more agents,” said April McKee, a senior Border Patrol agent and mentor at the session here.
Membership in the Explorers has been overseen since 1998 by an affiliate of the Boy Scouts calledLearning for Life, which offers 12 career-related programs, including those focused on aviation, medicine and the sciences.
More than 2,000 law enforcement posts across the country are the Explorers’ most popular, accounting for 35,000 of the group’s 145,000 members, said John Anthony, national director of Learning for Life. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, many posts have taken on an emphasis of (indoctrinating)fighting terrorism and other less conventional threats.
http://www.newsmax.com/US/robert-gates-defense-secretary/2013/10/30/id/533987
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/us/14explorers.html?_r=3&hp&
http://www.salinesheriff.org/expscout.html
http://gaexplorers.com/
http://www.margatefl.com/police/npd/explorers.htm
http://www.thelibertypapers.org/2009/05/14/boy-scout-training-put-him-on-his-face-and-put-a-knee-in-his-back/
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http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2013/11/militarizing-boy-scouts-former-cia.html