On the eve of Iran war, the ‘Secretary of War’ fought with the Boy Scouts. He didn’t win. 

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On Feb. 27, Secretary of Defense and self-anointed “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth released a shock and awe video. The massive and overwhelming might of the United States Armed Forces had crushed another wayward foe. That enemy of the people: Scouting America, formerly known as the Boy Scouts. 

On the following day, the United States and Israel launched the opening salvos of the ongoing war in Iran. There is much in contemporary life that is both parodic and transcendently stupid, but the timing of this stands out. You would think that, on the literal eve of a regional war, the head of the so-called War Department would be focusing on weightier matters than merit badge requirements. You would think. 

Hegseth’s oratorical style seems to be gleaned from interstitial interviews during professional wrestling TV shows. In his customary I-just-freebased-a-Red-Bull manner, he announced that the Scouts had, under threat of government reprisal, curtailed DEI policies — and, at federal bayonet-point, the Scouts had agreed to register youthful participants by sex. 

The might of the United States military was brought to bear to cancel a merit badge, those JFK half dollar-sized marks of achievement Scouts wear on a sash. Federal intervention culminated in a “War Department” announcement on the literal eve of a regional war of the curtailment of the Citizenship in Society merit badge, and the creation of a military service merit badge. This is a matter about which a cabinet member felt the need to inform the nation.

Hegseth, you may recall, last year inadvertently sent war plans to a journalist hours before a scheduled bombing run. So, on the brink of hostilities, this arguably wasn’t the worst he could do. 

His announcement was a flag-planting, spike-the-football moment. But Mission Local contacted more than half a dozen San Francisco-area Scout leaders, some of whom have been debriefed by national Scouting leadership. They say much of what Hegseth claimed in his triumphal video was overstated — if not flat-out untrue. 

The back-and-forth between the military and the Scouts over inclusiveness policies has been going on for some time. San Francisco-area Scouting leaders were told by national leadership that there is actually a formal memorandum of understanding with the Department of Defense — and not all the stuff Hegseth said is in it. National leaders told the locals that they recently signed the MOU and are waiting for the government to do the same. They added that Hegseth blindsided Scouting America by releasing his bombastic video without prior notice.  

In the wake of Hegseth’s end zone dance, national news outlets framed the Scouts’ appeasement of the “Secretary of War” as a capitulation. But the actual concessions by Scouting America appear to have been relatively minor. The tangible effect on the lives of Scouts and their leaders in San Francisco and elsewhere will likely be minimal — despite what Pete Hegseth yelled at you. 

Let’s start with what didn’t happen. According to internal data obtained by Mission Local, girls now make up nearly 26 percent of the organization formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America (this includes programs like Sea Scouts and Venturing). Since girls were allowed into the fold in 2019, some 8,400 have achieved the Eagle Scout rank, the pinnacle of Scouting. In the Golden Gate Area Council, which includes San Francisco, 256 girls have made Eagle. That’s not changing. 

Boy Scouts of America changed its name to Scouting America in 2024 (after previously going the Kentucky Fried Chicken/KFC route by calling itself BSA). That’s not changing either. 

As far as transgender kids, a bevy of Scout leaders were befuddled by Hegseth’s claim about how, moving forward, you’ll have to check a box on an application with one of two genders. You already do. Nobody I spoke with thought, for a moment, that birth certificates or passports or something more extreme would be called for. Instead, parents will check the box next to “girl” or “boy” and they’ll leave it at that. Hegseth waded further into bizarre territory when he stated that “Scouting America will enact a policy that indicates that biological boys and biological girls will not be permitted to share intimate spaces, including toilets, showers and tents.” Those policies also already exist.

“We have transgender people in our program,” Scouting America president and CEO Roger Krone unambiguously told the Associated Press following Hegseth’s announcement. “We’ll have transgender people in our program moving forward.” 

If the military wanted to enforce compliance, it could’ve curtailed agreements to provide in-kind support of personnel and equipment for large-scale events like Scout Jamborees. It didn’t. It could’ve done away with policies of paying Eagle Scouts at a higher rate when they join the armed forces. It didn’t. It could’ve eliminated Scout programs on military bases worldwide, which provide stability for globetrotting armed forces families. It didn’t. In fact, fees for these Scouts have been waived. 

Hegseth crowed about eliminating DEI committees. But plenty of Scout leaders who ran these committees saw the writing on the wall years ago and proactively renamed them. 

The most tangible appeasement made to Hegseth by Scouting America was the elimination of the Citizenship in Society merit badge. Its requirements have been memory-holed off the official Scouting America page, but you can still find them here and there.

It’s a bit more free-form than most merit badges, but, in essence, it all depended on how hard a Scout wanted to work. In places where the terms “diversity, equity and inclusion” are an anathema, a Scout could’ve coasted through this merit badge by basically defining “equity” versus “equality” and stating that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a good man.

In other places, however, it could’ve necessitated a deep and introspective analysis of how people from other backgrounds think and live. That doesn’t seem to be too much to ask of a young man or woman preparing to participate in a pluralistic democracy. Or fight to preserve one. 

Smart Scoutmasters, meanwhile, also saw the writing on the wall. They got every kid in the troop started on this merit badge early. And now they’ll be entitled to finish.

The Scout motto, after all, is “Be Prepared.”  

Your humble narrator joined the Boy Scouts on June 1, 1987. I received my Eagle Scout on May 5, 1994. My three children are fourth-generation Scouts. I will admit that it is frustrating to be lectured by Pete Hegseth on much of anything — let alone his contentions that the Scouts have “lost their way,” are turning their backs on God in favor of “openness to humanism and earth-centered paganism” and are promoting “an insidious, radical, woke ideology that is anti-America and anti-American.” Hegseth graduated top of his class and received degrees from not one but two Ivies. But these are very dumb things to say. 

I watched a bunch of kids salute the flag at the last Scout meeting in the dark heart of woke San Francisco before carving their Pinewood Derby cars. There was no whiff of earth-centered paganism, but perhaps that will be a Pinewood Derby car theme. You never know.

Hegseth’s claim that Scouting membership has declined due to liberal ideology conveniently ignores the massive pederasty scandal that led to a $2.4 billion bankruptcy plan and 80,000 claimants alleging sexual abuse. I can assure you that, in the wake of this, becoming an adult leader is an onerous and highly regulated affair and there are already meticulous rules in place regarding who can sleep in whose tent and who can share a bathroom. The most recent forms to apply to Scouting do indeed have just two boxes for male and female. They still ask if your child wants to subscribe to Boy’s Life magazine, even though the publication is now called Scout Life. Yes, there are still comics at the end about Scouts who swam through floods or ran into burning buildings to save people’s lives. There is no mention of the ideologies of the people who were saved or the Scouts who did the saving. 

I treasured my time in Scouts. But I did not treasure cantankerous old man Scout leaders who physically and verbally accosted kids. I did not treasure adolescent bullying. I did not treasure culturally acceptable homophobia. I did not treasure camp staff that didn’t think to get you out of the lake during an electrical storm. That kind of stuff really doesn’t happen anymore. So much in the world isn’t better since 1987 but this thing is: Scouts is so much better now. Everybody still learns how to tie knots and pitch tents and do first aid and shoot rifles and shotguns and all that stuff. A disproportionate number of Scouts go on to join the military and serve with distinction. 

I believe in the value of Scouting. It sounds old-fashioned, but I believe in its ability to improve moral character. In short: I believe that Scouting will help ensure that young people do not grow up to be Pete Hegseth.