I thought I'd share an interesting reaction I received from the Scouts in my troop tonight. After we opened the meeting, we all sat down in a big circle, and I asked them if they had heard about the Scout that had been lost since Saturday, and was found today. Many of them had, some hadn't. I gave a basic recap of what we knew about the story to get them on the same page, then I asked them what they thought of the situation, what they think went wrong, what they'd do differently, etc. Then I let them talk for a while.

I was actually a bit reassured by what I heard.

The initial reactions were disbelief, not that it couldn't happen, but, that it took 4 days to find a kid that was a mile from the campsite. I tried to jot down some of the things that came out. They said things like:
"What an idiot, didn't he STOP when he knew he was lost?"
"Why didn't he blow his whistle, or bang some rocks or sticks to make noise?"
"Why did he leave the campsite by himself?"
"If he made a fire, they would have found him faster, and he could have stayed warm while he waited."
"Yeah, and maybe he could have boiled that water he was drinking out of the stream, might be nasty bugs and stuff in there, he could get the runs from bad water like after eating too much of Mr _____'s Dutch Oven chili" (LOL on that)
"He should have used his flashlight at night to try to signal"
"Who walks out in the woods by themself, especially without a map or compass?"
"If he had his trash bag, he could have made a sleeping bag out of it"
"In the woods, he could make a lean-to with some branches like we did at camp last year"
"He should have had something shiny to flash at the helecopters"

I stopped taking notes at some point, and was amazed to watch a couple of the older guys start to "coach" the new guys. After a while, we kinda broke up this activity, because they had some planning for our upcoming camping trip, but, it was a good 15 minutes of these guys basically brainstorming about the scenario. It was really pretty cool to watch. It was also interesting that they just assumed the boy had certain things on his person if he was in the woods, something we kinda drill into them once or twice a year, maybe 4 or 5 months ago most recently. I asked them at one point what they figure he probably had in his pockets, since the story said his backpack was left at camp. They said he probably had a knife, flashlight, matches or a lighter, maybe a trash bag or space blanket, a whistle, and water bottle.(Most of them hang a Nalgene water bottle on their pants with a caribiner around camp.) They rattled off other things he should have in a daypack, but, I think they all thought about what they carry around in their pockets anytime we're camping. They knew he should have a map and compass, for example, but, seemed to conceed that most of them don't have them in their pockets hanging around camp. The whistle, knife, fire, trash bag, and water kept coming back. Not a bad place to start if you are already wearing appropriate clothing. Not exactly all of the 10 essentials, but, some pretty key things to make waiting for rescue a little easier.

When we were locking up the church for the night, one of their dad's, who isn't at many meetings, but, tonight had been lurking and listening off to the side because he came to bring us some camp paperwork and a payment, basically said something like: "what you're doing here is important"

I gotta say, sometimes you wonder if anything you're doing with kids penetrates their skulls full of mush... tonight, I really felt good that some of them had actually absorbed basic survival knowledge over time, and were at least marginally better prepared than average. I wasn't teaching anything tonight, just kinda doing a "quiz" that turned into a great discussion. There is hope.