Boy Scout Troop 325
Scoutmaster Minute
Your Mother Wears Army Boots
April 25, 2006
Larry Polyak, Scoutmaster

Your mother wears army boots!

You guys may be too young to have ever heard that expression before so I'll repeat it:

Your mother wears army boots!

That's an expression I remember hearing when I was a kid. What does it mean? I'm not sure. No one seems to know exactly, but by the tone in which it was always said, I know it was a derogatory remark that someone would say to someone else as an insult or a put down. After all, onyone SHOULD get offended by any remork said against his mother. I also remember other outdated insults from my childhood. We used to say that another kid had "cooties" if we didn't like him or her.

Slang seems to change from generation to generation and insults have also. These days there are all sorts of new words or different ways that one person can insult another. Some of them I know, some I probably don't. I won't justify any of them by repeating them now.

Why do kids and even adults insult one another? I think that they do it to make themselves feel better. They figure that by putting someone else down, it raises themselves up. Have you ever been on the receiving end of an insult? Makes you feel pretty bad doesn't it? On the other hand, the insulter may be throwing his shoulders back and feeling like he is superior to you for reasons known only to him, just becasue he called you some made up name. Well when you think about it, it's pretty obvious that it's usually the insulter who has the problem, not the person who was insulted.

Insults have no place in Scouting. When people learn that you are a boy scout, they get a mental picture of your character. They think of you as kind and courteous. Certainly other kids will insult one another. But someone who is kind and courteuus does not. A true Boy Scout will not.

As scouts, you are held to a higher standard. People expect more from you. I expect more from you.

Thanks for listening.