Scouts of Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America

This was a tough one of watch and not because of what it was about and what it represents as far as what goes on in society. I mean, when you think of the Boy Scouts of America, I think you think of an organization that is wholesome, that raises boys to be outstanding members of society and that truly wants to help shape the future of America. What this showed is that, you let powerful men run an organization and you just let them get away with whatever and run their organization however they want, there are disgusting things that happen.

It really kind of parallels what happens in the Catholic Church. Where it just seems to be a giant coverup of the few leaders in the organization who are using it to exploit young boys. And then the amount of denial these men make is enough to make you sick as well because it is them still trying to make the organization sound good when it is just obvious that they are at fault and really just need to own up to the mistakes made.

Like over 82,000 victims came forward and them saying how that the boys should have felt as though they were able to tell someone? Give me a break! These are young boys who are being taken advantage of by their group leaders, men who they trust to do the right thing and be leading examples of how they should conduct themselves. It is just gross.

The fact that they had all the protocols there. They had the plan, they had so many things available to avoid these things that they just are not doing. It was great to have the Youth Protection Director, Michael Johnson really spill the truth on what they were actually doing in the organization. Saying how they had these youth protection programs in place, but just not implemented and kind of just put to the side, and not enforced.

Also, the hiding of the documents that are available is ridiculous, the one about how the Standard of Care type documents, like the Preventing Child Sexual Absue Within Youth-serving Organizations. To find out that the VP who was supposed to be involved wasn’t actually involved and they let Doug Smith be in it, who by the way was a National Staff Member at the National HQ who got arrested in a child porn sting… federal child porn sting.

Then this General Counsel guy, Steven McGowan, just gives off the biggest ick I think imaginable. I get he is doing his job but like all of this stuff is out in the open now, just own up to it and say that there’s a problem and show how you are working on fixing it, instead of just deflecting really. Oh and just him continuously pointing out that they were a reflection of society so the fact that they had a problem was just a show that the world had a bigger problem was enough to drive you nuts!

It honestly, is not a shock that this is coming out about the organization because it is doing the same thing that the Catholic Church does, which is rather than being open with the information and say “Hey we had this bad guy doing these gross things to young boys, but we have taken the right action in stopping this from happening and are moving forward in the event”, they just keep it all internal and make it all into a big secret.

What I really enjoy about this feature, is that it just does not turn away from the hardship and try to repaint the Boy Scouts as this great organization now that just went through a tough time. No, it shows that the Boy Scouts organization really just deflecting onto general society for the issues and putting the issues onto other entities but that they have fixed theirs.

It is a riveting, eye opening watch that really makes a stand on these big organizations who think they are above the law and do not have to reason to follow the law. I would love to see the continuation of style of really digging into these big scandals that are trying to be swept under the rug by these big organizations.

4.5/5 Stars for this one!