Alphecca: Kids With Guns

December 29, 2005

Kids With Guns

Looking at the photo below, you might think you were seeing seeing a photo of a boy guerrilla leader from southeast Asia, or perhaps something from Sen. Chuck Schumer's worst nightmare:

In actuality it's some Boy Scouts having fun at Camp Schofield in Hawaii. From the Star Bulletin (HI):

CHECKING OUT an M-16 machine gun with grenade launcher. Rappelling down a 45-degree incline with a rope. Buckling into a seat in a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and even touching the control panel.

What more could an 8-year-old boy ask for?

Almost 1,000 Oahu Cub Scouts did these things and more over three days of field trips to Schofield Barracks' East Range this week.

Enthusiasm for the hands-on event was strong yesterday, as more than 300 boys -- mostly ages 7, 8 or 9 -- participated in what has been an annual tradition for the Cub Scouts and Schofield soldiers since 1968. Other groups were at the half-day camp Tuesday and today.

Sometimes, the boys were fooling around, mock-boxing each other with the adult-size leather gloves they used for the rappelling exercise, or even digging in the sand where Army soldiers landed after their four-story descents by rope.

Other times, they stood in rapt awe of military gear.

As Sgt. Trent Strothkamp showed one group of boys a lineup of commonly used guns, their interest grew as the guns got bigger.

Machine guns were admired in silence, but when Strothkamp held up a model with a 40 mm grenade launcher attached, an irrepressible "Whoa!" erupted from the audience.

"Oh yeah!" added one boy.

Yeah indeed! How come MY scout den never had cool trips like that?

Posted by Jeff Soyer at December 29, 2005 07:32 AM

Comments

OMG, I can just imagine what the "Brady Bunch" is going to do with this; they're probably wetting themselves at this moment...

Posted by: Robert Garrard at December 29, 2005 10:58 AM

My bud was stationed at Schofield Barracks in the late '80s and early '90s. I visited him there several times but we never got to do anything so cool as that. We did go mountain biking on the "east range" and shoot pistol matches on the Schofield range next to national guard practicing with mortars but that doesn't compare to getting issued M-16s and running around like eight year old kids.

Way to go Boy Scouts!

Posted by: Marc at December 29, 2005 12:45 PM

Great idea, I am just concerned whether it is open to all, and not just a private religious group like the scouts.

It should be open to all, and expanded to other bases.

I'm gonna post on this as well.

Posted by: tomWright at December 29, 2005 01:29 PM

I'm sure the event was fun, but I'm horrified by the gun photographs. I just wrote (a lot) about it here.

I never like to see the rules of safe gun handling violated, so we never allow pictures like those of our boy scout rifle shooting merit badge camps.

Posted by: Josh Poulson at December 30, 2005 01:19 PM

tonWright: The Boy scouts aren't necessarily classed as a religous group. I've never been of a religous bent, and I went on lots of trip with my local Scout Troop when I was in high school. Even though I wasn't a Scout. One was to an Army base, where we spent a long weekend in a survival campout where the weather got below zero degrees fahrenheit.

I'm sure any local base would be happy to host a field trip for 1,000 kids and show them all the "toys". Even for a "secular" group. Big PR scoop, and an occasion to indoctrinate the lads and lassies about the fun stuff that service gets to play with.

For "career day" we had recruiters from all the services come 300 miles to visit my high school with about 200 students... That was in the '80s.

Posted by: freddyboomboom at December 30, 2005 06:01 PM

I can't think of a better youth, growing up with Scouting in Hawaii... Damn, do you think the kids get to practice amphibious landings, using surfboards, in 80-degree water? How cool! Mmm, how do we know those pictures aren't of the very popular airsoft guns? There's a lot of Hawaiians who join the Armed Services, besides their history as a warrior-nation, maybe this explains it.

Posted by: -keith in mtn. view at January 5, 2006 12:18 PM

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December 29, 2005

Kids With Guns

By Golly, you're reading an archived post. Click Here to head to the main page and read current stuff...

Check it out:

My group sci-fi blog novel:

Colony: Alchibah