Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Eagle Scout Chairman Pete Sessions for his great introduction. It is an absolute honor to be here. About a week ago, I said I would like to get the Eagle Scouts together on the floor of the House of…
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Eagle Scout Chairman Pete Sessions for his great introduction. It is an absolute honor to be here.
About a week ago, I said I would like to get the Eagle Scouts together on the floor of the House of Representatives and talk about what it means to us to be Eagle Scouts, reflect on our history and our tradition and how great this institution has been for the United States of America for all of these years and how we must make sure that this institution stays strong for the years to come. When I brought that to the gentleman's attention, he said, absolutely, we will do it. I didn't talk to him again, and today we are doing it. I didn't have to ask twice.
As chairman of the Scouting Caucus here in the House of Representatives, the gentleman has led in a tremendous way. We have seen so many Eagle Scouts come to the Capitol, and he always gets all of us together and always has us talk face-to-face with the Scouts--not just Eagle Scouts--and encourage them from the earliest days of their Scouting careers.
I want to thank him for his leadership, because a lot of people could chair this committee, but he hasn't just chaired it; he has led it, and that reflects greatly on him.
When I think about my days as a Scout, I go all the way back to my Cub Scout days. In fact, it was even before I was a Scout. My brother was a year older than me, so he got to be a Cub Scout before I was a Cub Scout.
He got to participate in this new thing that was going on in the lives of the Bridenstines called the pinewood derby. He had this little car--a block of wood with some nails and some wheels--and we watched that car streak from the very top of the track and come to a screeching halt where the track leveled out. In fact, this little blue car didn't even make it to the end of the track.
Of course, all of these other Scouts had all their fancy cars that had their rounded wheels and graphite on the nails and all of the weights put in the car. We didn't know to do any of that.
So my brother, John Bridenstine, who was a Cub Scout before I was a Cub Scout, had to endure the pain of being a Scout and wanting to have the fastest car, and his didn't even make it to the end of the track.
Well, I will tell you this. There was a Life Scout named Wayne Bridenstine, who was our dad. He was not going to allow any of our cars to ever again not make it to the end of the track. So we went to work trying to learn everything we could about this pinewood derby.
We engineered a couple of what I think are the greatest cars in American Scouting history. The next year, the Bridenstine boys won first place and second place going forward. We won first place and second place in--I don't remember which--but we reversed it going backwards. So we went from having a car that didn't even reach the end of the track to winning the pinewood derby.
Many years later, now I have my own son. He is in Cub Scouts and he does the pinewood derby. I committed to him the same thing my dad committed to us back in those days: We are going to win the pinewood derby.
The first year we did it, we had great success. The second year, Dad got a little, maybe, overaggressive in his engineering. Maybe we put the weights a little too far back. As that car came down, it got really unstable and it wobbled. There were a couple of times it barely made it to the end of the track.
But I will tell you this. The relationship that I had with my dad and that my brother had with our dad and that was necessary to pull us from not even finishing the race to winning the race and now the relationship with my son, Walker Bridenstine, are things that are important in our family and will be for many years to come.
So those are some of my first ideas.
Of course, Cub Scouts led to the Arrow of Light. The very next progression is to become a Boy Scout. So we searched a number of different troops across Arlington, Texas, and Fort Worth, Texas. We were in the Longhorn Council at the time. We eventually settled on Troop 83.
I remember some of the leaders of the troop. Coach Wasden was a football coach at Hutcheson Junior High. That was somebody who was intense. He was serious about Scouts. Boy, if you were going to move up in rank, you were going to prove to him that you have done what was required.
Of course, earning merit badges was important to all of us who were trying to move up the ranks. I will never forget the first summer camp that we went on. My brother and I were not able to go to the summer camp that our troop went on. So we went to this thing called the Maverick Camp, where we went with a bunch of Scouts we didn't even know, but we had a great time.
I am not going to lie to you; it was a challenge. I was in fifth grade. My brother was in sixth grade. It was the middle of August in Texas. We will just say the middle of August in Texas. It was just as hot at midnight as it was at the noon hour.
We sweat a lot. We worked hard. We got seven merit badges that summer. That was intense. We didn't know you weren't supposed to get that many. We showed up back at our troop for the court of honor and people were shocked that we got seven. No wonder it was so hard. Nobody told us not to get seven merit badges in one summer camp.
These are some of the memories I had. My brother and I were really challenged and we got that done. The next summer, we did three or four merit badges and had a lot more fun. These are some of the memories.
I was the chaplain's aid. As the chaplain's aid, one of the things that I prayed for most was that the chaplain would show up on the campout so I wouldn't have to do the public speaking in front of everybody. And here I am now as a Member of Congress who publicly speaks as a living. That is one of the things the Boy Scouts of America gave me: the ability to stand before an audience and tell people what was on my mind.
My leadership experience was as the chaplain's aid. My brother was the senior patrol leader for Troop 83. I was in the Arrow of Light patrol. He was in the Bison Patrol. He was the senior patrol leader.
Summer camp after summer camp and all the things we heard, here is, I think, one of the important things that people need to remember: The Boy Scouts of America is an institution that trains leaders. You might not recognize it when you are in it because you believe you are just having fun, but then there come those moments in life when you really need to lean on the things that you learned as a Boy Scout, and it doesn't even dawn on you until later that you actually learned these things as a Boy Scout.
After I graduated from college, I joined the United States Navy. I became a pilot. Of course, one of the things we have to do is survival, evasion, resistance, and escape. In this process, we have to live in the woods for a period of time. We have to figure out how we are going to survive and evade for a week. During this time, you have to live based on the things that you see around you. You have to be able to start a fire.
Some of these basic things I was able to do that all the peers around me had no ability to do because they did not have the life experiences in the Boy Scouts of America.
We had to be able to cook a rabbit, something that I had done before and something that my peers, also Navy pilots, had not done. We had to able to land navigate with a map and a compass, which, to me, was second nature because I had done it for years trying to get to my rank of Eagle. But for so many people, it was a foreign concept to use a map and a compass to land navigate from point A to point B.
I remember one group navigated point to point. Our group said: We don't want to go point to point because if we miss the point, we won't know we missed the point. So we are going to intentionally offset, hit the river, and then we are going to know exactly where we are. Of course, we didn't miss the point. We knew where we were going.
But some of my peers who did not have the experiences I had went well beyond the point and didn't know they had gone down the point, then they had to come back. I could have told you that was going to happen because it had happened to me previously as somebody who was in the Boy Scouts of America.
These are very real-life experiences that you look back on and say: Why was I able to do this? I was able to do it because I was in the Boy Scouts of America.
You also look back and say there are things that are intangible, things that are not specific. I heard Eagle Scout Jeb Hensarling today--chairman, Congressman, Eagle Scout--talk about tying a bowline in one hand and how he doesn't anticipate finding himself at the bottom of a cliff with a broken arm, but if he did, he would be able to tie a one-handed bowline and somebody would be able to pull him out. Certainly, that is exactly the same kind of thing that I learned when I was going through the same program.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Walker Bridenstine, my son, had to learn how to tie a bowline. I was trying to teach him how to tie a bowline the old-fashioned way. I simply couldn't do it. When I tried to tie it as a one-handed bowline, I was able to do it. It just stuck with me all of these years.
So, again, these are specific skills. But the leadership, the ability to lead people are things that the Boy Scouts teach you. You apply these things every day in your life, and you don't even know you are doing it.
I will also say that, as employers, we look for leaders when we are trying to find whom we are going to hire. We see over and over again employers looking to hire Eagle Scouts from the Boy Scouts of America.
So there might be somebody today who is watching this maybe on C- SPAN, maybe on the internet; and maybe you are a Boy Scout, maybe you are a Cub Scout, maybe you are not sure if you are going to stick it out. I will tell you this. Every interview I have ever gone on, I had a resume. On that resume was included the fact that I was an Eagle Scout. Even when I was applying for college, I put on my resume and in all of my extracurricular classes that I was an Eagle Scout. I would highly encourage anybody that is maybe at a lower rank but working hard to attain that Eagle, finish your Eagle Scout.
My dad was a Life Scout. He moved when he was a Life Scout. He never finished his Eagle. His brother, Jim Bridenstine, my uncle, did finish his Eagle Scout. Of course, my brother and I both finished our Eagle Scout, and now our kids are in Scouts, and we are going to do everything we can to help them finish their Eagle Scout.
Not only did I put it on every resume, not only on all of my college applications, I will tell you, I also ran for Federal office. The first thing I did in my campaign commercials is tell people: My name is Jim Bridenstine, and I am an Eagle Scout. Before I told them that I went to college or before I told them that I was a Navy pilot, I told them that I was an Eagle Scout.
I think it is important for people to understand that some folks have a desire from an early age to achieve. When employers look at a resume, when voters look at somebody running for office, they want to see that.
I will tell you, there was somebody who came into my office not too long ago wanting a job. I had a number of great candidates. It was nearly impossible for me to pick which one. We all know this: When you get to be a Member of Congress, you get hundreds of resumes the next day.
I was getting down to the end, and I was trying to figure out which one. I got down to three. When they left my office, one of the three said this: One other thing I need to let you know; I am an Eagle Scout.
That did it for me. I knew at that point that this young man had committed himself to something much bigger than himself from an early age. That person now works in my office.
I look for that. I know employers across this country look for that. It speaks volumes to the character and the training of the individual. That will continue.
I will tell you, when you think about all of the astronauts in the United States of America, the 316 or so of them in the history of the United States of America, 40 of them were Eagle Scouts. That is not by accident. I will tell you that is a much higher percentage than the number of Eagle Scouts who are produced in the Boy Scouts of America, and it is certainly a much higher percentage than the number of Eagle Scouts that exist in the population of the United States of America. So this is something that employers look for.
I took my 11-year-old son to the Air Force Academy just about a month ago. I took some brochures about what it takes to get into the Air Force Academy. There is all kinds of stuff in there about being an athlete and being a great student, but one of the six criteria that they look for is: Are you an Eagle Scout at the Air Force Academy of the United States of America?
I would also argue they probably look for the same thing at West Point and the Naval Academy. These are things that employers look for, that schools look for, that the military looks for. These are the character issues that are important.
So if you are in Scouting today, my encouragement to you is to finish, get your Eagle Scout. If you are below the
age of 18 and you have still got time, I would encourage you to join and get your Eagle Scout. It has been important for me. It has been important for my brother. It has been important for my family.
My uncle Jim's son, Shane, my cousin, is also an Eagle Scout. This is a tradition of the Bridenstine family, and I would encourage you to make it a tradition in yours.
Mr. Chairman, I just want to say thank you for your leadership and thank you for leading this effort.
