Sieg Heil ..........

Way back when, I was a Boy Scout: not for very long because the hat may have looked good on Smokey the Bear but looked stupid on me and I hated camping.

Some things don’t change over time as I still detest camping and hats are just for keeping the Arizona sun off my face.

But the Boy Scouts I knew did not practice shooting guns in response to “Border Violence” nor did they worry too much about “Disgruntled Iraq War Veterans” as potential “Right-wing dissidents".

But things change according to the New York Times and now the Boy Scouts of America in collusion with the Department of Homeland Security have enhanced the long-time “Explorer Program to do just that and I quote:-

“United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!” screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued.

It is all quite a step up from the square knot.

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy in Imperial County, California. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.

"Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”

Cathy Noriega, also 16, said she was attracted by the guns. The group uses compressed-air guns — known as air-soft guns, which fire tiny plastic pellets — in the training exercises, and sometimes they shoot real guns on a closed range.

“I like shooting them,” Cathy said. “I like the sound they make. It gets me excited.”

Just as there are soccer moms, there are Explorers dads, who attend the competitions, man the hamburger grill and donate their land for the simulated marijuana field raids. In their training, the would-be law-enforcement officers do not mess around, as revealed at a recent competition on the state fairgrounds here, where a Ferris wheel sat next to the police cars set up for a felony investigation.

Their hearts pounding, Explorers moved down alleys where there were hidden paper targets of people pointing guns, and made split-second decisions about when to shoot. In rescuing hostages from a bus taken over by terrorists, a baby-faced young girl screamed, “Separate your feet!” as she moved to handcuff her suspect.

In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. “If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?”

Remember that the DHS has only been involved with this program since May of last year. Imagine how loud would have been the liberal scream if the previous administration had come up with this.

Personally, it makes me uncomfortable on several fronts. For a start, it seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to the “Civilian Military Force” talked about by Obama at length on the 2008 Campaign Trail and since.

Then, perhaps my background and early history causes me to recall “Hitler Jugend”. Because the Hitler Youth replaced the Boy Scouts in the Third Reich in 1933.

And they had cool uniforms too ……….