I will however provide an update since my dismissal;
Friends had been filing ethics complaints with the National BSA before and after my dismissal that seem to be falling on deaf ears. Then these friends began posting the names and financial comtributing donors of the local council with the call to both contact them and boycott them until I was re-instated. That grabbed the National BSA,s attention as the program these days does not seem that its really about the program or the youth but the overinflated pay and benifits packages of paid Scouters from local to National. It seems it's only about the egos and awards volunteers strive to gain. Paid Scouters go by the titles of "Professional Scouters" however I have NOT experienced them acting in any way professional, they maintain what they have by giving out patches, medals and meaningless titles to volunteers to stroke egos to keep them in their positions.
National flew in Area and Regional paid Scouters to investigate the the situation. They spent the day prior to their meeting with me and then with my friends ONLY talking to ONLY those the paid Scouters wanted them to talk to about me/us. They told me that they practically didn't have to talk to me, "they" had already made up their minds about me before meeting me. They wanted me, to bring an end to the boycotting and negative social media hype. First, very little of it was me, and second, kick me out and then demand my cooperation? They expressed no sense of empathy for me over the potential of what the false allegation could have meant for me. They seemed to have acknowledge that they knew it was false with a "so what?" and cavaleer attitude.
In their meeting with my friends they talked down to these very experienced Eagle Scouts and leaders as if nothing was corrupt going on and that my froends were the only problems. All that was important was to stop the potential financial bleeding that could come of a boycott. My friends agreed to hault with the boycott until my appeal was heard by the National BSA.
I was given 60 days to send an appeal which I complied with. It took a month for them to send a reciept of their recieving my packet. By the end of October a REGIONAL not NATIONAL review, chaired by the Regional paid Scouter who I met with months before and who had said that he had already made up his mind about me before talking with me. It was decided to uphold the local council's actions. I was given another tight deadline to request the NATIONAL review I orriginally requested. I recieved receipt of my letter requesting a National review a couple of months later with a promise of a timely review and then....silence. There was a total lack of transparency in my appeal process and a total lack of profrssional actions from the top down.
Wait long enough and you figure I won't care any longer and just move on. Well it has occurred. My son left Scouting as he wants nothing to do with program without me being a part of it with him. Now my brother and his son are no longer Scouts either. A proud long lineage and family herritage of Scouting ended by corrupt actions of paid Scouters and the select volunteers who have kept them in power and a paycheck. Fathers and sons have moved on to better things, things to be proud of.
I even debated posting this but their had to be an end to this story.
As it ends I have reinvented myself, no longer tethered to the idea of my Identity as a Scout (originally through no choice of my own, now I embrace it). I would like to think that I came out the other end a year later a better person in multiple ways. I can"t really tell you if this is really is true but please spend some time reading my social media post over the last year or spend some time with me fishing or having a cup of coffee and chatting, then you can decide.
I will not ask anyone to continue hanging on with the Freemickey movement. I was never the leader of the movement, only the name of it, a name I would have gladly traded to not have any of this happening.
I harbor no animosity despite my writing of the accounts of what has occurred in the last year. I harbor no ill feelings, If you do, please don't, I am asking you not to, nothing good will come of hangimg on to those feelings Life is too short for that.
Please rather than spending time hating or seeking vengence spend time leaving things and more important people better than you found them. Please do not waste time seeking justice, I am ok with knowing that it may never occur. Let Karma play its hand if it is to happen.Please spend sometime if you haven't already healing wounds I have not lost a night of sleep over this in months as it only steals from my sense of overall happiness. I have come to realize that there is no path to happiness, happiness is the path.
I had a lot of great experiences and memories that I will always have. I have nothing to be ashamed of andno regrets. I have met and was able to know a lot of Awesome people over the years. I have made lots of friends, hopefully more friends than otherwise.
Perhaps I will meet many of you someday in a diner over coffee or on a trail somewhere or fishing (and we will fish together for and with soul) or even at a campfire. Who really knows where our life journeys will lead us as long as its a happy and fullfilling journey.
-I am Mickey and be well
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