Scouting America Is Vital to the Pentagon’s Warfighting Potential

The Pentagon may be on the verge of cutting ties with Scouting America, one of America’s preeminent youth organizations that has helped produce generations of American servicemembers. This decision would needlessly damage military recruitment efforts and hurt military families. Congress should tell the Pentagon to pump the brakes.

One of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s advisors has reportedly been pushing for the Pentagon to walk away from its century-old ties with Scouting America, formerly known as Boy Scouts of America. This is presumably a belated response to the organization’s 2017 decision to allow girls to participate. Of note, the renamed organization is distinct from Girl Scouts of the USA that also receives Pentagon support.

A draft Pentagon memo now reportedly accuses Scouting America’s co-ed program of being designed to “attack boy-friendly spaces” to justify the disengagement. This short-sighted move fails to recognize how much the Pentagon benefits from this collaboration and would represent a triumph of ideology over good policy – pushing qualified, patriotic, and motivated candidates away from military service.

Consider some statistics.

Up to a third of the U.S. Navy’s officers in training have some scouting background, according to a memo reportedly sent by current Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, who also argued that ending support the Navy provides to Scouting America would be “detrimental to recruitment.” Detailed data on enrollment at the Naval Academy shows that from 2010 to 2020, around twenty percent of each graduating class had a background in Scouting America.

Statistics on other military academies further demonstrate the outsized impact of scouting. Approximately twenty percent of cadets at West Point between 2012 and 2017 were Eagle Scouts and around twenty percent of the 2025 graduating class at the Air Force Academy had a background in either scouting organization.

A desire to attract that scouting talent is why automatic promotion is currently offered for enlisted servicemembers who achieved Eagle Scout or earned the Girl Scout Gold Award.

Clearly there is a significant overlap between scouting’s members and those who choose to join the U.S. military, a phenomenon that has endured since Scouting America allowed girls into the organization. That’s perhaps because scouting places a strong emphasis on the value of service, particularly to one’s country. After all, the Scouting America Oath includes the phrase “I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country” and the Girl Scout Promise includes “To serve God and my country.”

In fact, one of the authors’ lifelong interest in U.S. national security was sparked by a 2002 Cub Scout trip to the USS Hornet Museum. And despite participating in a relatively small Troop, around half a dozen Scouts the author met would go on to serve in the U.S. military. The other author observed his son advance from Cub Scout to Eagle Scout despite four consecutive overseas postings living on military bases.

This experience was not unique – scouting provides important benefits to military families, serving as a source of continuity across frequent moves typically required by a servicemember’s career. The impact of these difficult transitions on dependent children is mitigated by the current Pentagon policy that permits scouts from both organizations to hold meetings on bases, ensuring they can easily welcome new arrivals, especially at overseas locations. If this policy ends for Scouting USA, which is reportedly under consideration, the stress of relocations on military families would unnecessarily increase (even more so if Girl Scouts is also impacted). It would not be surprising to then see an impact on military retention.

Congress values the benefits of scouting, likely in part because so many members have a connection, including roughly two dozen currently serving on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. Congress mandated the Secretary of Defense provide support for Scouting America’s Jamborees, which are gatherings held every few years that draw tens of thousands of scouts. The Pentagon historically contributed vehicles and medical teams for the safety of participants, as well as providing aerial demonstrations for recruiting purposes. Congress only permits that support be withheld if the Secretary of Defense submits a waiver in a timely manner to Congress determining that providing the support “would be detrimental to the national security of the United States” – which is now under consideration.

Let’s be clear – that waiver was intended to be invoked if a major war started, not because Scouting America is failing to “cultivate masculine values” or is fostering “gender confusion,” as the draft memo erroneously argues. In fact, the inclusion of those accusations exposes the memos additional arguments regarding tight budgets and international conflicts as red herrings. The Pentagon hosted the 2005 and 2010 Jamborees at Fort A.P. Hill during the Iraq War and surge in Afghanistan, respectively. It also supported the 2017 Jamboree during the anti-ISIS campaign. It is almost impossible to believe that the U.S. military cannot plan months in advance for a few medical teams to deploy for a single week or instruct demonstration teams to do the very mission they exist for at a time when the number of combat troops deployed overseas has decreased.

Issuing the waiver, while technically legal, would be a cynical end-run around Congressional intent. Concerned Congressmembers should proactively communicate to Pentagon leadership that the excuses reportedly present in the draft memo will not hold up under scrutiny.

Secretary Hegseth has repeatedly stressed that the military should be focused on fighting real wars, not culture wars. He is correct – the Pentagon should prioritize actions that benefit the national security of the United States, not advisors’ opinions on whether middle- and high-schoolers should participate in mixed-gender organizations. Regardless of what one thinks of the merits of Scouting America’s decision to include girls, the real question is whether continuing Pentagon support for Scouting America is good for U.S. national security. That answer is yes.

Ryan Brobst is the Deputy Director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and achieved the rank of Eagle Scout in 2014. Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery (U.S. Navy, ret.) is the Senior Director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation and Senior Fellow at FDD.