Jan Pečený

“I can still remember when I spoke about the Eagle patrol… there once was a summer camp where you had to accomplish the three eagle feathers. We had very strict rules for our camp because we were only granted one try and that was it for the whole duration of the summer camp. If you failed at it, you had to wait a year for the next season. At other companies, they would simply let people try again and again until everybody did it. I have to confess, to my great shame, that I’ve never managed to accomplish all three feathers. I messed it up in 1969 and in 1970 again. In 1969, by the time we had our summer camp, the first people landed on the Moon. By that time, we already had our little radio receiver. We would begin the three feather test in the evening, after the line-up. I held out, the next day in the morning, till noon, and in the afternoon, I heard on the radio that they had already landed and were walking on the Moon. About half an hour or maybe an hour later, I walked past a tent and heard the people inside talking about whether they had already landed or not. Somebody claimed that they can’t be there, yet. I stepped inside and victoriously said: ‘But they have already landed!’ Talking about failures, in 1970, we were camping in the Šumava Mountains, in the Kašperské Mountains and in the Amáliino Valley. And again, it was alright till the afternoon. In the afternoon, we played a game that I detest until now. We would run in the forest with a headband on and a number attached to it. You were out of the game the moment somebody called your number out loud. So we would hide and lurk for other players. I don’t remember my number anymore but it was something like 69. I was hidden behind a tree watching out for others when somebody who was just a few meters away from me shouted ‘67’ and pointed at me. I shouted back in response: ‘No, that’s not me. I’m not 67’! So that’s my fiasco with the three feathers.”

“An important development was that after the latest renewal of the Scout, we were confronted with the demand to conform to the standards of the international Scout movement. We received the request to incorporate the first principle of the Scout organization in our pledge. As is generally known, the international Scout movement is based on three principles – to serve God, to serve your fellow man and to serve or to be responsible to yourself. There is an obligation for all Scout organizations, members of the international association WOSM and WAGGGS, to reflect the principle of service to God in their pledge in some way. This resulted in a problematic situation. Historically, since our creation till 1989, there was no reference to God in our pledge. Although we were among the founding members, we somehow got away with it. When we applied for a renewal of our membership, there was a clear demand we have to do something about it. We dealt with it in the beginning of the 1990s and it was a rather controversial topic. A lot of our sisters and brothers, in particular some of the older ones, who still remembered the Scout movement of the pre-war and post-war days, said ‘no’. They weren’t inclined to change anything about our pledge that they grew so much accustomed to. They said it was our traditional pledge, this wording, and that we would not yield. Finally, a compromise was accepted at the fifth council in 1992, in the presence of representatives of the World Scout organization. The spiritual council of the Scout was working on that compromise for a long time before the Council. The hard nut to crack here was how to voice a pledge towards spiritual values while at the same time 90% of the members of the organization were indifferent to them.”

“I can still very well remember August 21, 1968. On that day, I was supposed to go on a class excursion to help with the harvest of hops. I had just enrolled at the electro technical high school and the freshmen classes were regularly going on these class trips to help with the hops harvest. So on that 21st of August, I was supposed to depart to a hops farm somewhere in the Žatecko region. Well, as I woke up that morning, I immediately realized the strange mood. The radio was on and the Czech national anthem as playing. I heard the broadcaster saying: ‘Foreign armies have stepped on our territory’. I initially thought that the Germans had invaded Czechoslovakia. That was because we lived in world of propaganda and brainwashing. I thought that war had broken out. Only a couple of minutes and some clarification later did I realize what had really happened. This meant two things. Firstly, I didn’t go on that hops-harvesting trip that day. And secondly, concerning the Scout, there of course were huge expectations as to what is going to happen. It later became evident that even though the organization itself was able to go on, the screws were tightened and tightened and the situation grew ever more complicated.”