Bush cheers Scouts

last updated 8 January 2015

Fort A.P. Hill, Va.

President Bush gave 50,000 Boy Scouts a long-awaited pep talk this week near the close of the most traumatic national Jamboree in Scouting history. A week earlier, four adult troop leaders from Alaska were electrocuted when a metal pole in the center of a tent they were raising touched a power line. A day before that, another volunteer suffered a heart attack. And when threatening thunderstorms forced Bush to delay the original time set for his visit, 300 people waiting in the sun had to be treated for illnesses related to the heat. When Bush finally made it, he told the Scouts to honor the Scout leaders who died, by “living up to the ideals of the Scouting they served.”