George Rugg was with Dragon Troop Patrol 52, one of approximately 56,000 Boy Scouts attending the 1960 Jubilee Jamboree in Colorado Springs. It was the fifth jamboree in the organization’s history and the only one ever held in Colorado.
Q: Were you a hard-core Boy Scout?
A: I was a Cub Scout, and then a Webelos and then a Scout. I was an Eagle Scout when I was 14, with two palms. That was the year I went to the jamboree. I was at the right age, in the right place, at the right time.
Q: What do you mean?
A: I was 14. By the time I was 16 or 17, I was starting to lose interest in scouting. There were girls and football. Would I have done this at age 18? Probably not. It’s an honor to have been there, looking back, especially thinking about — excuse my French — all the crap that’s going on in the world today.
Q: But at 14, being a Boy Scout defined who you were?
A: It was the right age for that. I’d gone to state jamborees and campouts. This was only the fifth national jamboree ever held. I was in awe of being among so many people from throughout the country — from throughout the world. I remember meeting scouts from Japan. I still have a letter from a scout from Korea. I still have his little Scout flag, and a picture of him and a card that says “Dear Mr. Rugg, I reached Hawaii later this morning,” to let me know he’d made it that far, at least, on his way home.
Q: What else do you remember from the jamboree?
A: We had duties: Raise our flag every day at 9 o’clock, rotating cooking and cleaning. There were competitions with troops from other states — things related to physical fitness and pioneering. Pioneering was doing things with ropes and walking on a rope bridge, and things like that.
Q: What else?
A: The first night, they had fireworks off the top of Pikes Peak. Later that week, James Arness, the actor who played Matt Dillon on TV, visited us, and President Eisenhower. I don’t remember actually seeing Eisenhower; I was maybe 75 feet away. But the jamboree was such a great experience for a young man, a great venue for character-building and camaraderie. If every young man and woman in the world went through scouting and then training at a military base or a boot camp of some sort, we’d live in a better world.
