I often hear about Scouts sprinting to the mailbox for the latest issue of Boys’ Life and immediately flipping to Scouts in Action, which features true stories of Scouts earning the BSA’s heroism awards.
The appeal is understandable. Scouts who receive these awards have saved someone’s life, sometimes risking their own in the process. They have saved people from burning buildings, rescued rafters from drowning in Class IV rapids and — in one shockingly true story — fought off a shark that was attacking a friend.
This is the stuff of blockbuster movies. Or, in the case of Running Toward Danger, a blockbuster new book.
Running Toward Danger: Real Life Scouting Action Stories of Heroism, Valor and Guts comes to us from Michael S. Malone, whose book Four Percent is a favorite read of Eagle Scouts and those who support them.
The new book features 170 of the most exciting rescues in the history of the BSA’s heroism awards. These lifesaving awards are especially remarkable when you consider their impact through the years.
Scouting volunteer David Scott, publisher of Running Toward Danger, did the math and came up with the staggering number of how many people are alive today because of Scouting heroism.
“An estimated 3 to 5 million people — the equivalent of a city the size of Houston and Chicago — are alive today in the U.S. because they, or one of their parents and grandparents, had their life saved by a Boy Scout,” Scott says. “No volunteer lifesaving program … has had such an impact on a country.”
And yet, Scott says, most people have never heard of the Honor Medal. They might have read about a Scout receiving one at a city council meeting, but they’re probably not aware of the award’s rarity or its history.
That will change when they pick up Running Toward Danger, the beautifully designed, full-color book available now at Amazon.
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