Boy Scouts of America

The Boy Scouts of America is a uniformed youth organization in the United States dedicated to promoting self-esteem, citizenship, outdoors skills and leadership in young men, especially through group activities such as camping. Through different activities and mastery of different skills, boys earn ranks and merit badges.

The Scouting movement began in England in 1907, and spread worldwide, with the Boy Scouts of America established in the United States in 1910. Other boy scouts organizations were also started in the US, but eventually merged with the BSA or dissolved.

While living in the Southwest, Indiana Jones was a Boy Scout, attaining the rank of Life Scout (at that time, the third-highest rank - currently it is the second-highest rank). In 1912, while on a Scout horseback camping trip in Utah, Indy and his friend fellow scout Herman discovered treasure hunters in a canyon.

Boy Scouts in the World of Indiana Jones

 * Indiana Jones
 * Herman Mueller
 * Scout Master Havelock
 * unnamed scouts in Indy's troop

Behind the Scenes
Indiana Jones has the rank of Life Scout. There are several claims as to why this is:
 * 1) He was supposed to be an Eagle Scout, but the badges are not given out to anyone other than Eagle Scouts, so he had to be just one under. (Critics of this theory note that a costume department with a big budget could have just had one made. Also, in 1912, unlike today, Life Scout was two ranks below Eagle Scout, and not one rank below Eagle Scout - in 1924, the ranks of Star and Life were re-ordered.)
 * 2) Indiana Jones was a Life Scout in honor of Steven Spielberg's father who had died recently (relative to the filming of Last Crusade and who earned the rank of Life Scout in his youth. (Spielberg himself earned the rank of Eagle Scout)
 * 3) Indy, born in 1899, would have been 13 at the time, and Eagle was much more rigorous and much less seldom earned until older, until well into the 1940s. Also, the ranks of Life and Eagle were not created until 1911.
 * 4) When Harrison Ford was younger, he was a Boy Scout and had earn the rank of Life Scout

Indy's troop is depicted wearing yellow neckerchiefs. The use of the neckerchief was not standard in Boy Scout uniforms until 1923. Early Scout uniforms, such as in the timeframe depicted in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were not necessarily standardized, and were based on US Army uniforms. Many troops that could not obtain official Scout uniforms frequently used surplus Army uniforms.

Appearances

 * Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade