Moral fiber

The Bookbinder twins are in the Washington Post.

It was nearing 6 p.m. one Sunday last month when Jeremy and Eliana Bookbinder heard about an injured hawk on a hiking trail not far from the camp where they were working.

The 20-year-old twins from Prince George’s were at Camp Marriott, a Boy Scout camp in the Goshen Scout Reservation, about 20 miles from Lexington, Va.

Some hikers had told a camp staff member that they had found an injured hawk, and the information had been passed along to the twins.

You know the story from Eliana’s write-up. Eliana found the bird – a juvenile bald eagle – and found that it was in bad shape.

It was “very, very still and quiet,” she said, and it was “covered in flies.”

Bookbinder called her boss, Matt Anderson, and told him about the eagle. She also texted him a photo of the bird. But from the other end of the line came an order: She was not to call the wildlife rehabilitation center, nor was she to transport it to a wildlife veterinarian.

“I pointed out that this was a massive violation of the Scout law,” Bookbinder said. “Part of the Scout law is to be thoughtful and to be kind, and this was neither.

“I have never been so angry that I cried,” she said. “At that point I just thought okay, I’m just going to do it anyway.”

She called Jeremy for backup.

She also called the emergency after-hours phone number of the Wildlife Center of Virginia. She was told that if she could safely capture the eagle, she should do so and bring it to the center, located about 45 miles away.

That’s the part that makes the firing impossible to understand. She called the correct experts, and the correct experts told her to bring the eagle in if she could do it safely. I don’t know why that isn’t all there was to it.

At the Wildlife Center, the two handed over the eagle and filled out paperwork, and staff at the center started assessing the bird’s condition.

It was about 11 p.m. by the time the Bookbinders arrived back at camp. They were called to Anderson’s office. According to Eliana Bookbinder, Anderson berated them for having done a “terrible” thing and said that their actions had “endangered the reputation of the Boy Scouts.”

Next morning they were fired.

The people in charge act as if they’re running the Pentagon or something, and refuse to explain.

Contacted by The Washington Post for comment, Barbash deferred to his chief spokesman, Aaron Chusid.

“We have no comment at this time as it is our policy not to comment on employment matters,” Chusid wrote in an email. “At Goshen Scout Reservation, our first priority is always to promote the health and safety of our campers while adhering to Scouting’s values as stated in the Scout Oath and Law.”

Blah blah blah; question not answered.

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