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171 Recon was forged in the heat of battle. No one really established
our patrol. There was always a Venture patrol, but it wasn't until a
select few, guided by the Venturers who had come before, decided to
make themselves the best and to call themselves Recon.
Each member of Recon was molded and taught by his predecessors until the moment when it was decided that he had the ability to join the Venture patrol, later to be called Recon. In the early days of Troop 171 there was no Recon, and not much of a Venture patrol. The Venture patrol was just the "older Scouts." These Scouts were on the downhill swing of thier Scouting career and wanted to do more than the younger Scouts. So, they were set aside as the "older Scout patrol." It wasn't wntil two Scouts became the "older Scouts" when things started to change. Brad Filler and Andrew Strotheide, basically being the only older Scouts at the time, were filling many of the Troop's positions. For a few years they traded off being SPL and ASPL (Brad also earned the honarary title of Chancellor of Gestapo, which he still holds to this day) until some more Scouts joined or became old enough to be in the "older Scout patrol." Phillip Horn and Andy Schmidt were now in the "older Scout patrol" and it was then that a Venture patrol actually started. As time went by Brad and Andy got their Eagle ranks and showed up less and less to the meetings. Andrew Strotheide got his but stayed fairly active. The Venture patrol was stagnant. Steven Lane joined so there were then three to keep the patrol alive. Then Andrew Horn joined the ranks, but as he joined, Phillip and Andrew left the Troop. Andrew still came as an ASM to the Venture patrol, but patrol membership was the lowest it had ever been. But just as times seemed their darkest, another Scout earned his orange Venture loops. David Fifield joined the Venture patrol. We were now three strong and with our own ASM. This was the group that would start it all. With the combined militaristic views of Andy Horn, Steven Lane, and David Fifield, taught to us by our founding fathers, we decided to form a fully functional Venture patrol and to call ourselves 171 Recon. We disciplined ourselves and became the most efficient patrol in the BSA. Those were the glory days of 171 Recon. As Andrew and Brad had once ruled the Troop, now did the triumvirate. Under its leadership Troop 171 became the most hard core Troop in the world, and we could see the pride in the eyes of Andrew and the Chancellor. Their long forgotten vision of the way Venture should be had been restored. And as our predecessors had molded our generation, we molded the next. But then things began to decline. As the years went by more Scouts joined the Troop. And our students became the teachers taking leadership positions that ran the Troop. Recon picked up Mark Coleman along the way who seized power as SPL, but that was Recon's last grab at the power. For a time we vainly thought that because of our stature within the Troop we could be the power behind the power. None of us wanted to let go. But our plan didn't work out. We realized that we couldn't use the SPL as our puppet. Nevertheless, we were all happy to see Robby Gonsalves elected SPL. The young boy had shown promise and we all knew that he would soon be one of us. But as his reign ended so did our hopes of having total power again. There were now too many others who wanted and needed leadership positions. 171 Recon, now without any real power, resigned themselves to the idea of simply being the Venture patrol. But when one thing ends, another begins. 171 Recon began doing more things as a patrol and even high adventure things. This web site shows these things. The glory days of 171 Recon may be gone, but the fun, pride, and excellence are still going strong.
This nonsense is by Andrew Horn
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