Badges

In Trail Life USA, badges, both required and elective, are medallions suspended from a Trailman’s Standard (a walking stick) that represent skills and areas of gifting, helping young men develop godly manhood and explore their unique talents. 

Purpose:

Trail Life USA uses badges to develop skills deemed universally needed for godly manhood. 

Types:

  • Required Trail Badges: These are necessary for earning the ranks of Able Trailman, Ready Trailman, Journey, Ascent, Horizon, and Freedom. 
  • Elective Trail Badges: These allow Trailmen to explore unique areas of gifting and understand their individual talents. 

Medallions:

Elective Trail Badges are laser-cut medallions made from olive wood grown in Jerusalem, categorized under one of the seven frontiers. 

Display:

These badges are suspended from the Trailman’s Standard using paracord or a leather cord. 

Examples of Elective Trail Badges:

Airsoft, Apologetics, Archery, Art History, Aviation, Backpacking, and many more. 

Freedom Award:

The Freedom Award is the highest award in Trail Life USA and is the culmination of everything that Trailmen have learned and experienced along the Trail. 

Troop Standard:

The Troop Standard is the official way a Navigator or Adventurer Trailman displays his Trail Badges, as well as the pinnacle award in Trail Life USA, the Freedom Award. 

As a Trailmen moves from the Woodlands program (which is much more guided), into the Navigators and Adventurers the program will focus more on opportunities for them to grow in the area of Adventure, Character, and Leadership.

Developing the trailmen as godly leaders through allowing them to self-lead their patrols, while mastering skills through outdoor activities will be the focus. While all these activities will point the boys towards advancements, it will not be centered on the advancement. Trailmen wanting to advance will need to pursue advancement outside the meetings/activities to complete the badge work. The Trailmaster (Navigators) and Advisor (Adventurers) are here to help guide/coach the trailmen and can check off their work once completed.

Trail Badge Work

Trail Badge Work can be the most intimidating aspect to work through for a new Trailman. However, if one breaks it down, it can be very manageable to earn these first six badges.

Able Trailman requires 2 elective badges (unless extra Core Skills Badges are used). Most trailman will find the elective badges to be straightforward to complete. These badges are catalogued on Trail Life Connect and include all manner of different topics of interest. It’s a good starting place to pick a few of these that are doable and can be worked through independently. Badges in the Heritage and Sports & Fitness Frontiers are especially popular in our troop.

Planning Four Core Skills Trail Badges

When a Trailman is planning his first four Core Skills Trail Badges, the troop’s sequence of badge instruction can impact planning. However, for the sake of discussion, I am going to ignore these group badges and focus on how one might individually plan to move through four badges.

Fire Ranger & Woods Tools

Fire Ranger and Woods Tools are some of the most foundational of outdoor skills badge work. Most Trailman are going to find it desirable to complete these early on, and I will typically recommend them as a foundation of a badge plan. It’s often possible to do the practical segments during free time at a campout, or simply doing them in the backyard. For those less familiar with these subject matters, the Outdoor Skills Guide has information on Woods Tools requirements, and the Camping Guide has information on Fire Ranger requirements.

Third & Fourth Badges

It’s helpful to consider the “hardest” requirement in each badge when selecting a third and fourth trail badge to complete. By process of elimination, one can pick the two needed.

Aquatics

Aquatics is a polarizing badge. Strong swimmers with access to a pool may find it very simple. Lack of pool access or swimming skills can make this trail badge a significant undertaking.

Camping

The most challenging aspect of the Camping Trail Badge is the requirement to camp 15 nights and participate in camping activities. Those pursuing this badge early would be advised to prioritize attendance at campouts.

First Aid

For trailmen old enough to complete a First Aid/CPR class, the First Aid Trail Badge can be completed with that certification plus a few extra requirements. Otherwise, there is substantial home study required to complete.

Our Flag

Our Flag is a popular choice as an early Core Skills Trail Badge. The most significant planning challenge is completing the 3 elective activities. When working independently, most will choose to learn about the 21 Gun Salute. The other options cannot be done spontaneously at home. Trailmen pursuing the badge will often want to volunteer in a troop outdoor flag ceremony. We do these at most campouts–see the First Officer to express interest. As the third elective, either participating in a Memorial Day flag planting service or instructing a Woodlands unit on flag ceremonies are the most accessible, but require advance planning.

Outdoor Cooking

Outdoor Cooking has many straightforward requirements. The challenge in this Trail Badge is completing requirement 8, the “grub master requirement”. That requirement generally will need to be done within the context of a troop/patrol event, and only so many trailmen can complete at an event.

Ropework

Ropework is a good choice as an independent Trail Badge. While it can be a significant amount of learning for a Trailman not proficient on knots, none of the requirements is independently complex to complete. The Outdoor Skills Guide has information about knots, as well as commercially available resources such as as the excellent Knots 3D app.

Trail Skills

Trail Skills has two requirements that sometimes prove challenging. Orienteering courses are not always readily available, and the five-mile hike requirement needs to completed inside of a troop-supervised activity.

What does Advancement Look Like?

The image below shows a brief overview of the advancement process for a trailman from Navigators thru Adventurers. There are additional requirement, which can be found in the Trailman’s handbook or on TrailLifeConnect.com

Instructions and advice

In pure mentoring fashion, you should not be telling or “spoon-feeding” the Trailmen the spiritual connections that you have already made. Rather, as the Trailmen work on requirements or topics for the Trail Badge, guide the conversations in order to discuss points addressed in this guide. For skills requirements, highlight if that particular skill or a related skill is discussed in the Bible. For research requirements, provide contextual descriptors that will point the Trailmen toward the right resources and scriptures needed.

As you’re walking through this process with the Trailman, please keep three things in mind:

  1. Avoid assumptions: The Trailman you’re working with may have a rich Christian background, or he might have none at all. Begin your dialogue by ascertaining where he is now. Does he know the basics essential to your faith tradition? Or, must you start “farther back” and build bridges to these ideas? The “Christianese” you may be tempted to use may seem like Chinese to him, so use common language until you are sure you have a bridge that can carry your words.
  2. Ask, don’t tell: While mentoring using the Essentials should be more directive than is typical because absolute truths shouldn’t give way to individual interpretation, asking questions is still almost always more effective than just telling someone information. Isn’t it? Draw out thoughts and ideas from the Trailman intentionally through open-ended questions, taking care to refer back to the Essentials in mentoring the Trailman toward truth. Almost every point you want to convey can be elicited with the right question. The more he thinks, the more he absorbs.
  3. Confirm understanding: As you wrap up, ask him to share what he has learned. See how much of what you’ve discussed can be recounted. Then, positively reinforce his “correct” assessment with appropriate praise and affirmation. If necessary, offer a small clarification about major things he misunderstood. End on a positive note!

Thanks to our friends at www.manhoodjourney.org for these three guiding principles!