Be Prepared... the meaning of the motto is that a scout must prepare himself by previous thinking out and practicing how to act on any accident or emergency so that he is never taken by surprise.
You don't need a uniform color: We used a mixture of brick red, browns and grays, and then threw in seashells, branches and various types of rock, so our walls ended up looking like cave paintings!
I think, like a lot of other people who have been in the service, you'd been delayed in what you were doing. You wanted to catch up and the best way to catch up was to move as fast as you could toward a degree.

