EAGLE SCOUT, INSPIRED BY FAMILY’S MILITARY HISTORY, CAPTURES VETERANS’ STORIES IN A NATIONAL PROJECT
Eagle Court of Honor recognizes the achievements of Eagle Scout who was inspired by his family history to assemble veteran’s stories for the Library of Congress
Fifteen-year-old Max Morelli will be honored for achieving the Boy Scouts of America’s highest rank, Eagle Scout, on October 25, 2014, after completing an Eagle service project that captured the personal stories of military veterans. The stories are archived as part of the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress, where they are available for future generations.
WELLESLEY, Massachusetts, October 21, 2014—Fifteen-year-old Max Morelli will be honored with Boy Scouts of America’s highest rank, Eagle Scout, in a ceremony in Wellesley, Massachusetts on October 25.
For his Eagle service project, Max interviewed military veterans from World War II to the present, contributing the videos to the Veterans’ History Project at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. In his Eagle application, Max stated:
My project was inspired by important veterans in my family: my grandfather, Donald Morelli, a West Point graduate and Major General in the Army; my great-uncle, George Kane, a World War II POW; and Buck Good, my grandfather and a Navy veteran injured in a blimp crash in 1956. My grandfather Good and my great-uncle Kane were both Eagle Scouts. George Kane attributed his survival of the Bataan Death March and four years as a prisoner of war during World War II to the training he received in Boy Scouts.
For his Eagle project, Max conducted and recorded interviews of veterans who served in conflicts ranging from World War II to the most recent deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Veterans interviewed for the project included residents of Wellesley, Massachusetts and of Max’s hometown of St. Simons Island, Georgia. Max’s grandfather, Buck Good, an Eagle Scout from 1953, served as an important mentor on the project.
Of his motivation to become an Eagle Scout, Max states, “In my generation, there are not as many people as there used to be with values that are based on code or creed. I feel that it’s important to have more young adults in the world who have values that benefit the entire community. The first step in making a change in the world is making the change in myself. That’s why it was important to me to pursue the Eagle Scout rank.”
Max Morelli is a ninth-grader at Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. He is the grandson of Major General Donald Ray Morelli (deceased), who is interred at the United States Military Academy at West Point.