At 77, Former Combat Pilot to Soar With Eagles

Russ Cunningham isn’t exactly an Eagle Scout.

But the 77-year-old ex-Marine fighter pilot will be, starting Tuesday.

In fact, he’ll be far and away the oldest Scout ever to pin on the coveted Eagle badge in Ventura County and certainly one of the oldest in the U.S.

Like any other Scout, Cunningham is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.

The difference is that he’s knocked around long enough to be bitter, bilious, pigheaded, wild-eyed, sardonic, indignant, jaded, dyspeptic and foul.

I hasten to add: He’s not.

But who’s to say a guy with two wars’ worth of combat missions under his belt can’t be just what he wants to be?

In Cunningham’s case, he wanted to be an Eagle Scout.

As a boy in northern New Jersey, he was ardent about Scouting. He saw plenty of good times at Camp Nobebosco (an old Algonquin term for Northern Bergen County Boy Scout Council). The boys paddled on the Delaware River, hiked on the Appalachian Trail, stared solemnly into campfires beyond number.

“Scouting was my life,” said Cunningham, a retiree who lives in Camarillo and plays golf three times a week.

Of course, Scouting was different then. Today, boys can work toward 119 merit badges, many in areas as aggressively relevant as computers, “consumer buying,” “citizenship in the world,” and--God help our young people maintain their cheerful outlook--journalism.

Back then, the choices were more basic--first aid, woodcraft, hiking, basketry, making wallets just like the Indians did.

Then, as now, to be an Eagle Scout was to reach the pinnacle. Applicants must acquire 21 badges and be approved by national Scouting officials. In Cunningham’s day, there was no requirement for a public service project, but many Eagle wannabes today stop short only of reforming the Social Security system.

The current crop of Eagles in Ventura County has replaced aging library shelves, stenciled “No Skateboarding” signs on school walkways, rebuilt nature trails, sorted and bagged mountains of old linen for donation to charities.

Cunningham joined Troop 38 in his hometown of Dumont, N.J., in 1935. He still has the registration card to prove it, as well as all the merit badges he earned in the ensuing years.

But in Scouting, as in life, our destiny cannot be secured with even the most earnestly crafted double clove hitch.

After World War II broke out, Cunningham signed on for the grueling (and frequently too short) life of a naval aviator. In 1942, he was training in Pensacola, Fla., when he received a letter from the Boy Scouts: You’ve made Eagle. You can pick up your badge at a banquet in Pensacola.

He didn’t.

“I had orders to go to the West Coast by then, and, next thing I knew, I was flying fighter planes in the Solomons.”

Cunningham emerged from the war unscathed, only to be sent to Korea in the early 1950s with his reserve unit. He managed to survive that one whole as well.

Meanwhile, he had gotten married. He and his wife, Eleanor, raised three daughters--two Girl Scouts and a Campfire Girl. Cunningham piloted civilian helicopters and then became an executive for United Airlines. His only connection with Scouting was sentimental.

In the last couple of years, though, he was gripped by guilt after his grandson became a Boy Scout in Camarillo.

“My daughter told him I was an Eagle Scout,” Cunningham said. “And basically, I was--but not in reality. I couldn’t tell him I was a real Eagle Scout without anything to prove it.”

He approached local Scouting officials with the old merit badges and other documentation that he had carried from home to home for more than six decades.

“It’s happened before, but it’s very, very rare,” said William Belcher of the Boy Scouts’ Ventura County Council. “The amazing thing is, he’d maintained all his records.”

Cunningham is to pick up his Eagle badge at a banquet Tuesday night in Oxnard. The other hundred-odd local Scouts who made Eagle this year will be honored as well.

Cunningham said his friends were incredulous when they learned that their golfing buddy was becoming an Eagle Scout. His wife and his daughters were all for it. His grandson--who had dropped out of Scouts--cheered him on.

“I couldn’t b.s. him,” Cunningham said, ever a real Scout. “You can’t lie to kids.”

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Steve Chawkins is a Times staff writer. His e-mail address is steve.chawkins@latimes.com.