Cerebral Palsy Advocate
Born with cerebral palsy, he could not walk or talk. The Boy Scouts initially declined to award him Eagle Scout status although he fulfilled all the requirements. His determination opened the door for scores of others ‘differently’ abled.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Greg Wittine was born in New York City and grew up mainly in Long Island. His father worked for a pharmaceutical company. His mother was a homemaker.
Greg’s parents were “undaunted in their encouragement of Greg.”
CHILDHOOD
As soon as Greg could sit up by himself, he moved about in a wheelchair, pushed by others until he learned how to roll ahead on his own.
After learning the alphabet, Greg carried around a homemade keyboard on which he would point at individual letters and spell out words to communicate.
Greg devoted his youth in suburban Long Island to the Boy Scouts.
EDUCATION
Greg attended elementary, middle, and high school at a local United Cerebral Palsy’s education facility, in classes specially designed for students with cerebral palsy. Also, as a young man, he worked at the UCP center as a gardener.
PUSHING THROUGH LIMITATIONS TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS
Over nearly a decade, Greg earned Boy Scout merit badges in subjects like fire safety and wildlife. To get his hiking badge, he crawled down a wooded trail for a mile until his knees were too bruised and bloody for him to go on, at which point he wheeled himself another nine miles.
Greg had a goal: to attain Scouting’s highest rank, Eagle Scout. In all, he earned 24 of the badges then required. (Only 21 are required today.) But by then, Greg was 23 years old and Boy Scout rules stipulated that all Eagle Scouts earn their badges before turning 18. The national organization forbade him to receive the honor.
Greg then launched himself on a campaign to change the rules. A reporter for The New York Times visited Greg and asked if he had a message for people whose disabilities (better stated: different abilities) thwarted their ambitions. He slowly moved his left ring finger over letters on his word board: “K-E-E-P T-R-Y-I-N-G”
Greg did exactly that. His scoutmaster wrote letters to local newspapers and journalists began relating Greg’s story. Greg and his scoutmaster were soon on “Good Morning America,” with Greg pointing at his word board and the scoutmaster reading out the letters.
The public “bombarded” the Boy Scouts of America (“BSA”) with letters and phone calls. In a spontaneous outburst of shared sentiment, former scouts throughout the nation rooted around in their attics, found their Eagle medals and mailed them to Greg. “Allow me to share my medal with you,” a Florida man wrote in a handwritten letter. “It is old and tarnished, awarded fifteen years ago, but the cherished memories are as fresh and exciting as if it were yesterday.”
Adding to the pressure on the BSA, the scoutmaster issued a warning: He and Greg would appear at a national Scouting conference (The “Jamboree”) soon to be held, even though they had not yet been invited. “We may go anyway, not only to argue Greg’s case but that of Scouting’s approach to all handicapped persons,” said the Scoutmaster to the Associated Press.
A few days later, the BSA issued a news release, the first sentence of which read, “The Boy Scouts of America has changed its regulations and the way is now clear for 23-year-old Scout Gregory Wittine to become an Eagle Scout.” This was a major change in BSA policy, dropping “all age restrictions” for “severely handicapped” scouts while still requiring that they earn the same badges as other Eagle Scouts. And it brought Greg Wittine a flood of more attention: congratulatory letters from former President Gerald Ford and then current President Jimmy Carter. Senator Bob Dole, who lived with disabilities arising from wounds he suffered in World War II, wrote Greg, too, telling him, “You deserve praise for your efforts and can take pride in knowing that you successfully blazed a new trail in Scouting.”
Greg and his entire troops – all boys with cerebral palsy – were invited to visit Rosalyn Carter, the first lady, in the White House. On the scouts’ way down Pennsylvania Avenue, people repeatedly stopped them, recognizing Greg and hailing his achievement. The scoutmaster later recalled, “Greg was glowing in the popularity. He was a star.”
Ever since, thanks to Greg’s efforts, many thousands of “disabled” scouts have found a sense of purpose that has shaped their lives.
After he became an Eagle Scout, the Associated Press asked him what had given him confidence that he could change the national organization’s policy. With the scoutmaster’s help, Greg answered:
“M-Y M-O-T-H” (“Mother”, the scoutmaster explained) “W-A-N” (wanted) – “T-O S-E-E M-E B-E-C (become) – “A-N E-A-G-L-E.”
ALWAYS KEEPING BUSY
Greg worked for much of his adult life as a volunteer at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center, delivering mail and gaining a reputation as a warm, solicitous colleague.
DETERMINATION INSPIRES OTHERS
The United Cerebral Palsy organization which supported Greg also sponsored “Troop 350” known by other local scouts as “C.P. Troop” because it consisted of boys with cerebral palsy. Their group banner was a stick figure in a flying wheelchair.
They learned scoutcraft at Long Island’s venerable Camp Wauwepex. Photographs show Greg holding up two recently caught fish on a string and kneeling in front of what scouts call a “tripod” – three logs that, when lashed together with rope or twine, become useful at a campsite as a support for cooking pots.
The BSA does not track how many Eagle Scouts have been able to earn their rank after age 18 because of their different abilities, but a national leader of BSA, with knowledge about scouts who have disabilities, estimated the number to be in the tens of thousands.
A scoutmaster of a troop of differently-abled scouts in Dallas since 2010, said that the possibility of becoming an Eagle Scout gave his troop members a sense of mission, and that six of them – all over the age of 18, including his son – had attained the rank. His son has Down syndrome and struggles to talk but at his Eagle Scout ceremony, he gave a speech, which his father said “Has been the biggest moment in his life, because he was the center of attention, and it was all about him. I’m not sure what he’d be doing with his life if he didn’t have Boy Scouts.”
The Dallas scoutmaster said that the approach Greg Wittine conceived – working extremely hard to obtain badges that might seem out of reach but getting ample time to do so – struck him as ideal. His scouts, who have a wide range of disabilities, pitch their own tents, use hand saws, and learn how to climb back into sailboats after they capsize. “When our boys earn it, they earn it,” he said, then continued, “A lot of boys in our troop owe their troop to Greg Wittine. He’s the one who fought for this.”
EPILOGUE
Greg Wittine died, at age 67, on March 5, 2023. In observance of his wishes, he was buried in a Boy Scout uniform with a sash bearing his merit badges. But he was not buried with his Eagle Scout medal, which he gave away to his nephew – following the example set by the former scouts who had sent him their own medals one Spring many decades ago.
This story is based on an obituary written by Alex Traub, published by The New York Times on March 27, 2023.
The editor of the Career Stories Project has made an exception to several rules applicable to this collection of career stories: (1) Naming the individual about whom the story is written – Usually anonymity is promised to promote full disclosures without concern for criticism of the storyteller but Greg Wittine deserves to be remembered by his full name; and (2) Unpaid, volunteer work – such as unpaid advocacy – is typically not a “career” by the definition of “career” within this collection of stories, because one cannot financially support oneself without being compensated for your work, unless you are supported by another source, such as family or a trust fund or by a charitable organization. But in a broader sense of “career”, Greg led a full life, useful to himself and others for not only his daily tasks of delivering mail, but also having created both opportunity and inspiration for so many others who are ‘differently’ abled.
