What can we learn from the turtle? First we see his shell, his armor, his means of defense. We are like the turtle in that we have many ways to protect ourselves— our instinct to draw away from danger, to shelter ourselves from it, for example.

Secondly, we see the turtle’s persistence. He’s slow, he’s plodding, but he always gets where he’s going. His persistence is memorialized in the age-old story of the tortoise and the hare. The persistent tortoise outlasted the showy, flashy, and very fast hare. We can learn from the turtle that our greatest accomplishments do not come from skill alone, but require our persistence in striving for the goal, such as in our journey to the rank of Eagle.

Finally, we see that the turtle can go nowhere unless he first sticks out his neck. Again we are like the turtle in that we accomplish nothing until we dare to stick out our necks once in a while.