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Mitt Romney: Safety Patrol Captain

It’s no PT 109, but the Safety Patrol Team at Vaughan Elementary School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan was where Captain Romney cut his teeth as a leader of men.
KF
Κείμενο Kiera Feldman

Stock Photo courtesy of the Shorline Historical Museum in Washington State

Long before Bain Capital, Mitt Romney was managing underlings in grade school. Mitt was the captain of his school’s Safety Patrol Team, the AAA-sponsored crossing guard programme that has, over the years, attracted its fair share of future politicos. “Tomorrows Leaders Today [sic]” promises an official AAA video.

Former Safety Patrol members include Bill Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Jimmy Carter, and, yes, Joe Biden, according to Police Chief magazine and AAA.“One of the proudest moments of my life came when I was given a white canvas belt and a tin badge and sworn in as a School Boy Patrolman," Carter once said. "My job was to enforce all the safety precautions but, also, to go to the nearest house for help when our makeshift bus frequently slid into a ditch during rainy weather."

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It’s no PT 109, but the Safety Patrol Team at Vaughan Elementary School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan was where Captain Romney cut his teeth as a leader of men. A few years later at Cranbrook, Romney's elite prep school, he would demonstrate another facet of his leadership qualities when he commanded a group of classmates to pin a perceived sissy boy to the ground and administer a forced haircut as punishment for an effeminate hairstyle. Wanting to assess Mitt's job performance, we talked with Greg Bower, Romney’s former classmate at Vaughan who served under Mitt on the school’s Safety Patrol Team.

Greg is a retired electrical engineer living in Michigan.

VICE: When you were at Vaughan Elementary School, what made you want to join the Safety Patrol Team?
Greg Bower: You got to wear a sash and hold your hand up to stop the students. You were kind of like a miniature cop. When school let out we’d each take our posts on different sides of the street or in the parking lot and make sure that students didn’t cross the street when a car was coming. There were kids everywhere and you had to make sure nobody got killed.

What do you remember about meeting your illustrious Safety Patrol Team Captain?
The teacher said, “Come here, I want to introduce you to the Captain.” And he brought me over. The Captain was a little bigger than me and really bright-eyed, with a big, toothy smile. He looked really confident and outgoing, in a friendly way. He said, “Hi, I’m Mitt Romney,” and stuck out his hand. He shook my hand like a veteran glad-hander.

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Maybe that’s something that all politicians teach their sons. They get to a certain age and it’s like, "Come here, son. Lemme teach ya how to shake hands like a man."
I can picture that for sure with George Romney and Mitt rehearsing.

George Romney was President of American Motors during Mitt's Safety Patrol days. You have to wonder if Romney rescued a child from underneath the wheel well of a Rambler while he was patrolling the street.
Yes, rescuing a child from one of his father’s cars. There were still a lot of American Motors cars on the road at that time.

He was out there protecting children from his father’s creation. A lot of Mitt Romney’s campaign strategy these days hinges on his qualities as a CEO making him suitable to lead the country. Obviously I have to ask: what kind of boss was Mitt on the Safety Patrol Team?
Oh, you know. The first word that comes to mind is “absentee.” I never saw him after I met him. Maybe I’m not remembering but I honestly can’t remember him calling any meetings or sending out any memos or anything. There really wasn’t much to talk about. It was really simple. You just had your post where you reported to when school let out and that was that. So that didn’t require a lot of strategy or anything.

Maybe Captain was a more ceremonial post.
Yeah, I would say that’s probably about right.

Or maybe he outsourced his supervisorial duties to China. He was a precocious capitalist. Now this is an actual question. Was Mitt Romney concerned about the safety of all of the children at Vaughan School—or just the 53% who weren’t freeloaders sucking at the teet of Big Government?
He was concerned about everybody. I think he has a heart. He just doesn’t remember where he put it.

@KieraFeldman