Boys Nation experience sparks political interest

His passion for social studies had already piqued Dody Eid’s interest in the political process.

The lessons he learned at New Hampshire American Legion Boys State and Boys Nation furthered his political ideas.

“I think I learned a lot about the political process, that it has a social atmosphere to it that I didn’t know was there,” said Eid, who after participating in Boys Nation last summer got involved in the mayoral campaign in his hometown of Nashua, N.H., as well as the presidential campaign.

“Doing those kinds of things outside of school, that’s something I want to continue to do even at college,” he said.

Eid will head to Harvard this fall, where he’s considering studying economics. Although he’s not 100 percent sure what he wants to do for a career, he acknowledges the impact Boys State and Boys Nation — where he ran for vice president of the 2015 program — had on him.

“I didn’t want to run for president because I didn’t see myself in that capacity,” Eid said. “I saw myself as a vice presidential candidate. I think it was a gut feeling that this office would be good for me. Also, the vice president does run the Senate, and I’ve had some experience with parliamentary procedure and that kind of stuff, so I thought that was a good place for me to run.”

The vice presidential election between Eid, the Nationalist candidate, and Federalist candidate Peter Spectre of Maine ended in a tie. A coin toss settled the issue, with Spectre winning the toss.

Still, the campaign provided plenty of learning experiences for Eid.

“The first thing I learned was to become one of the officials at Boys Nation, it does take a great deal of placement and good luck at the beginning, because if you’re in a group with a lot of other people running for that position, you don’t conglomerate support early, so you don’t get pushed on into the later stages. I think timing is really important and deciding what position you want to run for,” he said.

“I was lucky enough to have one other person in my group who didn’t have enough votes to move on, and then my group sort of kept me going in the process and chose me. And when I was finally chosen, I had the debate, which was a huge learning experience about persuasion for me, because I’d been involved in policy debate, which is speaking really fast getting the facts out, but not a lot about persuading your audience, which is something you have to do at Boys Nation.”

Eid also became more familiar with The American Legion's impact on veterans, servicemembers, their families and communities.

“(Legion members) really donate their life for their country and then after they’ve fought, or they’ve helped our national defense, they’re still here working through Legion Baseball or through the Boys State/Boys Nation program," Eid said. "They’re giving time for the next generation to hopefully take up their mantle and either protect this country or contribute to it in whatever fashion suits them."

The 70th session of American Legion Boys Nation is July 22-29 in Washington, D.C. Two Boys State representatives from each of the 49 states participating in the Legion's premier youth program will be selected to attend Boys Nation.