Blind Man Adopted Blind Triplets in 2010, Today They Earned The Highest Rank in Boy Scouts

The highest rank in Boy Scouts is the Eagle Scout. A rank that is earned by only four percent of all enrolled members of the Boy Scouts of America which is approximately 2.5 million young men.

It is a rank earned after a long, arduous journey that requires a great deal of dedication and hard work and takes years to complete.

In order to achieve the rank, Boy Scouts must earn at least twenty-one merit badges and demonstrate an ideal attitude that exemplifies the Scout Oath and Law, and its central tenets of service and leadership.

Scouts do this by completing an extensive service project that each Scout must individually plan, organize, lead, manage, and report on to a review board during a lengthy process, after which the Scout is recognized in a special ceremony and awarded a medal and badge that identify this particular success.

Further recognition can be earned after achieving this rank by the awarding of Eagle Palms, which are given based on the completion of an additional tenure, leadership skills, and more merit badge requirements.

Recent graduates and triplets, Nick, Leo and Steve Cantos just earned this title despite personal physical adversity.

Born blind, the three eighteen-year-olds climbed the ranks of the Boy Scouts to Eagle Scout over the course of six years. The young men remain incredibly humble in the face of their great accomplishment.

When asked about their journey, Leo said that “Anyone can do it…you just have to go in and set that goal in your mind and then, to think there are no limits.”

Instead, the boys give credit for their achievement to their father, Ollie Cantos, who is also blind. Steve said, “If we didn’t have him, we really wouldn’t have been able to do this Eagle Scout thing.”

Cantos adopted the boys in 2010, when they were eleven years of age, and has since dedicated his time as a father to opening doors to new experiences and encouraging them never to let anything hold them back.

He says he saw himself in the Colombian-born brothers, whose single mom sympathized with their condition, but didn’t have the experience necessary to help them cope and adapt, which made their home lives pretty tough.

The Arlington, Virginia attorney, matched up with the boys through a friend at church, began as a mentor to them, but the instant bond between them only grew stronger as time passed.

The boys suffered from the same condition that had caused Cantos to be blind from a young age, and they’d experienced the same sort of bullying that had plagued his childhood.

Cantos, therefore, strove to foster an environment of high expectations, where his sons could attempt to achieve anything they dreamed possible.

He says he learned this strategy from his parents, who never allowed him to use his blindness as an excuse not to achieve. Though he says he is proud his sons credit him with their success, he says his most significant accomplishment is being called “Dad.”

According to him, however, the world should expect big things from his boys.