Wimpy Encampments

[Elioron]

jeders and Mitchell 1969 - great input!

Gender segregation is required for billeting, but why would a venue dictate the flight composition?

It seems to me that the difficulties of having your flight split between two separate buildings simply isn't worth it when you could have a dedicated female flight.  North Fort Lewis would be such a place.

[Ned]

Are we talking about billeting or flight composition.

Gender segregation is required for billeting, but why would a venue dictate the flight composition?

While it is improper to billet males and females in the same room, there is nothing inherently improper in having them in the same barracks building if reasonable separation can occur.  For example, in a "WWII-style open bar converted to 2-person room" barracks, it is not uncommon to have the females upstairs and the males downstairs in the same building.  This would allow a co-ed flight and permit reasonable supervision.

Venues can dictate flight composition when gender integration is not reasonably possible in the same barracks building or dorm.  Although it is theoretically possible to have an encampment where, for example, the three females assigned to Alpha flight sleep in beds #1-3 in the female open bay barracks, while the 12 males sleep together in another open bay barracks, in practice it is very difficult for the flight to meld into an effective team in these situations.  Plus there are practical difficulties in inspections, getting formations underway, and simply supervising the smaller numbers of females when they are physically separated from the rest of the flight.

We've had this discussion before, of course, and I expect Patrick will again tell us that he has been successful with this particular model.  The required separation is the issue, rather than gender per se.  The flight would have the same problems coming together if three male cadets were billeted in a different building than the rest of the flight.

It would be interesting to have some data in this regard.  Encampments have always been a special interest of mine, and in visiting encampments in a lot of states and speaking with CP types from many others, my impression is that gender integration is the norm.  And with the gradual modernization of military housing facilities nation wide, those ancient open bay, open shower, open latrine WWII barracks are becoming rarer.

[Eclipse]

While it is improper to billet males and females in the same room, there is nothing inherently improper in having them in the same barracks building if reasonable separation can occur.  For example, in a "WWII-style open bar converted to 2-person room" barracks, it is not uncommon to have the females upstairs and the males downstairs in the same building.  This would allow a co-ed flight and permit reasonable supervision.

Venues can dictate flight composition when gender integration is not reasonably possible in the same barracks building or dorm.  Although it is theoretically possible to have an encampment where, for example, the three females assigned to Alpha flight sleep in beds #1-3 in the female open bay barracks, while the 12 males sleep together in another open bay barracks, in practice it is very difficult for the flight to meld into an effective team in these situations.  Plus there are practical difficulties in inspections, getting formations underway, and simply supervising the smaller numbers of females when they are physically separated from the rest of the flight.

We've had this discussion before, of course, and I expect Patrick will again tell us that he has been successful with this particular model.  The required separation is the issue, rather than gender per se.  The flight would have the same problems coming together if three male cadets were billeted in a different building than the rest of the flight.

You don't have to wait for Patrick.  I have direct, prolonged experience as well and had no issues.

Male compartment on one side of the hall, females on the other.  Common sense personal time separation, otherwise
integrated flights and no particular cohesion problems.

It would be interesting to have some data in this regard.  Encampments have always been a special interest of mine, and in visiting encampments in a lot of states and speaking with CP types from many others, my impression is that gender integration is the norm.  And with the gradual modernization of military housing facilities nation wide, those ancient open bay, open shower, open latrine WWII barracks are becoming rarer.

The Navy just spent 10 years and $770M disagreeing with you.

[SarDragon]

The Navy just spent 10 years and $770M disagreeing with you.

If that's at Great Mistakes, you know as well as I do that recruit training accommodations are a special case, and not typical when looking service-wide. Typical new construction is 2-4 person rooms with integrated or shared bathrooms.

[Eclipse]

The Navy just spent 10 years and $770M disagreeing with you.

If that's at Great Mistakes, you know as well as I do that recruit training accommodations are a special case, and not typical when looking service-wide. Typical new construction is 2-4 person rooms with integrated or shared bathrooms.

I don't disagree, but that doesn't change the fact that they aren't on their way out.  Frankly I'm not even sure why the open bay / separate room
issue is even a factor in the gender segregation discussion.  Where the cadets sleep should not influence the flight configurations.

Our Summer encampment is at a Military Academy that has the 2-4 person room type setup.  Isn't NESA open-bay for most?

[Slim]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that our encampment location is one of those where gender segregation is pretty much essential.

MIWG uses the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center.  Lodging is mostly of the two-room dorm variety, with 6 open bay buildings on the base.  Each building is set up in a single story H configuration, where the vertical legs are open bays (42 beds per bay), or subdivided into 9 two-person rooms with a day room on one end.  The horizontal connecter is two latrines separated by a solid wall.  There is no interior access from one side of the H to the other.

If you look up Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center on google maps, or your preferred website, use the satellite view and zoom in.  Pretty much everything with a green or brown roof is lodging.

From a financial standpoint, our preferred option is to put first timers in the open bay barracks.  WIWAEC, each bed in an open bay was $8.00 per night, while a bed in a room was $11.00.  Three dollars may seem trivial, until you multiply that by 100 cadets.  That's $300 per night, or $2100 for the week.  As I haven't been involved in our encampment the last couple of years, I don't know if that's changed or not.

There are 6 open bay barracks wings (3 H type buildings).  What we do is set one wing aside for male cadet staff (squadron staff and up, and support staff).  Female cadet and support staff are in a dorm building across the sidewalk from the males.  From there, we have 8 flights, and are limited to a max of 21 people per flight (18 first timers, two cadet staff and one TAC officer).  Put two flights into each of those buildings, and the ninth flight is alone in the last one, which gives us some overflow room for transients if needed.  The couple of times we tried co-ed flights, we noticed the issues with camaraderie and flight bonding, but also noticed that the predominantly male staff cadets were keeping the females in the male barracks during TAC time to help the males out, while neglecting their own.  It also created accountability problems during fire drills (one held at the beginning of the activity), and communications problems making sure the word got to the females.  No matter what we tried to come up with to overcome these issues, we couldn't eliminate all of them.  So, keeping gender segregated flights makes the most sense.  And we always draw enough female first timers to fill two flights that are pretty much equal in size to the male flights.

If we're stuck in rooms, we have much the same problems.  We're even more limited in flight size as each wing is only capable of 18 people; one room is reserved for the TAC officer (with assistant if we get enough), one room for the flight staff, which leaves room for 14 first timers.  Even these buildings just aren't set up to accommodate mixed gender flights due to the latrine configuration.  So we're left with some members of a flight who could be up to a block (or 6 buildings) away from where their leadership is. 

So, in our case, where we can't lodge the entire encampment in one or two buildings, the most workable option is to separate by gender.

Last year, the base opened up the first (of two proposed) 150 bed "Super dorms" that are-from what I understand-configured like a motel room, or typical military transient lodging facility.  There are some VIP rooms with separate latrines, while most of the rooms are set up to house two people, with a latrine shared with the room next door.  I haven't seen the finished product, let alone been inside, so I have no idea how it would work for a training environment, and I don't know when/if we'd ever be allowed to house the entire encampment in one. 

[ol'fido]

Some people like open bays and some like the dorm rooms. Both are workable options. Our bay rooms at Camp Lincoln in  Springfield run about $10 a room per night. We can fit 4-8 people in a room depending on the setup. Seniors pay for their rooms out of pocket directly to the base. That is their only fee for the encampment other than working some KP and out of pocket expenses like snacks and toiletries. We had open bays at the Marseilles Training Center. We actually paid more there than at Camp Lincoln.

WIWAC, we had a segregated female squadron. Yes, we used squadrons as the basic unit rather than flights. Alpha was always the female squadron. Given, my last encampment as a cadet was in 1983. When I went back to encampment as a senior in '97, the squadrons were integrated. It was different but it still worked.

Ol'fido's Pearl of Wisdom:

If your unit integrity depends on who your listening to snore at night, you're doing it wrong.

[Майор Хаткевич]

No one snores like a corps of SMs!

[Al Sayre]

No one snores like a corps of SMs!

You've obviously never spent the night in shipboard berthing...

[Eclipse]

These days the APAP machines are louder then the snoring.

[Майор Хаткевич]

No one snores like a corps of SMs!

You've obviously never spent the night in shipboard berthing...

Only at great lakes.

[kmorisen]

Texas--What I mean is as a group, a flight that is, yes they do tend to learn a little better than they do if they are integrated in the same flights as boys. Not saying that we completely separate them.  For instance, you really can't have female cadets bunking with male cadets, can you?  I speak from experience, I learned better as a female cadet in a female flight over when I was in the same flight as boys. But, at the same time, we worked with the male flights, just didn't spend all our time with them.

[TexasCadet]

I'm not saying to bunk the male and female cadets together. However, segregating flights is not beneficial. In jobs, you will be working with both males and females. Segregating cadets by gender defeats the purpose of preparing them for life.

[Cap'n]

I'm a female who has been to multiple Encampments, and I definitely prefer the females being intermixed with the male flights, as opposed to having their own, single flight. Things like dorms should of course be separated, but at my basic (and even while working with male staff) I learned a lot from the guys, and they learned a lot from us. Depending on the size of the Encampment, there may only be one or two other girls in the flight with 10+ guys, but I feel that other then rooming, it's better to not separate genders.

[Garibaldi]

In 1981, at my first encampment, there was one female. One.

1982, three.

1983, enough to make a flight.

1984, same, separate flights

1985, same, separate flights.

1993, enough to make 2 flights, but integrated

2012, about the same, integrated.

I'm guessing that the demographics don't come into play much anymore, but it seems to me that the number of females is on the upswing compared to my day. It was rather odd that in 1981 there was an entire floor of a building devoted to our sole female cadet. She was never late to formations, never harassed or bothered, and was an outstanding cadet.

[Pulsar]

I've been the Tac Officer for all male flights, all female flights and mixed gender flights and I've noticed a few things over the years.

All female flights tend to bond quicker and start using teamwork faster then the guys do.

Example: Encampment starts on Saturday. By Tuesday the girls are working together, but their performance starts dropping off by Friday.
The Guys don't get the clue until Wednesday/Thursday and they usually peak on Saturday.
The co-ed flights seem to combine this stuff as in they're working in teams by Tuesday and their performance stays peaked all the way until graduation.

Mixed-gender flights do work well. At my encampment, the girls made really good bunks, and the guys polished shoes really well.

I went to PAWG ENC 2013. I find both of these statements very true. I was in Squadron 30. -which was an all female squadron. we passed inspections a lot earlier than some of the boys; and I noticed, though we were working as a team earlier, by Saturday we had to work to keep up with our standard.

[MStickney]

Typical day.

0600 Reville
0615 PT
0700 Shower and change
0730 Chow
0830 First Formation
1230 Chow
1330 Second formation
1730 Chow
1830 Retreat
1900 Sgt's time
2100 Personal Time
2200 Lights Out

My Ohio Wing encampment in 2013 was like that except we showered at night before bed not in the morning.

[HGjunkie]

The recent FLWG encampment had 4 co-ed flights - one per squadron. They were usually at a notable disadvantage throughout the week (from what I could tell with the one on my squadron) in terms of keeping the flight together as much as possible and organizing them in the morning/evening. Not saying they didn't perform well, it just took more effort for the commanders and sergeants to deal with mixed flights.

[Huey Driver]

I'm curious as to how many encampments have coed flights and how many don't. In NJ, females are evenly distributed across all of the flights. In PA, there's a single female flight. One coed flight per squadron in FL, apparently ^^^. NH (Winter) is combined as well.

[TexasCadet]

I'm curious as to how many encampments have coed flights and how many don't. In NJ, females are evenly distributed across all of the flights. In PA, there's a single female flight. One coed flight per squadron in FL, apparently ^^^. NH (Winter) is combined as well.

Texas Wing has them. Just about every flight is mixed. The only problems I have experienced are 1.) males and females just sometimes don't get along (it's natural), and 2.) they have different barracks assignments (not really a problem, but it can be troublesome when trying to get outside in the morning).