Air Force "credit" for achievement as a CAP senior member

[AirDX]

Also, I STRONGLY AGREE that senior members complete the Yeager. How can a senior member properly mentor cadets on AE subjects if they don't have a clue what a cadet has to do.

+1.  AEPSM mandatory for Level II.  It's not that hard.

[sleepyboyd]

there are other paths to e-3 in the usaf
besides the mitchell award

There are more ways of getting credit when joining the Air Force than earning C/2LT. 
-You could perhaps go to Community College and grab some credits...
-AFJROTC cadets already get certain credit.
-Eagle scout earns you a promotion to E-3... or it used to...
-Bring a buddy into the recruiter and get E-2... or it used to be that way....

[sleepyboyd]

Also, I STRONGLY AGREE that senior members complete the Yeager. How can a senior member properly mentor cadets on AE subjects if they don't have a clue what a cadet has to do.

+1.  AEPSM mandatory for Level II.  It's not that hard.

Read a book and take a test... and some folks scoff at having to spend the time to do it..... I did it over a rainy weekend.

[sleepyboyd]

We need to return to more intense standards reflecting personal self-discipline and leadership. Otherwise senior members more increasingly become the but of jokes from some cadets who are aware that they are held to a higher standard.

2

[a2capt]

+1.  AEPSM mandatory for Level II.  It's not that hard.

Actually, even from a pilot with a lot of interest in AE, and an R/C aircraft manufacturer, that test was a lot of fun.

[JeffDG]

Also, I STRONGLY AGREE that senior members complete the Yeager. How can a senior member properly mentor cadets on AE subjects if they don't have a clue what a cadet has to do.

+1.  AEPSM mandatory for Level II.  It's not that hard.

Read a book and take a test... and some folks scoff at having to spend the time to do it..... I did it over a rainy weekend.

I was going to do that, but decided to take a stab at the test before reading the book...

[AirDX]

I was going to do that, but decided to take a stab at the test before reading the book...

I did, too.  When I rejoined, and found out you could just take it online, I logged on and took it cold.  Scored a 93.  If you've been interested in aviation and space and read very much, you can take it and pass it without much effort.

[RADIOMAN015]

The only thing that is probably missing from the formula is that we would probably want to develop a military customs and courtesy and drill course of some kind for senior members wanting to go this route so that they would have more grounding in those areas (so that they would do better at boot camp) than our normal senior members. 

Thoughts?

Senior member advance placement for CAP courses -- Pure fantasy   The AF (and other services) primarily brings recruits in with advance rank based primarily on education/technical skills obtained in civilian life.  Whether someone knows how to salute or say yes sir or march around in circles is irrelevant, that's why there's basic training in all the services.
RM

   

[RiverAux]

You're ignoring the other aspects of the proposal.

[The CyBorg is destroyed]

Unless things have changed a lot, the Air Force views CAP's cadet side as their only source for recruiting from among CAP as a whole.

Even then they give more respect to AFJROTC.

I remember an MTI asking a group of trainee Airmen "who here has ROTC experience?"  A young trainee put up his hand and said "Sir, I have similar experience in the Civil Air Patrol..." and the MTI bore down on him and shouted "I SAID ROTC!  I'M NOT INTERESTED IN THE (censored) CIVIL AIR PATROL!"

A senior member who would go into the Air Force (most likely the Air National Guard or Air Force Reserve because of their higher age enlistment limits) would have to learn a few things very quickly:

Their CAP officer status doesn't mean a thing to the MTI's...and woe betide them if they even mention it.

Their CAP decorations, certificates, etc., are not transferrable to the Air Force.

Since they are likely to be older than other trainees, MTI's are very likely to zero in on them, either for leadership positions, or abuse, or a mixture of both.

Their MTI's are likely to be younger than they are but won't think twice about pulling a 341 from them, or recycling them.

The USCG doesn't have a cadet side, but I think they also give advanced grade to USNSCC members.

The USCGAux is "less military" than CAP in that they don't observe C&C's with each other, but they are a lot more integrated into the CG than we are the AF, to the point where they can be awarded some of the same decorations that the actual CG does.  We don't have that option with the AF.

I don't see the AF really wanting to institute a "CAP SM to USAF" recruitment anytime soon.

[flyboy53]

Second, at one point the old senior member Certificate of Proficiency was acceptable documentation to join the military with advanced rank -- I know because it was offered to me when I joined and I later saw it in the Reg when I was a recruiter.

Interesting, so this proposal wouldn't be breaking any new ground.

Which also means, horors, that senior members may need to bone up and comply with Air Force standards.

I don't see that this necessarily follows.  Are you saying that the old COP produced much, much better CAP officers than our current program? 

Keep in mind that we're talking about advanced enlisted rank and this is not about CAP officers being equal to AF officers.  So, the comparison is about equivalency between CAP senior members and CAP cadets with the Mitchell.

One thing I'd add to the PD-based proposal I made in the initial post is that the senior member should also have to have earned the Yeager Award (since AE is such a big part of the cadet program up to the Mitchell).

I'm saying that we've watered down or dumbed down standards. The old Certificate of Proficiency or completion of Level II required a senior member to complete ECI/AFLDI-13, which by the way, with the exception of some CAP-exclusive material, is the same course that an ANG or AFRES enlisted person has to complete for commissioning from the field. The appropriate substitutes for this course includes things like the Command NCO Academy.

Instead of learning the material and learning how to take an AF Correspondence Course, we bow down to those who can't complete it and create a seminar program that takes longer.

We need to return to more intense standards reflecting personal self-discipline and leadership. Otherwise senior members more increasingly become the but of jokes from some cadets who are aware that they are held to a higher standard.

Also, I STRONGLY AGREE that senior members complete the Yeager. How can a senior member properly mentor cadets on AE subjects if they don't have a clue what a cadet has to do.

First, one MTI does not an Air Force make.

Second, I was one of those CAP SMs recruited for the Air Force and I was treated with the same level of respect as anyone coming from JROTC. The difference was that I didn't have any rank.

Third, we are either the Air Force Auxiliary (either real or implied) or not and we need to conduct ourselves appropriately or take those steps as necessary to gain the respect of Air Force members. Another tread of this website pummeled that notion. So, ramping up the training standards to reflect that we are the Auxiliary isn't necessary that bad, even from a personal  sense of achievement.

Finally, one thing I'll say about the advanced rank thing (and this is from the perspective of a retired AF SNCO). When you go into the military with advanced rank, there are several issues and concerns relative to that. Air Force superviors, as a whole, expect an individual with advanced rank to have the military and technical proficiency of that advanced rank once they enter the field. When someone with advanced rank doesn't have that level of proficiency, there are real problems in the field. I don't know how many times I saw JROTC or CAP cadets with advanced rank fall flat on their faces at every stage, from basic to technical training and even into the field.

In my own personal case, I went from a former cadet who didn't achieve the Mitchell to Senior Member First Lieutenant to Air Force Airman Basic without regrets even though my CAP experience/education called me into being the flight academic monitor in basic training and the rest is history. The advantage I had was that I stuck it out through the whole program, gained their respect instead of pushing for what was then a two-week by-pass and propelled into the field early.

[The CyBorg is destroyed]

^^I fully agree about the ramped-up training.

I've always found it kind of odd that all someone has to do is show up, pay their money, pass the background check, hang around for six months and we give them butter bars.

I think the Navy Sea Cadets take a better approach.

The way they do it is that an adult member signs up as an "Instructor," a heckuva lot better term than "SMWOG."

They have a text book to study over the space of a year, then they test to see if they get promoted to ensign.

[ol'fido]

Well, it's better than the old days when you got 2ndLt just for joining without having to wait the 6 months.

[Defender]

In regards to the comments about the level and professionalism of the SM training...

Doesn't that fall upon the shoulders of the squadron leadership, specifically the PDO an Commander? 

We are fortunate enough to have USAF NCO's an SNCO's in charge of these positions, and there is certainly a level of standards and expectations that are mirrored in the training prior to anyone being signed off as leve one certified. 

However, ANY squadron can provide a level of "basic" training commensurate to the trainee's ability to absorb it.   Nothing says that "just because" someone has had six months in that they should be promoted.  There is...or at least in our case...some semblance of peer review to be allowed promotion to the ranks of 2 and 1 LT. 

We are in the process of developing senior member evaluation forms much like the cadet 50's and the internal process will include a board of peers. 

[Grumpy]

Flyboy hit on an important point.  Our current SM training program is WAY below the standards of the military.  A lot of the people running around with gold and silver bars in CAP can't properly return a salute and could not execute an "About face" on a bet.

Why we allow SM officers who are that clueless to be in charge of cadets is way beyond me, but that is a whole 'nother issue.

Agreed.

I chuckle when I see that statement about facing movements.  Don't take this the wrong way because there's no negative intention.  It just made me think of a occurrence when I was visiting my boy at Fort Campbell awhile back.  I watched a unit being retired.  When they did the pass in review the only people out of step were the officers. 

[niferous]

If it makes you feel any better I went from Army National Guard to Active Duty back in 2002 and they wanted to drop me from E-3 to E-2 even though I had been in the Guard for two years and had been on one deployment.  However I mentioned that I had been E-3 since I enlisted because I had four years of Marine JROTC, and was due to get promoted to E-4 .  The guys at MEPS said "Oh well than you can retain your E-3 rank since you were in JROTC."  So two years of good service in the National Guard, going to basic, and AIT, and a deployment, was worth less to them then three years of Marine JROTC.  Now I had gone to Marine Military Academy, so it was head and shoulders above a regular public high school JROTC.  It was as close to being in the Marines as someone under seventeen can get.  However I was just floored when they told me that.