Fastest Completion of Cadet Program?

[Airplane girl]

From personal experience, I've seen a lot of cadets who promote as fast as they can (and until I got my Mitchell I was one of those cadets) and I've learned that I don't think it's good for cadets to promote that fast. Because you will have a huge high ranking cadet in your squadron, that you don't want to give a position because their maturity hasn't caught up with their rank. I'm not staying it's bad to promote, but you have to pace yourself at a reasonable level. If you do promote that fast, then you need to prepare to take on some major leadership changes as you go. You can't be stuck in the mindset of a staff sergeant when you are a major, because then that only effects you negatively. And in most the cases I've seen with really really young cadets that are super high ranking, nobody respects them (they just respect their rank) because they can't work with them because they don't have the maturity to match their grade. So just be careful if you plan on promoting that fast.
Good luck!
Respectfully,
C/1stLt. Kubik, CAP

I agree with this completely. I'm pretty young for my grade (14 year old Chief), and I'm planning on promoting less quickly in the future. The worst experience that I had in CAP was when I promoted way too quickly to C/MSgt, and could barely be a good C/MSgt. And then some people in my squadron decided it would be a good idea to make me cadet commander. That went about as well as you might think.

And then there's the 13 year old Chief who basically sounds like Garibaldi's amazingly perfect Earhart cadet, except his dad is the commander. And he doesn't know how to wear his uniform. No one respects his grade, at all. Whenever he shows up every 2 months to promote, he's basically treated like a C/Amn. I'll probably still be bitter about him 10 years from now.

Anyway, now I know that having experience and taking care of your cadets is lot more important than promoting if you want to be respected. Being a Chief (Or Lieutenant, or Colonel, or any other grade) doesn't make you a good leader. So now I think I want to wait a while to get my Mitchell, so I can have experience so that my rank will mean more than which insignia I wear.

[lordmonar]

Reducing the speed of promotions due to maturity and leadership skills......is the job of the Cadet Programs Officer and the Command.

No one should be self restricting themselves.

Go at your "best" speed.  A speed that balances all your life choices and obligations.   That is don't put off school work to study for a CAP promotion.  Don't always over look boy scouts, sports or church groups because you "have to" dedicate all your time to CAP.

Having said that.

Every cadet should be following the cadet oath to "advance my education and training rapidly".   So if you push yourself to promote every 8 weeks....good on you!  Keep it up!  Don't worry about promoting TOO fast......we CP officers will let you know if you need to spend some more time in grade before moving on.

[ALORD]

From personal experience, I've seen a lot of cadets who promote as fast as they can (and until I got my Mitchell I was one of those cadets) and I've learned that I don't think it's good for cadets to promote that fast. Because you will have a huge high ranking cadet in your squadron, that you don't want to give a position because their maturity hasn't caught up with their rank. I'm not staying it's bad to promote, but you have to pace yourself at a reasonable level. If you do promote that fast, then you need to prepare to take on some major leadership changes as you go. You can't be stuck in the mindset of a staff sergeant when you are a major, because then that only effects you negatively. And in most the cases I've seen with really really young cadets that are super high ranking, nobody respects them (they just respect their rank) because they can't work with them because they don't have the maturity to match their grade. So just be careful if you plan on promoting that fast.
Good luck!
Respectfully,
C/1stLt. Kubik, CAP

Lt Kubik,

I like your attitude! I am sure from the perspective of a C/Ofc, you realize just how much there is to learn in the intermediate levels ( Okay, let me say it right out: Sergeants have more fun!) In our squadron, we found that taking the more advanced Cadet Officers and placing them into a "consulting" role was very helpful. Frankly, most Cadet Officers who are the fast-track types are often busy with extra-curricular activities besides CAP. On the other hand, many of them know the Cadet Program minutia and movers and shakers to a degree that many S/M's ( Who were not cadets in their youth) can never achieve. A Cadet Major can do a great job of talking down a panicked cadet or parent by walking them through procedures and expectations in a step-by-step fashion. If they are interested in furthering their CAP career as a S/M, it's a great opportunity to see what all those mysterious old people on the other side of the room do! A savvy Cadet Officer quickly learns which S/M's are just bookmarks with a job title, and also identify those who are worth emulating ( And in some cases, avoid emulating).

p.s. I Love PHALL and just josh him. We have known each other since we ( allegedly) ran commo wire between all the Encampment dorms to build a temporary PA system and nearly faced a hideous death  at the hands of the ANG facilities guy and his henchmen. We don't always agree, but who does? ( Except two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner?) Painters tape saved our bacon.

[Airplane girl]

Reducing the speed of promotions due to maturity and leadership skills......is the job of the Cadet Programs Officer and the Command.

Sir, it's great that your unit is run that way. But there are some units, like my old one, where they don't always do that.

[lordmonar]

Reducing the speed of promotions due to maturity and leadership skills......is the job of the Cadet Programs Officer and the Command.

Sir, it's great that your unit is run that way. But there are some units, like my old one, where they don't always do that.

Hmmmmmmm........how do I address this?   Yep it is true there are a lot of units out there that don't do it right.
But you and I cannon run our units and our program based on the failings on other units.

Some CP officer out there is pencil whipping tests and other things for the Little Darling......yep that happens.   But I'm not gonna change my way of doing business to because of it.

If you as a cadet want to slow down.....by all means do so.   But in general I don't encourage my cadets to slow down.....not unless I see a need for it....and I will let them know when that happens.

The other side of the coin of course is rank stagnation.  When a cadet starts sitting on a rank for more then six months....something is wrong.  Remember that the rules are built with the idea that a cadet "should" advance at least twice a year.

So somewhere between every 8 weeks and every 26 weeks is the idea promotion rate for cadets.

[Garibaldi]

From personal experience, I've seen a lot of cadets who promote as fast as they can (and until I got my Mitchell I was one of those cadets) and I've learned that I don't think it's good for cadets to promote that fast. Because you will have a huge high ranking cadet in your squadron, that you don't want to give a position because their maturity hasn't caught up with their rank. I'm not staying it's bad to promote, but you have to pace yourself at a reasonable level. If you do promote that fast, then you need to prepare to take on some major leadership changes as you go. You can't be stuck in the mindset of a staff sergeant when you are a major, because then that only effects you negatively. And in most the cases I've seen with really really young cadets that are super high ranking, nobody respects them (they just respect their rank) because they can't work with them because they don't have the maturity to match their grade. So just be careful if you plan on promoting that fast.
Good luck!
Respectfully,
C/1stLt. Kubik, CAP

I agree with this completely. I'm pretty young for my grade (14 year old Chief), and I'm planning on promoting less quickly in the future. The worst experience that I had in CAP was when I promoted way too quickly to C/MSgt, and could barely be a good C/MSgt. And then some people in my squadron decided it would be a good idea to make me cadet commander. That went about as well as you might think.

And then there's the 13 year old Chief who basically sounds like Garibaldi's amazingly perfect Earhart cadet, except his dad is the commander. And he doesn't know how to wear his uniform. No one respects his grade, at all. Whenever he shows up every 2 months to promote, he's basically treated like a C/Amn. I'll probably still be bitter about him 10 years from now.

Anyway, now I know that having experience and taking care of your cadets is lot more important than promoting if you want to be respected. Being a Chief (Or Lieutenant, or Colonel, or any other grade) doesn't make you a good leader. So now I think I want to wait a while to get my Mitchell, so I can have experience so that my rank will mean more than which insignia I wear.

waiwaiwaiwait....he just shows up every 2 months to promote? Wow. I'd avoid the Christmas rush and start being bitter now. It's amazing that his father allows this behavior. I bet there's something in the files that shows he is an active participant, like the sign in sheets shows he's there every meeting. 

Not my place to point that out, though.

[THRAWN]

I might be misremembering this...like I am about my time in SEAL Team 32 during Operation Desert Nam...but wasn't there at one time a rule against parents being in direct line of supervision? I know it was practiced in most of my early squadrons, but thought that it was a written rule....

[lordmonar]

Only for testing proctors.....and even then it is a very strong "should not" and not an absolute WILL NOT IIRC.

The only place that specifically forbids it in a quick search of 50-5 and 52-16 is The Spaatz Testing officer can't be related to the cadet or from the same unit.

[ALORD]

I don't think there is such a rule...Too many S/M's come from the parental S/M supply side. It can be very trying to have Parents "advocating" for "their" Cadet's special interests. It would be an ideal "Best Practice" even if it's not a formal rule. Hey, didn't you save my life in Cambodia on that secret Christmas mission with John Kerry and Dick Marcinko providing cover fire? Oh wait, I was in Elementary school then...

[Airplane girl]

Hmmmmmmm........how do I address this?   Yep it is true there are a lot of units out there that don't do it right.
But you and I cannon run our units and our program based on the failings on other units.

Some CP officer out there is pencil whipping tests and other things for the Little Darling......yep that happens.   But I'm not gonna change my way of doing business to because of it.

If you as a cadet want to slow down.....by all means do so.   But in general I don't encourage my cadets to slow down.....not unless I see a need for it....and I will let them know when that happens.

The other side of the coin of course is rank stagnation.  When a cadet starts sitting on a rank for more then six months....something is wrong.  Remember that the rules are built with the idea that a cadet "should" advance at least twice a year.

Sir, I've definitely seen the other side of that coin too. Like that one cadet who was either C/AB or a C/Amn for 6 years. Cadets should promote eventually. There should be a balance between having enough experience and maturity to do well in your grade and promoting enough that you're being challenged more and learning new things.

waiwaiwaiwait....he just shows up every 2 months to promote? Wow. I'd avoid the Christmas rush and start being bitter now. It's amazing that his father allows this behavior. I bet there's something in the files that shows he is an active participant, like the sign in sheets shows he's there every meeting. 

Not my place to point that out, though.

I am definitely bitter now, and I'll probably still be bitter about it in 50 years. I don't think anyone signed in for him every meeting. Although, I never checked, so who knows? It could've happened. This commander did a few other questionable things to make sure his special little snowflake cadet was promoted, so I wouldn't be surprised.

Anyway, it's not like anyone's going to be asking if he was an active participant during the promotion boards, led by the squadron commander. If there are going to be any rules about parents who are commanders, I think there should at least be one preventing parents from being on the promotion boards for their kids. It's a lot harder to give a cadet accurate feedback when their dad and your squadron commander is there.

[lordmonar]

On the other hand.... Sometimes parents in that position hold their kids to a higher standard just to off set the appearance of favoritism.  I know this happened to me in the Boy Scouts when my father was scout master.   So it goes both ways.   

The key is integrity.   And some people got it and some don't. 

The other key is to really understand the standards.    I see generally that CP officers have a higher standard for cadet SNCOs then they do for cadet officers and that's a little backwards in the cadet program.   

[Holding Pattern]

If there are going to be any rules about parents who are commanders, I think there should at least be one preventing parents from being on the promotion boards for their kids. It's a lot harder to give a cadet accurate feedback when their dad and your squadron commander is there.

I just assumed that was a rule already. At least every squadron I've been in functioned that way, where people with conflicts recused themselves from boards/committees...

[lordmonar]

If there are going to be any rules about parents who are commanders, I think there should at least be one preventing parents from being on the promotion boards for their kids. It's a lot harder to give a cadet accurate feedback when their dad and your squadron commander is there.

I just assumed that was a rule already. At least every squadron I've been in functioned that way, where people with conflicts recused themselves from boards/committees...

Not a reg.....but a good rule of thumb IMHO.   But I agree with not making it a hard and fast rule.   Some of the smaller squadrons would struggle if that were a rule.   

On the concept that there are people pencil whipping their snowflake through the program.......well that's just oversight.   Wing/Group should be looking out for that and stopping it when it happens.   But that's true for most of CAP's problems.