The compiled list of CAP uniform suggestions....

[arajca]

Quote
50.   Utilize an orange hard hat for ES missions instead of the white helmet liner.--No.  Just eliminate the White helmet liner altogether.  ES mission should be able to wear any safety gear they need to with reference to the regulations.
The hardhats are stupid & pretty worthless really. CARRY a bright colored climbing helmet & wear a patrol cap unless rocks are in position to fall on you or you are in position to fall down a hill.

As the initial proponent of the hard hat idea, there is one important point not shown - OHSA Compliant - on the hard hat idea. Hard hats are excellent protective equipment when used correctly. There is also a cost issue. A good hard hat with ratchet adjustment headband costs ~$10 - 15. A climbing helmet costs $75+. If hard hats are worthless, why do wildland firefighters wear them? If I were doing rock climbing or similar activities, I'd wear a climbing helmet, but for disaster cleanup type work, the hard hat is more appropriate.

As for the orange color, I suggested it as a quick means of id'ing CAP personnel in the midst of a larger group of responders, but I'm not too concerned about the color, just the protection offered by the helmet. Also, the hard hat is to be worn when it is appropriate, not for all ES activities.

[JohnKachenmeister]

My old squadron used to issue white hard hats, that were donated by a constrction safety company.  We kept them as unit property, but issued them to individuals as needed for GT activities. 

The teams did not wear them all the time, just if engaged in something potentially hazardous or around wreckage.  We attacked a CAP seal to the front, and used a Dymo labelmaker to make a white tape of the wearer's last name on the back.

Nothing else was authorized, but cadets being cadets, leeping the "Smiley Faces,"  flowers, comic stickers, etc. off helmets required constant vigilance.

We would attach them to the outside of a pack so we could access them readily, but would normally wear the BDU cap.  This also let me keep an eye out for any unauthorized attachments.  (Although something about responding to a crash or disaster with a "Have a Nice Day" sticker did appeal to my warped sense of humor!)

Then, when we were on a training mission, some Uniform Nazi told me that they were unauthorized, and I was "Setting a bad example... Poor image of CAP... Clearly outlined in CAPR 39-1... Blah, Blah, Blah."  You know, the usual stuff.

I was too lazy to actually look up the regulation to see if I was, in fact, violating it.  It was easier to just tell everybody to stuff the hard hats in their packs.  I figured this is one of those situations where compliance with regulations over-rides common sense and safety.

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Cadetsmom, about your son's concussion.  You might, however, be comforted in knowing that he was knocked senseless while in proper uniform, though."

[DNall]

Ultra marine dark blue they both look the same to me.  If we can't go subdued....why change?  BTW...the USAF used to wear the ultra marine and white back in the 70's-80's.  That is where CAP got the idea.

I think it's horrible & a lot of other people do to. I know the AF used white on ultramarine on OD fatigues prior to changing over to BDUS. At that time, CAP also used the same white on ultramarine tapes on ODs, and had blue slides & metal grade. When we changed to BDUS, some lawyers on the AF side siad we shouldn't have subdued tapes cause it would be hard to read & people would think we were in the real AF. No one ever thought to ask for anything else. Dark blue matching BBDUs would look much better. OD tapes w/ white lettering would be even better.

Okay....as a replacement for BBDU's maybe.  So if our field uniform will be gray...should we change the blue flight suit to gray as well?

You missed it. This is not the gray BDUs item This is the gray or in my version blue BDU pants w/ golf shirt/aviator for field work. I'm still very much against gray or khaki BDUs.

That is why we should stick to the basics...using the USAF as a model.  Name, CAP, Wing and Squadron, specialty badge and sometimes a special team badge and nothing else. 

The AF doesn't wear Sq, Wg, Command pathces. What they do wear is too much, and they're taking it all off slowly. In other words, no Wg or Sq patches. Fix the specialty badges to indicate more useful information (ie you can add mission skills to some non-mission related specialty fields - admin/pers = MSA to Admin section chief; suddenly seeing that badge on a mission is more useful).

I don't know...I've got to call you on this one...do we really have that many crashes that involve fires?  And how many of those crashes that invovle fires were so large that it does not matter what you were wearing?  If it is so dangerous why are we letting non members and cadets flying around with out protecitive clothing?  No....Nomex is a good idea...but a requirment?  No the cost/benifit ratio just does not equate.

You can use that argument for seatbelts too can't you? I just don't see the cost benefit issue as being there. It's really no more expensive than other uniforms. A used flight suit & the stuff you have to put on it is cheaper than a new set of BDUs & all the crap you put on them, plus like I said they are readily avail from surplus & discount suppliers.

I know a guy that died because of an in-flight fire that disabled him & caused the plane to spin into the bay, where he was killed by fire floating unconcious in three feet of water. Good friend of mine & my immediate boss in CAP at the time. There's a story someone else told on here about a CAP crash, in California I beleive, where one person was wearing nomex including gloves & the other was not; the one that was get cuts & bruises, the other was disfigured & still getting surgeries years later. This isn't that big a deal. It'd be even eaiser if active aircrew (on 101) can wear flightsuits to meetings & such in place of BDUs when appropriate. That'd cut you down from buying another uniform.

I thought we were talking about the old smurf suit.  As for the blue utility uniform...is is not identical to the blue flight suit just not Nomex?  If we kill one we should kill them both.

We have to have the blue flt suit, as you so gracefully mentioned on corporate uniforms. There's just no reason to have any kind of jump suit. Is that for the CAP tank crews or what? I think the tendancy would be for people to get that for flying versus used nomex, and then you can ref above.

I would go for that.  We can do the same for the cadets as well.  Eliminate all acheivement and milestone awards and have a Cadet Programs Award with lots of pips and a Professional Develpment Award with only 4 pips.

Cadets get about 20 extra awards cause they're kids w/ low attention spans & small self esteem that need constant pats on the back to stay interested... at least compared to adults, theoretically anyway. One award covers four levels. You get the ribbon (COP), then bronze (Lvl 3) /silver (lvl 4) /gold star (lvl 5), just like we do on the leadership ribbon now. I don't mind giving decorations to motivate performance, but you don't need the superstack when you hadn't been around 20 years. If you make decorations easy to earn & common then they become meaningless.

Well actually you mean CAP will never be authorised blue with CAP again.  We wore them back in the 80's before the "CAP Maj and the USAF armory" incedent.

There was more to it then that. Anyway, that's correct. the AF has justified keeping us out of blue slides w/ CAP on them by saying they were too close to AF officers & the ensuing confusion would be a violation of the geneva conventions. By invoking it that way, it meant forever, and frankly look at the quality of every individual CAP member & tell me they deserve to be confused w/ AF officers at this point. Black is a solid compromise that we may be able to earn.

I agree with you...except I know the USAF will not go for it because of the "mistaken identity" issue.

I don't know, if you cite precedent like AFROTC/JROTC wearing the same nameplates despite not being in the military; then you cite how we have to pay for all this ourselves & it's highly inefficient (expensive) to do it this way, which displaces members & decreases mission capability (cause we can't spend on those items). I think if you put it up there in a well pitched way (including precendents) as part of a series of changes under the heading of "cleaning up CAP uniforms to better become part of the AF family," then I bet they'd take it, if not then so be it.

I can see where you are going...but why not just eliminate the NCSA patches all together?

I can support taking them off all together, or compromising to this tab system, just so we don't take it too far & end right back up with the girl scout uniform. What we need to put on the uniform for whatever reason should be understated, professional, and in the AF example if at all possible.

[DNall]

Quote
50.   Utilize an orange hard hat for ES missions instead of the white helmet liner.--No.  Just eliminate the White helmet liner altogether.  ES mission should be able to wear any safety gear they need to with reference to the regulations.
The hardhats are stupid & pretty worthless really. CARRY a bright colored climbing helmet & wear a patrol cap unless rocks are in position to fall on you or you are in position to fall down a hill.

As the initial proponent of the hard hat idea, there is one important point not shown - OHSA Compliant - on the hard hat idea. Hard hats are excellent protective equipment when used correctly. There is also a cost issue. A good hard hat with ratchet adjustment headband costs ~$10 - 15. A climbing helmet costs $75+. If hard hats are worthless, why do wildland firefighters wear them? If I were doing rock climbing or similar activities, I'd wear a climbing helmet, but for disaster cleanup type work, the hard hat is more appropriate.

As for the orange color, I suggested it as a quick means of id'ing CAP personnel in the midst of a larger group of responders, but I'm not too concerned about the color, just the protection offered by the helmet. Also, the hard hat is to be worn when it is appropriate, not for all ES activities.

Hard hats are useless. The OSHA requirement is to wear such a  protective device in an area where such protection is appropriate, which is never what we do. If you're doing mountain work - be that ropes or worried about falling - then you need something like a climbing helmet. If not, you need to wear your patrol cap & act like you work for the AF, cause you do. We don't do disaster cleanup. We're specifically restricted from doing what FEMA classifies as urban SaR, which involves collapsed structure search. Outside of walking your GT onto a construction site, there is no place where you need or should wear a hard hat. By the way, wildland firefighters do NOT wear hardhats. They wear similiarly shaped fire helmets that cost the same as a climbing helmet, which starts in the $35 range & goes up to 150 if you want to be stupid about it. If you don't NEED such a thing, you shouldn't buy it.

[shorning]

This is off topic, but I'm amazed at all the griping that has been done about the recent uniform changes to come out of NHQ, yet here we are with a long list of even more proposals.  Sheesh!  This whole thing screams "wannabee" to me.


YMMV...

[DNall]

Sir, either CAP is part of the AF family, or it's edging toward the girl scouts. I'm not in CAP to be involved w/ ES. I don't mind helping out a bit when I'm needed, but CAP is not a SaR agency, it's an AF support agency. I don't think the ANG feels like they're wannabes to the AD AF, and I think you'd find them pretty pissed off if you took AF off their tapes & made them wear funny looking 3rd-class kiddie uniforms. This kind of thing makes us look stupid & incompetent to the public & official agencies (ie our customers), and it harms retention, quality, & in turn mission capability.  Either we serve a REAL purpose in the AF mission, or frankly everything we do can be accomplished better faster cheaper in other ways with added benefit to the country. Either we cen get it together & reflect on the outside what we need to be seen as/what we want outsiders to think we are on the inside, or we can close up shop. There's no reason to play games on the taxpayer's dime. You can complain about how much energy goes into uniform discussions, but you keep clicking on them, and the same discussions happen in active duty military forums too. It's part of the culture to care what kind of image you project, and it's meant to be.

[pixelwonk]

This whole thing screams "wannabee" to me.


YMMV...

Maybe it's "Watanabe!"
Watching Cruise get his butt kicked by the samurai was neato.

[shorning]

This whole thing screams "wannabee" to me.


YMMV...

Maybe it's "Watanabe!"
Watching Cruise get his butt kicked by the samurai was neato.

When I hear "Watanabe", I think of Kimo Watanabe.

[aveighter]

18.   Require Nomex flight suits for flight. (2)--Why?  Let's be honest.  How many lives have we lost or injuries could have been prevented if the air crew were wearing nomex instead of something else?  This would just make it harder to fly.  You would need to have one for all your O-flight rides.

Good point!  Until your the one on fire.


I understand...Nomex is a good idea....but a requirement?   A cost benifit analysis just does not prove the case. 

Requirement?  Naw!

Me and your cost-benefit analyst will send flowers.

What was your address?

[lordmonar]

Can someone give me any logic on #54 of such a change? The original cadet grades were all NO grades, no officer grades. Then there was a change to have Cadet 2LT, 1LT and Captain. The next change added Cadet major to the list, and the final change in the late 1950's allowed Cadet LTCol and Colonel. Except for a short period where a gold single pip was authorized for cadet Flight Officer, the system of Cadet grades has been in effect for 50 years or so. It mirrors all JROTC grades. If a CAP C/Col with two diamonds meets a AFJROTC C/LTCol with two diamonds who has the higher grade? There seems no logical reason to change.

Does AFJROTC use circles and dismonds?  They did not back in my day...and the last time I worked with AFJROTC cadets (last year) they still did not.  The used a chevron system sort of like the navy's.

[Major Carrales]

18.   Require Nomex flight suits for flight. (2)--Why?  Let's be honest.  How many lives have we lost or injuries could have been prevented if the air crew were wearing nomex instead of something else?  This would just make it harder to fly.  You would need to have one for all your O-flight rides.

Good point!  Until your the one on fire.

That is illogical...to mandate Nomex.  Why...one might ask?

Because one can still fly in "rip-stop" BDUs as well as in the dreaded Golf-Shirt Combo...or still, in White Greys...or (breath!!! gasp) in the White Shirt/blue shoulder marks...et al.

One would have to limit flying to flight suits for CAP flying...which will cost a pretty penny to some.  

[Major Carrales]

Uniform discussions... (fill in the blank!)

[lordmonar]

Quote
50.   Utilize an orange hard hat for ES missions instead of the white helmet liner.--No.  Just eliminate the White helmet liner altogether.  ES mission should be able to wear any safety gear they need to with reference to the regulations.
The hardhats are stupid & pretty worthless really. CARRY a bright colored climbing helmet & wear a patrol cap unless rocks are in position to fall on you or you are in position to fall down a hill.

As the initial proponent of the hard hat idea, there is one important point not shown - OHSA Compliant - on the hard hat idea. Hard hats are excellent protective equipment when used correctly. There is also a cost issue. A good hard hat with ratchet adjustment headband costs ~$10 - 15. A climbing helmet costs $75+. If hard hats are worthless, why do wildland firefighters wear them? If I were doing rock climbing or similar activities, I'd wear a climbing helmet, but for disaster cleanup type work, the hard hat is more appropriate.

As for the orange color, I suggested it as a quick means of id'ing CAP personnel in the midst of a larger group of responders, but I'm not too concerned about the color, just the protection offered by the helmet. Also, the hard hat is to be worn when it is appropriate, not for all ES activities.

I don't have a proble with the orange hard hats at all...but I have a problem with them being "uniform" items.  They should be special equipment and as such you can use them no matter what 39-1 says IMHO.  That is all I am saying.  So sure....if you need a hard hat to do your mission where it....local conditions and local dirctive will apply.  Add it to the task guides for required equpment but not to 39-1.

[Major Carrales]

Quote
50.   Utilize an orange hard hat for ES missions instead of the white helmet liner.--No.  Just eliminate the White helmet liner altogether.  ES mission should be able to wear any safety gear they need to with reference to the regulations.
The hardhats are stupid & pretty worthless really. CARRY a bright colored climbing helmet & wear a patrol cap unless rocks are in position to fall on you or you are in position to fall down a hill.

As the initial proponent of the hard hat idea, there is one important point not shown - OHSA Compliant - on the hard hat idea. Hard hats are excellent protective equipment when used correctly. There is also a cost issue. A good hard hat with ratchet adjustment headband costs ~$10 - 15. A climbing helmet costs $75+. If hard hats are worthless, why do wildland firefighters wear them? If I were doing rock climbing or similar activities, I'd wear a climbing helmet, but for disaster cleanup type work, the hard hat is more appropriate.

As for the orange color, I suggested it as a quick means of id'ing CAP personnel in the midst of a larger group of responders, but I'm not too concerned about the color, just the protection offered by the helmet. Also, the hard hat is to be worn when it is appropriate, not for all ES activities.

I don't have a proble with the orange hard hats at all...but I have a problem with them being "uniform" items.  They should be special equipment and as such you can use them no matter what 39-1 says IMHO.  That is all I am saying.  So sure....if you need a hard hat to do your mission where it....local conditions and local dirctive will apply.  Add it to the task guides for required equpment but not to 39-1.

Debating hard hats is a pretty moot point, don't you think?  Think of it less as a uniform issue and more as a equipment one.

Still...having one [hard hat] as an option based on what conditions allow would be sound thinking.  Wearing it to meetings, in reviewing columns and other "status symbol" events is meshuggah! Apocryphal!  And countless other $1.98 words.

[lordmonar]

That is why we should stick to the basics...using the USAF as a model.  Name, CAP, Wing and Squadron, specialty badge and sometimes a special team badge and nothing else. 

The AF doesn't wear Sq, Wg, Command pathces. What they do wear is too much, and they're taking it all off slowly. In other words, no Wg or Sq patches. Fix the specialty badges to indicate more useful information (ie you can add mission skills to some non-mission related specialty fields - admin/pers = MSA to Admin section chief; suddenly seeing that badge on a mission is more useful).

Excuseme....we certainly do.  We wear MAJCOM, WING and Squadron patches.  MAJCOM and Squadron at a minimun....and then some members place the honor guard, prime beef, red hores, desaster preparedness team...and a host of other patches over the right breast.  And las I checked they still have not made a decision about whether there will be patches on the ABU or not.  

I would go for that.  We can do the same for the cadets as well.  Eliminate all acheivement and milestone awards and have a Cadet Programs Award with lots of pips and a Professional Develpment Award with only 4 pips.

Cadets get about 20 extra awards cause they're kids w/ low attention spans & small self esteem that need constant pats on the back to stay interested... at least compared to adults, theoretically anyway. One award covers four levels. You get the ribbon (COP), then bronze (Lvl 3) /silver (lvl 4) /gold star (lvl 5), just like we do on the leadership ribbon now. I don't mind giving decorations to motivate performance, but you don't need the superstack when you hadn't been around 20 years. If you make decorations easy to earn & common then they become meaningless.

Never under estimate the value of a warm fuzzy to an adult too.  I like ribbons and bling.  I'll admit it!   Here is an alternitive for the cadet side of things.  A phase I ribbon that replaces curry, arnold and feik (that's 1 ribbon with 2 props) The Wright Brothers that will cover through Mitchel (that is 1 ribbon with 5 props) The Mitchell with props for each acheivement until Earhart and the the Earheart with two pips per acheivement. Kill the eaker and leave the Spaatz as is!

Well actually you mean CAP will never be authorised blue with CAP again.  We wore them back in the 80's before the "CAP Maj and the USAF armory" incedent.

There was more to it then that. Anyway, that's correct. the AF has justified keeping us out of blue slides w/ CAP on them by saying they were too close to AF officers & the ensuing confusion would be a violation of the geneva conventions. By invoking it that way, it meant forever, and frankly look at the quality of every individual CAP member & tell me they deserve to be confused w/ AF officers at this point. Black is a solid compromise that we may be able to earn.

The funny part is that we are are legal targets under the Geneval Conventions anyway!  A lawful combatant is anyone who wears a uniform and carries a weapon (and an Radio or a Cessna constitutes a weapon).  I thing the "Geneva Conventions" aregument is just white wash so that they don't have to use their true argument. "we are not comfortable with you looking to much like REAL officers"

I can see where you are going...but why not just eliminate the NCSA patches all together?

I can support taking them off all together, or compromising to this tab system, just so we don't take it too far & end right back up with the girl scout uniform. What we need to put on the uniform for whatever reason should be understated, professional, and in the AF example if at all possible.

Agreed.

[lordmonar]

Sir, either CAP is part of the AF family, or it's edging toward the girl scouts. I'm not in CAP to be involved w/ ES. I don't mind helping out a bit when I'm needed, but CAP is not a SaR agency, it's an AF support agency.

Well here I got to call you on.  We ARE a SAR agency...and that is how we support the USAF.  END OF STORY.  We cannot support the USAF in any other way.  The USAF cannot use us to support combat operations.   That means 98% of the stuff going on on base.  The USAF needs services troops, cooks, cops, and host of very technically oriented specialties.  Even the Administration Troops are all now fully qualified computer geeks.  Understanding the personnel system is a full time job (heck there are Personnelists who don't know how to do their job).  How can CAP support the USAF other than taking on a group of missions and doing it the best we can.  SAR.  Border Security. DEA Support.  These are the jobs the USAF would be doing if we were not there.  How much more do you think we can do?  And just because our primary customer is the USAF....why can't we be the SAR agency for the entire country?  State, local, and federal?  Why can't we support private organizations if we find that we have some cross over ability.  Flying blood and organs.  Animal tracking for universities.

I understand you want to be closer to the USAF...it's what I want too.  But you are a little myopic in your vision.  Believe me.  If the USAF could find a way to use our talents, they would.  But there is just no other jobs that they can legitimately give to us.

[aveighter]

Major Joe Sez;

Debating hard hats is a pretty moot point, don't you think?  Think of it less as a uniform issue and more as a equipment one.

Still...having one [hard hat] as an option based on what conditions allow would be sound thinking.  Wearing it to meetings, in reviewing columns and other "status symbol" events is meshuggah! Apocryphal!  And countless other $1.98 words.

I agree with the good Major on this one.  We should mandate the wearing of Service Caps!  That will take care of this silly hat issue once and for all.

(I understand there will be a Nomex version available from Vanguard soon for flight operations and a plastic safety version for field operations)

[A1Steaksauce]

21. Implement a phase out date on the older service coat. (2)

AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOO, I myself like the old service coat and despise the new along with most male cadets I know. The reason being is that it looks a lot like the female coat and it looks way to "businessy" and not very military.

[DNall]

Excuseme....we certainly do.  We wear MAJCOM, WING and Squadron patches.  MAJCOM and Squadron at a minimun....and then some members place the honor guard, prime beef, red hores, desaster preparedness team...and a host of other patches over the right breast.  And las I checked they still have not made a decision about whether there will be patches on the ABU or not.

The information I heard was that it was all coming off DCUs soon & would not be on ABUs. It's WAY too much, and only feasible because it's subdued patches with an in-garrison thought process behind them. In full color, that looks beyond stupid, and in the field it's spanish general looking. We should just get it down to a minimum & THEN have a conversation about what might NEED to go back on in what understated sort of form, & just keep it professional looking.

There may be some logic in the AF to wearing an org chart on your chest, but in CAP we come togther from many units to form a unified chain of command on the fly. I don't think wearing patches that say you answer to a unit/Wg chain of command, or that tell a story unrelated to your usefulness in the field is all a bad idea.

Never under estimate the value of a warm fuzzy to an adult too.  I like ribbons and bling.  I'll admit it!   Here is an alternitive for the cadet side of things.  A phase I ribbon that replaces curry, arnold and feik (that's 1 ribbon with 2 props) The Wright Brothers that will cover through Mitchel (that is 1 ribbon with 5 props) The Mitchell with props for each acheivement until Earhart and the the Earheart with two pips per acheivement. Kill the eaker and leave the Spaatz as is!

Actually, I'm fine w/ cadets getting a ribbon at each level. Just like JROTC, there are a ton of ribbons earned for minor accomplishments to keep immature minds jumping. Adults are by no means above that, but the SCALE of the accomplishment deserving recognition should be larger. If you follow the couple ribbon items from me, you'll see I'm not actually decreasing the overall number of decorations at all, in fact I'd be increasing them. I'd prefer to move to a system that puts more weight (& more ribbons) on merit based accomplishments, not just checking off a sheet. Certinly you can get people to do some crazy stuff for a silly piece of ribbon, and we should use that to our advantage, but it only works if the ribbon is made meaningful.

The funny part is that we are are legal targets under the Geneval Conventions anyway!  A lawful combatant is anyone who wears a uniform and carries a weapon (and an Radio or a Cessna constitutes a weapon).  I thing the "Geneva Conventions" aregument is just white wash so that they don't have to use their true argument. "we are not comfortable with you looking to much like REAL officers"

That's about right. I do think it's a smokescreen to avoid saying they just don't respect us as officers... which is completely valid given our entrance/education requirements, lack of any PT, OTS, etc resulting in un-earned grade by chumps off the street. Yeah I wouldn't want to say that to an org that exists to support me either.

The conventions by the way just say you can't dress up civilians in such a way that enemy combatabts may think they are in the military, and can't confuse people into thinking someone holds an officer's commission that does not. They pulled that out on metal grade w/ "US" on the new corporate service coat, and also on blue CAP slides on blues. The problem is once they invoked the geneva convention, anyone looking back on this in the future is going to see that & understand it to be a closed legal matter out of the AF's hands.

CAP not a sar agency:
Far as being a SaR agency, we're not. It's one of a few things we do some of the time, it's not WHO we are.

ELT tech is changing & while there will still be SOME missions, the majority (which were non-distress in the first place) will dry up over time. They hype is that we save the AF lots of money cause they might have to be out there w/ a C130 doing every one of these searches, but that's not remotely true. They're required to run AFRCC & to back up mutual aid w/ military resurces in emergency situations. Does that mean C130s? Maybe, but why couldn't they just send the funding for our fleet to state police aviation units via DHS? They'd get a LOT more bang for the buck that way & states would fund the flying & training of professional crews. They don't need our cadet program with the rise of JROTC, and they don't need to educate teh public on the need for a strong air & space force the way they needed to in the 40s & 50s. The fact is the CAP we started out as is just about obselete, and if it were thre seperate orgs running each of those missions, all of them would have been done away with long ago.

We have to evolve now. ELT tech & NIMS are the straw that broke the camels back on this one. We can't be who we were & survive. To undertake such a transformation requires vision for sure (there's some good material out there, but we might be lacking in the leadership to get it done), and requires us to accept that just maybe we aren't as bullet proof & all fired critically important to the AF as the hype says we are. I've spun that same hype to unsuspecting politicians before, but that doesn't mean we need to believe our own BS. We have to move beyond the denial phase, then we can get to making some changes.

[MIKE]

21. Implement a phase out date on the older service coat. (2)

AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOO, I myself like the old service coat and despise the new along with most male cadets I know. The reason being is that it looks a lot like the female coat and it looks way to "businessy" and not very military.

What shade trousers do you have?