The starting point

[ol'fido]

^^^^^^^^^^^

When I first started in CAP, Scott AFB still had a T-33 for the fighter pilot types to go out and get their hours on. It may even be the same one that Bud Day flew when he was assigned as an ROTC instructor in St. Louis.

[Private Investigator]

When I joined the first time in 63, we were wearing khaki's and low quarters.  Of Course I was a Cadet, but we didn't gripe about anything.  We had fun.  Spent 10 days at Chanute AFB, flew a C-119 and a C-47 each for about 10 minutes (actually they flew me).  We studied in a National Guard hanger with F-89's (Scorpions) sitting in the middle and if we were good we could sit in them.  We did no search and rescue, that was for the seniors.  We did drill and ceremonies.  We sponsored German cadets one year.  We learned a lot about flying and a lot of seniors had their own planes and would take us up a lot.  It was fun and a lot of us joined the military because of it.     

How cool was that! Thanks for sharing 

[Devil Doc]

I sense alot of "Back in My Day" Stories will commence Quickly on this Forum.

[Private Investigator]

Back in my day + uniforms = how cool was that   

[Garibaldi]

Back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was but a young snot-nosed cadink both cadets and senior members wore AF-style. Even then, some wore the uniform well, others... well wore 'em jacked up. Not much different than today, even with blues and grays.

There were some senior members that were seriously overweight wearing blues - I can remember one female senior member at the time who actually took two (count 'em, two!) light blue blouses and tailored them to fit her ample body. You could tell they were from two different shirts because of the ever so slightly different batches of cloth.

I remember a giant cadet at my second encampment who was so big someone sewed panels in his fatigue shirt and pants and they were still too tight. They even sewed 3 blues belts together to fit him.

[a2capt]

-THREE- belts? The things are 44 inches each. That means something larger than a size 88. I just put an 8 foot CAT 5 cable on the floor in a circle, end to end, to visualize that.

Thats .. I'm sorry. But that's huge. Someone has more things to worry about than encampment, and would probably find most facilitates where encampments are held to be quite inconvenient with that girth.

[MSG Mac]

I would say that it started in 1941....sometime in December.

Dec 1, 1941 0900:  SM Doe " We're a civilian organization! Why should we wear army uniforms?"