More on saluting other courtesies (as if we needed it)

[Eclipse]

This is mostly aimed at those who disdain the practice in CAP, or look for ways to avoid it (like uniform choice or crossing the street, etc.).

I attended a Cub Scout activity with my family this evening - a Council-Level week-long deal (4 hours each night) based around shooting, archery,
and some less useful skills like making a cowhide from a grocery bag, etc.  Fun, hot, & all the chaos that marginally interested 7-10 year olds can handle.
These activities force me to remember all the times that I "ran with scissors" in a hot dark blue shirt and red vest, and also make me yearn for
encampments, where the chaos is much more reasonable.

(Though the way some senior members act at SAREx's make a Cub Scout activity look like a drill team.)

Anyway, getting to the point...

Just like any larger CAP activity, there were plenty of people from various packs (i.e. units) who didn't know each other, and because Cub Scouts is more family orientated than CAP, there were much clearer cliques and groups.

But what struck me was that while there were leaders who were clearly "in charge", a lot of people felt it was "just fine" to walk right past them and ignore them to seek out others that they knew, and worse, people and families would sit down next to each other and give the once-over look like
they lost their seat at a McDonald's in a seedy neighborhood, then avoid any glance that might cause a greeting.  Seemed generally rude to me.

And all I kept thinking was "at least in CAP, the custom of salutes and greetings forces people to be cordial and does not allow people to ignore fellow members, especially those higher in rank...".

I would never consider sitting down to eat, or walking past a fellow member, without some sort of greeting, and for the most part that is the way I have always seen military people, in uniform or otherwise, act with each other.  "Same team, all in this together, our jobs both suck equally but differently on different days."

"Have a better one..."

Like many things in life, no big deal, yet kind of a big deal, especially when it is absent.

[Tubacap]

I like this observation, and recently had a similar observation in a different group that made me yearn for a cadet activity.