CAP Grey Shoulder Marks...Did you know?

[Smokey]

Personally I'd like to go back to the blue w/CAP on them.......

But back to the self promotion to Major Gen.....the talk here has said that if it was self promotion, why didn't they strip him of the second star???  But you will notice the next CC was back to a single star as were subsequent national commanders.  It wasn't until after 9/11 that the Air Force officially promoted the national commander position to Maj Gen.  I remember very clearly the announcement and it was in recognition of our role and the increased responsiblity.  

Also I do not for one moment doubt Sparky's account as told by Gen Anderson, but I'm still suspicious of the timing.

[Cecil DP]

Personally I'd like to go back to the blue w/CAP on them.......

But back to the self promotion to Major Gen.....the talk here has said that if it was self promotion, why didn't they strip him of the second star??? But you will notice the next CC was back to a single star as were subsequent national commanders.  It wasn't until after 9/11 that the Air Force officially promoted the national commander position to Maj Gen.  I remember very clearly the announcement and it was in recognition of our role and the increased responsibility.  

Also I do not for one moment doubt Sparky's account as told by Gen Anderson, but I'm still suspicious of the timing.

At the time, the USAF didn't have oversight of CAP General Officer promotions-They do now since the Harwell incident. So the appointment onbly had to be approved by the National Board.
Unfortunately, Then as now the National Board did what the National Commander wanted. Even the Air Force has described the National Board as being  an incestuous relationship. The National Commander selects the Region Commanders and National Staff Officers, The Region commanders appoint Wing Commander (after confirmation by the NEC), and the National Board elects the National Commander.

If they dissented, there was a good chance they could be replaced at the earliest opportunity. So it turned into a case of "go along, to get along" We are all aware of cases in which Very senior CAP Officers have been replaced or fired for questionable reasons, including National Commanders, and Vice Commanders. The reason following National Commanders were BG's rather than MG's is that BG Barry refused to accept the extra star, until it was acceptable to the Air Force.

[ColonelJack]

Personally I'd like to go back to the blue w/CAP on them.......

But back to the self promotion to Major Gen.....the talk here has said that if it was self promotion, why didn't they strip him of the second star???  But you will notice the next CC was back to a single star as were subsequent national commanders.  It wasn't until after 9/11 that the Air Force officially promoted the national commander position to Maj Gen.  I remember very clearly the announcement and it was in recognition of our role and the increased responsiblity.  

Also I do not for one moment doubt Sparky's account as told by Gen Anderson, but I'm still suspicious of the timing.

I think both versions have some veracity to them.  There is no doubt in my mind, having been with CAP during the transition from hard rank to the berry boards and from said berry boards to gray, that the AF wanted more of a distinction between their blue suits and ours.  One reason is that when we changed from the two-part name plates to the single blue three-line, there was too much of a chance of misidentification, especially if you didn't see the member's left shoulder, where the wing patch was.  And there may indeed have been a change in the works for a long time, but there needed to be a catalyst to make it happen ...

Which is where General Harwell enters the picture.  Now, the way I heered it, the SecAF had okayed CAP's request to promote the National CC to major general and the National CV to brigadier general, but didn't run it past the Chief of Staff.  Big mistake on the SecAF's part.  And after all the brouhaha settled down, General Harwell was allowed to keep the second star -- remember, the SecAF did approve the idea -- but after his term, when General Barry came up to NatCC, he quietly and politely declined the second star, preferring to continue as previous NatCCs had done as brigadier generals.  Since Gen. Harwell's second star was authorized under CAP regulations at the time, he got to keep it, but no one would get a second star for many years to come.

Jack

[ltcmark]

So far no one on this thread has mentioned the former CAP-USAF commander; Col John Massingale.   One of the stories that was relayed to me by a former National Commander was that Col Massingale had it in for CAP for ruining his chance of getting his star. 

Up until his term, the CAP-USAF Commander was a Brig Gen slot.  After Massingale was installed as commander, it became a Colonel slot.  If I remember right, they served a year in position as Colonel and then made Brig Gen.   The story goes that when it came time for the promotion, someone in the Air Force decided that it needed to be a Colonel slot permanently (read into this - payback for something).  Then Gen Harwell gets a second star.   That was a real slap in the face to Col Massingale.   He lost his star and Harwell gets it.  That is when the relationship between CAP and USAF took a nose dive. 

What is really sad about all of this, Air Force officers looked at service with CAP as a career ending job.  I attended all the National Board meetings in that time period; I did not think that Col Massingale was a friend of CAP.  He always seemed to me that he carried a big chip on his shoulder for what happened.

Now you know the rest of the story.

[NCRblues]

Now you know the rest of the story


...briefed...