Wimpy Encampments

[Eclipse]

I'm curious as to how many encampments have coed flights...

Effective this year...all of them.


Draft encampment guide:
"2.2 Integrated Flights & Co-Ed Environments
Cadet flights will be equally balanced by age, gender, cadet grade, and home unit, to the extent possible. Family
members will be segregated from one another whenever possible. Flights will not be segregated by gender,
except as a last resort due to logistical necessity. The real world is fully integrated; cadet activities need to be as
well so that male and female cadets learn to work together as a single team."

[68w20]

Texas Wing has them. Just about every flight is mixed. The only problems I have experienced are 1.) males and females just sometimes don't get along (it's natural), and 2.) they have different barracks assignments (not really a problem, but it can be troublesome when trying to get outside in the morning).

No, it's not.

[TexasCadet]

Texas Wing has them. Just about every flight is mixed. The only problems I have experienced are 1.) males and females just sometimes don't get along (it's natural), and 2.) they have different barracks assignments (not really a problem, but it can be troublesome when trying to get outside in the morning).

No, it's not.

Opposite genders don't get along sometimes, just like siblings don't sometimes. For example, in Texas, each flight has to do a skit pertaining to encampment. The males in my flight wanted to do something mimicking an inspection, while the females wanted to sing a song about encampment. Conflict might (and did) arise. Guess who got their way?

[68w20]

Texas Wing has them. Just about every flight is mixed. The only problems I have experienced are 1.) males and females just sometimes don't get along (it's natural), and 2.) they have different barracks assignments (not really a problem, but it can be troublesome when trying to get outside in the morning).

No, it's not.

Opposite genders don't get along sometimes, just like siblings don't sometimes. For example, in Texas, each flight has to do a skit pertaining to encampment. The males in my flight wanted to do something mimicking an inspection, while the females wanted to sing a song about encampment. Conflict might (and did) arise. Guess who got their way?

The issue at hand isn't gender, it's people.  Sometimes people don't get along, and people don't always agree.  It's completely unacceptable for us to simply throw our hands up in the air and exclaim "well if we were all the same gender, we'd be able to accomplish something."  If an individual is allowing another person's gender to affect their decision-making process, then that individual needs to be counselled and corrected.

Mixed-gender groups of people accomplish things all the time, it's absurd to suggest that "the norm" is that only same-sex groups can get anything done.   

-Sidenote: No one should have "gotten their way."  You're a flight, you work together as a team to achieve a common objective.  Strange, I think I read that somewhere...http://tinyurl.com/k84u7fo

[TexasCadet]

Texas Wing has them. Just about every flight is mixed. The only problems I have experienced are 1.) males and females just sometimes don't get along (it's natural), and 2.) they have different barracks assignments (not really a problem, but it can be troublesome when trying to get outside in the morning).

No, it's not.

Opposite genders don't get along sometimes, just like siblings don't sometimes. For example, in Texas, each flight has to do a skit pertaining to encampment. The males in my flight wanted to do something mimicking an inspection, while the females wanted to sing a song about encampment. Conflict might (and did) arise. Guess who got their way?

The issue at hand isn't gender, it's people.  Sometimes people don't get along, and people don't always agree.  It's completely unacceptable for us to simply throw our hands up in the air and exclaim "well if we were all the same gender, we'd be able to accomplish something."  If an individual is allowing another person's gender to affect their decision-making process, then that individual needs to be counselled and corrected.

Mixed-gender groups of people accomplish things all the time, it's absurd to suggest that "the norm" is that only same-sex groups can get anything done.   

-Sidenote: No one should have "gotten their way."  You're a flight, you work together as a team to achieve a common objective.  Strange, I think I read that somewhere...http://tinyurl.com/k84u7fo

Who said that only same-gender flights work? I've been saying that mixed-gender flights work. My example was one incident. As to who got their way, both males and females were satisfied with the final decision.

[tht1gurlflightsarg]

They also get more time to eat. and more things are considered hazing.

[SemperVig]

I just joined this forum, which I found totally by accident. I've been reading all these comments about how "wimpy" encampment has supposedly become, and I've seen a lot of familiar stories, complaints and situations I recognize from my own experiences as a cadet at encampment in the '80s (Ohio Wing).

First of all, I personally am on the fence about using "student." CAP cadets are between 13 (or is it 12?) and 18 (or is it 19?). They are "students" 9 months out of the year. Summer vacation is an escape from the academic life. CAP gives teenagers experience in leadership, and I believe they should be given the opportunity to be something a little more, I don't know, interesting, than having to be a student again for a week (in my day it was two) out of the summer. Encampment may be a bit more academic than it has been in years past, but it still looks and feels akin to basic training. They can be students when school starts again in the fall. For encampment week, let them be cadets, something they can take a little more pride in.

Re: Cursing, hazing, power-tripping, etc. I don't care how liberated you are, how you talk when you're hanging out with your friends, what kind of relationship you have with your parents, watch your language when you're in a position of authority over a bunch of kids, whether you're older than them, or their age. Some of them may come from households where every other word out of their parents' mouth is four letters long, or they may come from a strict conservative household where even the mildest epithet is prohibited. You are in mixed company, and you have a higher standard to aspire to anyway. And to the cadets who aren't in positions of authority, if you wouldn't talk that way in front of your parents, or teachers, or ministers, don't talk that way out in the field. I came home from my first encampment, talking about how I had to "sh**, shower and shave," and after about the second time I used that phrase, I got a stern talking to. I explained that that's what our flight sergeants would yell when we were getting up in the morning. Mom simply said, "You're home now. Watch your mouth."

Re: Sleep deprivation. Definitely not a good idea. I never knew what it was like to get a full night's sleep at encampment. I was a bad snorer and the cadet in the next bunk kicked me in the side about a dozen times a night. And as soon as I put my head on the pillow to sleep and closed my eyes, I instantly saw the back of another cadet's head. Even in my sleep I was in formation.

Someone mentioned having one's belongings dumped out or thrown out the window. This was a common occurrence at the encampments I went to. We had to have our bed made just so, our footlockers arranged just so. At barracks inspection time, if it wasn't "just so," we watched as the inspectors ripped the sheets off our beds and dumped our footlockers out at our feet. Other times we would come back to our barracks to find them trashed, with our sergeant screaming at us about how "while you dumb***es were out there playing Air Force, I was getting my *** chewed by the OD." (actual quote)

I can't imagine what it's like at encampment now, especially with kids so "plugged in" now. And there is a lot more talk about things being "PC" now than there was in my CAP days. How many demerits does a cadet get for texting?

[arajca]

I can't imagine what it's like at encampment now, especially with kids so "plugged in" now. And there is a lot more talk about things being "PC" now than there was in my CAP days. How many demerits does a cadet get for texting?

None. 1) Not every encampment uses demerits. 2) phones are generally considered contraband and taken from the cadets (students and staff) at check in if they fail to leave them at home or with parents.

[SemperVig]

I can't imagine what it's like at encampment now, especially with kids so "plugged in" now. And there is a lot more talk about things being "PC" now than there was in my CAP days. How many demerits does a cadet get for texting?

None. 1) Not every encampment uses demerits. 2) phones are generally considered contraband and taken from the cadets (students and staff) at check in if they fail to leave them at home or with parents.

Whooo. I bet THAT goes over well with the kids today. ;-)

[a2capt]

If it's not on the equipment list, you don't bring it.

Lindbergh got to Paris without GPS, the kid can go a week without the phone.

Demerits, dumping drawers, beds, etc., is just totally pointless.

I suspect the term "student" was chosen because no matter what else they chose, someone was bound to have used it. This gets rid of all those classifications and borderline derogatory terms, and allows the event to concentrate on it's intended purpose.

Having cadets worry about their stuff, having to spend time folding laundry over and over again, isn't part of the intention. That's crap invented by people who can't figure out a real way to lead people, so management by terror it is.

[nomiddlemas]

Never been to encampment.  The last one was filled out.  Sounds like fun. 

[Garibaldi]

I can't imagine what it's like at encampment now, especially with kids so "plugged in" now. And there is a lot more talk about things being "PC" now than there was in my CAP days. How many demerits does a cadet get for texting?

None. 1) Not every encampment uses demerits. 2) phones are generally considered contraband and taken from the cadets (students and staff) at check in if they fail to leave them at home or with parents.

Whooo. I bet THAT goes over well with the kids today. ;-)

They are told well in advance that these items are verboten. If they happen to "forget" they are reminded that it is in the handbook, they were given verbal instruction to not take them, and if they don't like it, tough. They can live a week without them.