No-notice exercises

[RiverAux]

North Carolina Wing recently did something that I have advocated for locally for some time -- no notice practice missions.  http://www.ncwg.cap.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=article.display&articleID=324

We've done some occasional no-notice tests of our alerting system, but never an actual mission.  These were fairly small-scale, which is probably appropriate for this sort of test. 

I've wondered if the main reason we don't do them more often is that we're somewhat worried about what the results would show about our readiness. 

[manfredvonrichthofen]

I have been thinking of the same thing. One of my thoughts was to schedule a training exercise for a Saturday and perform a phone alert Friday evening. During the phone alert we would tell them to report for the exercise in two hours, those that report will get pizza for dinner and a good movie followed up with some night training if they want and then spending the night at the armory.

I understand being afraid of doing this because it could prove that your unit is not ready, but at least you would know that you are not ready, and you could figure out how to fix it.

[JeffDG]

The problem is that a no-notice exercise does not tell us what is available to respond in the event of a real scenario.

For example, in the event of a real disaster, I'm available 24/7 to respond.  I have arrangements with my employer and family for "real".  I am NOT available 24/7 for exercises however.

So, that leaves two possible outcomes:  1)  You tell people it's an exercise and get pitiful turnout because people have other things to do, or 2) You don't tell people it's an exercise, and you suffer huge attrition after people realize that you've lied to them and jeopardized their actual jobs and interrupted family plans.

What we've taken to doing is "cold-call" exercises.  People know it's coming on a particular day, but not when.  We then work from the alert through the exercise, which IMHO, provides a more realistic measure of actual readiness.

[RiverAux]

I have been thinking of the same thing. One of my thoughts was to schedule a training exercise for a Saturday and perform a phone alert Friday evening. During the phone alert we would tell them to report for the exercise in two hours, those that report will get pizza for dinner and a good movie followed up with some night training if they want and then spending the night at the armory.

Now, I actually wouldn't do it that way because people may make major changes in their plans in order to respond only to find out that it wasn't necessary.  That will get people mad.  That sort of alert test could be done by just asking them if they could make it if there was an honest-to-goodness mission need right then. 

But, calling them on Friday night or Saturday morning and telling them that there is a practice exercise starting in a few hours would be all right. 

[RADIOMAN015]

North Carolina Wing recently did something that I have advocated for locally for some time -- no notice practice missions.  http://www.ncwg.cap.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=article.display&articleID=324

We've done some occasional no-notice tests of our alerting system, but never an actual mission.  These were fairly small-scale, which is probably appropriate for this sort of test. 

I've wondered if the main reason we don't do them more often is that we're somewhat worried about what the results would show about our readiness.

Well it looks like they got the plane up in the air in basically one hour after the alert was transmitted.  I think most wings have a goal of getting the aircraft up within an hour or two of the alert time.   HOWEVER, if we have a practice alert/response do we specifically tell the folks responding to the alert that it is only a test?  I'd be mad as hell if you paged me to respond and then when I was up in the air or manning the radio at mission base and you then told me it was just a response test.

I don't think these no notice exercises prove very much.  We are volunteer force, and people can choose at will whether they want to respond or not and sometimes have commitments that can't be cancelled.  Also in many areas of our wing the time of day (e.g. morning commute & evening commute) would significantly affect response time to some airports that CAP aircraft are based at and the particular responding crew members geographic location in relation to the airport.

About 2 years ago, we had a period of time having difficulty getting IC's and actually used out of wing IC's for awhile that was more of a problem for the alerting officer than getting both air & ground teams to respond.

Our state is also fortunate in that the State Police has an air wing with five helicopters dispersed to three facilities throughout the state so they could easily take these quick missions since there's always one crew on hot alert at one of the facilities, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.   So for us it probably isn't that critical in the end, since those helicopters have better sensors (for night time missions) for finding crashes & victims than we every will (and it was rumored that they were also buying DF equipment for the helos) .   Also the helos can stream real time video down to fixed as well as fast response mobile C3 vehicles dispersed throughout the state.

So it's likely that our missions will be primarily recon type photos in the aftermath of natural type disasters.
I don't think they will need a 2 hours response time with that mission .
RM

[Eclipse]

No-notice exercises are exactly what is needed to find out who will really come.

To an employer they should be treated as a real-world, and in the states with job protection, if the orders are written properly,
they would be protected.

Every wing should have at least one a year, and anyone who wants to be on the "A" list, had better either call or have a really-good excuse.

Easing into it is fine - perhaps start with non-notice call downs where people don't know it is an exercise until they respond, from there move to normal notice, but no idea where you will go, what you will do, then go to short notice and finally no-notice.

[EMT-83]

Personally, I don't think it proves anything.

Your self-employed and retired folks will be there; many of us won't. My employer is very supportive, but leaving work without notice for a drill is a non-starter.

[Eclipse]

That was partially my point - why would he know it is a drill?

You're activated, "here's the orders...," "I'll be back in two days...".  I would never suggest this happen more than once a year,
and of course it is easier for all involved when you can point to the TV and say "I'm going there.", but activated is activated.

Also, no one said it had to be during the week.  No reason you can't put out the no-notice alert on Friday evening for a weekend
mission.

[JeffDG]

To an employer they should be treated as a real-world, and in the states with job protection, if the orders are written properly,
they would be protected.

It's not the same, and under no circumstances should CAP be using job protection laws for exercises.

Many of us have excellent relationships with our employers.  If CAP were to start pulling stunts like this, that relationship would be toast, and if you ask me to choose between my employer who permits me to pay my bills and put food on my family's table, and CAP who is lying to me by doing such exercises, the choice is incredibly easy.

[JeffDG]

Also, no one said it had to be during the week.  No reason you can't put out the no-notice alert on Friday evening for a weekend
mission.

OK, that's all well and good until you pull a stunt like that when I have plans with the family for the weekend.  For the real thing, I'm quite willing to eat a pre-booked airline or hotel cost to help out, but if I go and do that because some jackass decides he wants to pull my chain and do a "readyness" test...well, it'll only happen once.

[wuzafuzz]

I understand the concept of no-notice exercises but I don't believe it is a good fit for a volunteer organization.

Some of those job protection laws don't require employers to pay CAP members who leave work to do CAP things.  Further, some of those laws require the existence of an actual emergency in addition to "orders."  I would be bent out of shape if I unwittingly burned a vacation day for a surprise exercise.

In my wing I see no reason to run a no-notice exercise.  We've already established a track record with real missions.  There is no reason to poke our members with a stick to see how they react.  If you never have real missions you probably don't have a compelling need to see how quickly you can respond.

[a2capt]

You could have those plane tickets for a Tuesday afternoon, that same chain would be potentially pulled then, too.

No difference.

[RADIOMAN015]

No-notice exercises are exactly what is needed to find out who will really come.

To an employer they should be treated as a real-world, and in the states with job protection, if the orders are written properly,
they would be protected.

Every wing should have at least one a year, and anyone who wants to be on the "A" list, had better either call or have a really-good excuse.

Easing into it is fine - perhaps start with non-notice call downs where people don't know it is an exercise until they respond, from there move to normal notice, but no idea where you will go, what you will do, then go to short notice and finally no-notice.

I don't think it is a very good idea to lie to one's employer about an emergency CAP mission that is only a practice test.  Most of these tests can be conducted via telephone/text pages and the individual can indicate their availability by calling back the control point/alert officer and advise their estimated time of arrival to their response location.  As an example I provide ES communications from our squadron hq for part of the state and from work I can be there in about 40 minutes.  From home about 10 minutes.

RM
         

[Eclipse]

Also, no one said it had to be during the week.  No reason you can't put out the no-notice alert on Friday evening for a weekend
mission.

OK, that's all well and good until you pull a stunt like that when I have plans with the family for the weekend.  For the real thing, I'm quite willing to eat a pre-booked airline or hotel cost to help out, but if I go and do that because some jackass decides he wants to pull my chain and do a "readyness" test...well, it'll only happen once.

Obviously no one would be eating plane tickets or cancelling a vacation or business trip for an exercise or an actual.  The perception that you are so important you'd need to is skewed at best, though it is an example of why we need more people.   If you can't go, you can't go, but continuing to semi-prove that we can be semi-successful with 6+ months of planning and advance notice doesn't show any readiness at all. 

Why do people have a tendency to immediately go for the worst-case scenario instead of at least trying to think through beyond how it affects them, personally?

So no-notice is not reasonable for volunteers, I can see that, so how about semi-notice?  In other words you know the dates, so you can take off, but yo don't know the where or what.  That way stuff is "kinda-staged", people can arrange work, and there is still some semblence of surprise and requirement to think on your feet.

The answer, frankly, is that the majority of members will only go to missions within easy driving distance of their homes, reimbursed or not.  Maybe not the majority here, because most of us here are hyper-engaged already, but look around at your wings and see how many members are really willing to pickup and go for a 2-3+ days.  We all know the answer.

As to the comments about "lying to your boss, and not getting paid", no one said to lie to anyone, activation is activation, and
whether you get paid or not isn't going to change based on actual vs. training.  None of the states I am aware of guarantee pay to CAP or the military, it is simply a guarantee of your job.

The alternative is to carry on as we have - months of planing and we still have issues with people showing up, and more issues with
people being more than day-players.  Worse when there is a good game on or the weather is nice for golf or personal flying.  During these situations we're told repeatedly that "I'd show up in a real-world..." despite the fact that A: They don't, and B: We don't want once-a-year members showing up for the real-worlds and bumping into each other.

[ol'fido]

We tend to mount SAREXs, especially the AF evaluated missions with all the wing aircraft and as many vehicles and people as possible. We do this to ensure maximum training bang for our bucks, to put on an impressive show, and to make sure that everyone's on the same sheet of music. We have detailed OPLANs and Warning Orders and all that.

However, when we have real world call outs we usually get a fraction of those resources responding and the planning is done on the fly. It's late at night and the carefully planned and supplied response is a distant memory.

One thing we can do is to have regularly scheduled exercises. Too many times we plan our SAREX's around other events. "Oh, we can't have an exercise that weekend. That's the weekend of the wing drill team competition." So the SAREX get's moved around and finally canceled because of too many conflicting events. Hold these even if they conflict and you will probably get an idea of the resources you'll have for a real world mission.

Another thing we can do is have regular phone alerts. Everyone gets called, texted, and e mailed just like it's the real deal but all they do is respond electronically. This will get everyone a good picture of the kind of response they can expect on real world missions.

[RADIOMAN015]

Also, no one said it had to be during the week.  No reason you can't put out the no-notice alert on Friday evening for a weekend
mission.

The answer, frankly, is that the majority of members will only go to missions within easy driving distance of their homes, reimbursed or not.  Maybe not the majority here, because most of us here are hyper-engaged already, but look around at your wings and see how many members are really willing to pickup and go for a 2-3+ days.  We all know the answer.

Showing me a regulation that says a member once signed into a mission has to stay for the entire mission.  A volunteer can decide how long they can stay at a mission and let the IC or branch director know, IF they have any limitations.  Otherwise there will be even less availability of personnel.

Since CAP is a community based programs with squadrons in a specific geographic areas, it's really the wings' (and/or if groups' authorized) responsibility to ensure they have adequately trained mission support,  ground teams, & aircrews (less of an issue they can just fly there) in every part of the wing.  Frankly it isn't my fault if mission base (as an example) is 2 hours away and they want you to show up at 0800 hrs local.  I sleep till 0600 and will leave my home at 0715, so I'll be there at 0915 hrs local, welcome to the real world of Civil Air Patrol.   BTW with a two hour drive time to return home it is likely that the maximum amount of time I would be willing to stay at mission base would be 1715 hrs local.  That will get me home at 1915 hrs local, the maximum safe duty day of 12 hours.  Remember that because wing couldn't plan/train enough people they built in that 4 hours of travel time for me IF the mission base was 10 minutes from my home (at my normal mission base duty station) I would be available the full 12 hours at mission base and maybe even longer (e.g. 2345 hrs local), because it would be limited drive time to home and I would be less worried about getting too tired while driving home. 

IF the wing needed me for another day, I might consider staying overnight if they paid for a comfortable hotel room, I am not interested in sleeping on the floor of mission base or in some tent.
     
IF I remember correctly in the ES section one can put in their available time and what they want to do for ES.   BTW I also don't want to go past midnight on any mission, and really don't want to be called before 0600 hrs local.  That's listed in my profile, that's what the planners need to use.  Again travel time from/to home reduces the available time at the mission base.

My guess is that many others feel the same way.  I am not going to kill myself driving home or get sick from lack of sleep because of a lack of planning or should I say the amount of members with all that ES bling of qualifications that NEVER seem to be available for anything until it becomes time for them to renew their qualifications.

That's the way I see it in CAP ES.
RM       

[Eclipse]

^ Far too many of our members walk around with a hat on that says "you're lucky I showed up at all", and then complain
when we are not taken seriously by other agencies.  It's further amusing when the assumption is that your sleep is "important" but
others should get up early so there's a mission base for you to stroll into after your morning spa.

Citing regs is beside the point here, that attitude is the reason we are not taken seriously in some areas of the country by other agencies.  You can't run a professional-level organization with people who believe they can come and go as they please and leave the
heavy lifting for "the other guy", and because of the inability to plan response strength, many wings choose to simply disengage in the first place.

Your bolding of "Civil" just indicates how little you understand the issue.  This is not a "civil vs. military" discussion.  The ARC which is a civil organization, has less tolerance than CAP by a long shot for people who think they can just wander in whenever they feel like it.  Their professionalized staff have as high or higher expectations of training and performance that CAP, and if you commit and son't show, or put in a 1/2-effort, they don't invite you back.

[JeffDG]

So no-notice is not reasonable for volunteers, I can see that, so how about semi-notice?  In other words you know the dates, so you can take off, but yo don't know the where or what.  That way stuff is "kinda-staged", people can arrange work, and there is still some semblence of surprise and requirement to think on your feet.

We've started down  this road with the "cold start" missions.  Instead of having a bunch of people standing around the ICP at the start of the mission, we've started not telling people where the ICP will be, or what time, until a call-blast goes out.  I think the next phase of this evolution will be to not release the exercise scenario to the mission staff until the same time.

For Ardent Sentry, we know our initial taskings for when the call comes, but we will be planning on-the-fly for the follow-on taskings.  I think that's a decent model for real-world.  We have certain missions that we do semi-regularly.  We should practice those, but throw new things into the mix.

[wuzafuzz]

So no-notice is not reasonable for volunteers, I can see that, so how about semi-notice?  In other words you know the dates, so you can take off, but yo don't know the where or what.  That way stuff is "kinda-staged", people can arrange work, and there is still some semblence of surprise and requirement to think on your feet.

Perfect.  People know it's an exercise in advance and make arrangements as necessary.  They have no idea what will happen.  When the call goes out EVERYONE starts from scratch.  Everything from finding an IC and staff, activating communications, standing up an ICP if indicated, and so on.

Every SAREX I've ever participated in was planned months in advance with plenty of time to identify and activate resources.  Every real mission I've been on was run out of someone's house with no MRO's, no MSA's, no flightline marshallers, no CUL, etc.  Nothing more than an IC and an aircrew or ground team.  For those reasons I do see value in seeing whether we can stand up a real mission base with proper staffing; just in case a Steve Fossett type of mission pops up.  Just don't bait and switch our volunteers with a fake REDCAP.

Some people have suggested we are always secondary or tertiary resources so we can take our time responding.  True in many cases, but not all.  We do need to respond quickly sometimes.  Distress ELT's and missing hikers are two examples.  In those instances we fail dramatically if we create unnecessary delay while someone's life may be slipping away.  We are among the first responders for those incidents.  That's not a wannabe fantasy, it is provable fact demonstrated repeatedly over the years.

[Larry Mangum]

My 2 cents,

1. I have seen it where the mission is run out of an IC's home, mine included as well as standing up a full mission base. The difference, was that every SAREX was run utilizing as a minimum an IC, AOBD, GBD, CUL if it was at the group level. If it was at the wing level, we filled all of the slots, and no one except a few knew what the scenario entailed.  Planning had to do their part, ops theirs and so on. So we trained as we fought as the parlance goes.

2. As an IC in real world missions, I have never insisted someone stay from the time the mission starts until it ends. That just is not realistic, and before you start, I see us as "unpaid professional", and that we quit being just "volunteers" once we signed up and agreed to follow the rules of the organization. But let's be real, we should never ask any member to put their job or family on the line to complete a mission. A wing should have enough trained and qualified personnel to allow members to rotate in and out of the mission as their availability permits. I do ask that they either commit to a complete operational period or be forthright with how much time they have available, so I can ensure they are utilized correctly.

3. Full "No Notice" exercises do not really work, in our environment, but no notice exercising of the alert system does, and can be just as effective, if it is done correctly.  When done right, you can get a good feel for who will respond and who will not.

[JeffDG]

Larry...

I've heard from many, and cannot disagree, that the Planning Section gets shortchanged in most SAREXs...we have everything planned weeks in advance, so there's often no money for stuff like follow-on sorties to react to information received.

That said, I think Wings need to put work into pre-planning certain disaster scenarios so the "first wave" of response can be launched on short notice.  It would be great if we could do SAREXs that had pre-planned initial launches based on scenarios, then follow-on planned-in-the-saddle based on injects received during the initial push.

[Eclipse]

Part of the issue is that a lot of PSC's have no idea what their role is and get involved in "now" instead of "next".

Every wing should have a plan to get things moving, and even some inbound sorties, etc., but we all know how long those plans survive.

[scooter]

I agree using no-notice is probably an exercise in frustration for a volunteer outfit. We did them all the time in the AF. However, you could run a no-notice red cap practice alert notification exercise with the caveat that you don't call in unless you could actually report for duty within a given time frame, say 1 or 2 hours or both. It would at least give the wing some indication how quickly the troops could respond if it was the real thing.

[arajca]

The COWG Communications Exercise in Feb did something similar - information was requested on the availablilty of members with specific ES qualifications who could respond for a 48 hour period. No one was told to respond - although in a couple of instances that part got lost. Was it a true no-notice exercise? No, but except for a very few folks on the Comm Staff who planned and ran it, no one knew what was going to happen. The notice folks got was 12 hours over the VHF net and a little less via email list. We had 76% of CAP-owned stations participate. Not a bad showing.

[Larry Mangum]

ALWG, ran a no-notice phone alert exercise last night, that clearly stated it was an exercise.  This morning, a message was sent to wing members and the majority of the text is below:

Alert Exercise
This evening we conducted our first of soon to be regular alert exercises using the wing's new mass alert system.  This new system allows us to contact all members nearly simultaneously if we need to to make inquiries for mission availability or to disseminate information.  For this particular exercise, all current and qualified mission pilots, observers, and scanners were supposed to be contacted at their primary home, work, and cell phone numbers as listed in eServices.  The alert message announced that it was an exercise message, said that the ALWG has been activated by the AFRCC to search for an overdue aircraft, and asked the call recipient to call the ICP phone number and report their name, unit, CAPID, ES qualifications, phone number, and aircraft availability if they would have been available had this a real mission.  We received 23 responses of positive availability out of 171 people contacted.  While this is only a 13% response rate, 23 aircrew members from 11 different units reporting available with 7 different aircraft would certainly be sufficient to conduct a large scale search had there been an actual need for one.  The following is a breakdown of the positive responses by unit.

If you were not contacted and feel you should have been, please first check to make sure that your phone number(s) is correct in eServices. Again, this alert went out to only the 171 members who, according to eServices, are current and qualified mission pilot, observer, or scanner. If you are not an active MP, MO, or MS, you should not have been contacted.  The alert should have gone to each of the phone numbers listed in eServices.  If this was not your experience, please let me know what issues you had with as much detail as possible.

An analysis followed and I will not bore you with those details, but lessons where learned and will be applied to future no-notice exercises.

[RiverAux]

Well, thats a good incentive to try to make sure the information in eservices is correct.  I don't know about phone numbers, but the email addresses in there are often junk. 

[RADIOMAN015]

ALWG, ran a no-notice phone alert exercise last night, that clearly stated it was an exercise.  This morning, a message was sent to wing members and the majority of the text is below:

Alert Exercise
This evening we conducted our first of soon to be regular alert exercises using the wing's new mass alert system.  This new system allows us to contact all members nearly simultaneously if we need to to make inquiries for mission availability or to disseminate information.  For this particular exercise, all current and qualified mission pilots, observers, and scanners were supposed to be contacted at their primary home, work, and cell phone numbers as listed in eServices.  The alert message announced that it was an exercise message, said that the ALWG has been activated by the AFRCC to search for an overdue aircraft, and asked the call recipient to call the ICP phone number and report their name, unit, CAPID, ES qualifications, phone number, and aircraft availability if they would have been available had this a real mission. 

What hardware are you using for your alert system?  We basically just use an email type server that sends text messages to phone & computers.  Locally I have an up to date list of all the senior members and a good idea what phone number to call at certain times of the day.

I know in the past when there's been some ELT call outs at 0400 hrs local in the morning, the text based system basically hasn't worked because no one has their computers on and many may also have their cellphones off. 

What I've found interesting is the number of members that don't have a small note pad & pen/pencil to take notes next to their phone and this slows down the manual voice alert process as they hunt around for a note pad/pen --- pretty sad
RM     

[ande.boyer]

What hardware are you using for your alert system?

We're using message911.com.  Highly recommended.

Capt Ande Boyer
Director of Emergency Services, ALWG

[Robborsari]

What hardware are you using for your alert system?

We're using message911.com.  Highly recommended.

Capt Ande Boyer
Director of Emergency Services, ALWG

I have been using one called directra.  www.directra.com.  Its in beta right now and they are looking for users.  One feature it has that I like is import of contacts in csv format.  I can export a spreadsheet of a mission pilot report for example and then import it to create a list of all mission pilots.  I can also import the list from our exercise pre-registration tool and create custom lists for each exercise.
These kinds of sites are very helpful in saving time on the notification end.

[LGM30GMCC]

For me:
If it's an actual mission, at the commander's discretion active USAF folks can take up to 4 days permissive TDY. Burning those for a 'no notice' exercise would not only be ill-advised (relationship wise and whatnot) but is quite likely illegal. All it takes is for it to be abused once and it will evaporate very very quickly. If you want to do a 'no-notice' like thing...don't tell ahead of time except to a few trusted agents where/when it will kick off specifically, but have a weekend locked down. As others have pointed out, we're just not well suited to no-notice exercises.

[Eclipse]

The next person to say it is "likely illegal" is off my Christmas card list.

If you're activated through proper channels, you're activated, exercise or no.  The only way this would be "illegal" is you, as the member, mischaracterize the situation intentionally.

We all have our personal responsibilities, and know the score at our work best.  If you can't go, you can't go, but that doesn't mean being activated for an exercise would be "illegal".

[JeffDG]

The next person to say it is "likely illegal" is off my Christmas card list.

If you're activated through proper channels, you're activated, exercise or no.  The only way this would be "illegal" is you, as the member, mischaracterize the situation intentionally.

We all have our personal responsibilities, and know the score at our work best.  If you can't go, you can't go, but that doesn't mean being activated for an exercise would be "illegal".

If I make an agreement with my employer to depart for actual emergencies, but not for exercises, and there's a no-notice with no indication it's an exercise, and I go, yes...it's illegal, in that I've breeched my contract of employment with my employer, and contracts are legal instruments, and breeching them is, per se, illegal.  Is it a felony?  No.  But that doesn't make it legal or appropriate to do so.

The individual who used that line said that he is AD military, and can be released for actual emergencies...in that case, misrepresentation by him, even if he is not aware that it is misrepresentation, probably violates at least some regulations, if not statutes, so is illegal.

[Eclipse]

In your case that would be a civil situation, not criminal, and if you are silly enough to breach an employment contract for CAP, especially when you aren't
in any way required to, then you deserve the consequences.

Further, if you lie regarding your activation, that deception also has consequences.

I am not in any way suggesting anyone lie, period, so if you do, you're having a different argument.

Just as with most military leave acts, the granting of CAP job protection isn't based on why you are activated, only that you are activated properly in respect to your states requirements.  Military units and government entities get activated for exercises all the time.  Is anyone here trying to insinuate that if their military unit was activated for Ardent Sentry their employer would say "no" it isn't "real world"?   Of course not.  They get the order paperwork, and whatever the process is, the process is.

I and others have already suggested alternatives to a full no-notice exercise which could reasonably inch the needle in the direction we need it to go, but instead we have people who want to argue that their personal response limitations should shape the total program.

If anything, the fact that people have response limitations should open the eyes of those who are doing our readiness assessments, if for no other reason than exercises like NLE/AS don't happen on Saturday after golf, when the weather is clear.  They happen during the week, weather and "other" be darned, because the agencies we profess to stand with and support are 24x7 entities with no volunteer limitations.

We can continue to make 1% excuses why members "can't", in which case we need to stop whining about our relative place in the universe, or we can try to at least nudge the bar and expectations and start treating CAP the way the marketing collateral and many responses plans describe it, as more than an hour a week and "when I feel like it..."

[a2capt]

At some point during the response when you realize it's an exercise, just bow out if you can't dedicate the time to it right now. The same thing you do if you during any mission. Stuff changes, can't go. Sorry.

The system worked.

I would, OTOH, hope they indicate right up near the alert that it's a fake, after seeing that the alerting system works.

[davidsinn]

Just as with most military leave acts, the granting of CAP job protection isn't based on why you are activated, only that you are activated properly in respect to your states requirements.  Military units and government entities get activated for exercises all the time.  Is anyone here trying to insinuate that if their military unit was activated for Ardent Sentry their employer would say "no" it isn't "real world"?   Of course not.  They get the order paperwork, and whatever the process is, the process is.

Actually in my state it does matter why you are activated.

IC 4-15-10-8
Civil air patrol emergency service operations
Sec. 8. (a) For purposes of this section, "civil air patrol" refers to the Indiana wing of the civil air patrol.
(b) For purposes of this section, "emergency service operation" includes the following operations of the
civil air patrol:
(1) Search and rescue missions designated by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center.(2) Disaster relief, when requested by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the department ofhomeland security established by IC 10-19-2-1.(3) Humanitarian services, when requested by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or thedepartment of homeland security established by IC 10-19-2-1.(4) United States Air Force support designated by the First Air Force, North American AerospaceDefense Command.
(c) An employee may not be disciplined for absence from work if:
(1) the employee is a member of the civil air patrol;
(2) the employee has notified the employee's immediate supervisor in writing that the employee is a
member of the civil air patrol;
(3) in the event that the employee has already reported for work
on the day of the emergency service operation, the employee secures authorization from the employee's
supervisor to leave the employee's duty station before leaving to engage in the emergency service operation;
and
(4) the employee presents a written statement to the employee's immediate supervisor from the
commander or other officer in charge of the civil air patrol indicating that the employee was engaged in an
emergency service operation at the time of the employee's absence from work.

A training exercise does not count. When I was employed I would have gone for a real world but I would not have gone for a short/no notice exercise because the bills still have to be paid.

[Eclipse]

Just as with most military leave acts, the granting of CAP job protection isn't based on why you are activated, only that you are activated properly in respect to your states requirements.  Military units and government entities get activated for exercises all the time.  Is anyone here trying to insinuate that if their military unit was activated for Ardent Sentry their employer would say "no" it isn't "real world"?   Of course not.  They get the order paperwork, and whatever the process is, the process is.

Actually in my state it does matter why you are activated.

IC 4-15-10-8
Civil air patrol emergency service operations
Sec. 8. (a) For purposes of this section, "civil air patrol" refers to the Indiana wing of the civil air patrol.
(b) For purposes of this section, "emergency service operation" includes the following operations of the
civil air patrol:
(1) Search and rescue missions designated by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center.(2) Disaster relief, when requested by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the department ofhomeland security established by IC 10-19-2-1.(3) Humanitarian services, when requested by the Federal Emergency Management Agency or thedepartment of homeland security established by IC 10-19-2-1.(4) United States Air Force support designated by the First Air Force, North American AerospaceDefense Command.
(c) An employee may not be disciplined for absence from work if:
(1) the employee is a member of the civil air patrol;
(2) the employee has notified the employee's immediate supervisor in writing that the employee is a
member of the civil air patrol;
(3) in the event that the employee has already reported for work
on the day of the emergency service operation, the employee secures authorization from the employee's
supervisor to leave the employee's duty station before leaving to engage in the emergency service operation;
and
(4) the employee presents a written statement to the employee's immediate supervisor from the
commander or other officer in charge of the civil air patrol indicating that the employee was engaged in an
emergency service operation at the time of the employee's absence from work.

A training exercise does not count. When I was employed I would have gone for a real world but I would not have gone for a short/no notice exercise because the bills still have to be paid.

I disagree - #1 is just a mission number.  AS last week was an A-mission.

However, fine, don't respond then, or call in and let your response be that given a real-world you would be required to submit a job protection
claim in order to respond.  The IC might not want you in that case, or he can indicate you at least called in.

Today most wings couldn't even give you an idea of how many people would even answer the phone, let alone respond.

Further, while the job protection acts are a nice-to-have, in most cases, people who would actually have to fall-back on those to get released from work, are probably not in the position to be comfortable doing it anyway.

[JeffDG]

In your case that would be a civil situation, not criminal, and if you are silly enough to breach an employment contract for CAP, especially when you aren't
in any way required to, then you deserve the consequences.

You said illegal, not criminal.  If you want to get on people's case about calling something illegal, you might want to understand that civil matters are illegal just the same as criminal matters.

Further, if you lie regarding your activation, that deception also has consequences.

I am not in any way suggesting anyone lie, period, so if you do, you're having a different argument.

Just as with most military leave acts, the granting of CAP job protection isn't based on why you are activated, only that you are activated properly in respect to your states requirements.  Military units and government entities get activated for exercises all the time.  Is anyone here trying to insinuate that if their military unit was activated for Ardent Sentry their employer would say "no" it isn't "real world"?   Of course not.  They get the order paperwork, and whatever the process is, the process is.

If someone at CAP calls me and activates me without telling me it's a no-notice exercise, then my legitimate presumption is that it's a real-emergency.  If someone yanks my chain like that for an exercise, then I will, effectively, be misleading my employer when I leave.

I have an agreement with my employer that I can go for real-world emergency services missions, not for training exercises without notice (like last week for Ardent Sentry).

So, if you call and tell people it's an exercise you'll get a low turnout.  If you call and fail to tell people it's an exercise, you'll get a high turnout...once.

[Eclipse]

In your case that would be a civil situation, not criminal, and if you are silly enough to breach an employment contract for CAP, especially when you aren't
in any way required to, then you deserve the consequences.

You said illegal, not criminal.  If you want to get on people's case about calling something illegal, you might want to understand that civil matters are illegal just the same as criminal matters.

Yeah, OK.  We both know the above was intended to insinuate that leaving work for CAP when it was "only" an exercise was a criminal offense.
Regardless, civil or criminal would only be the case if you, as the employee, intentionally mislead the employer as to the nature of the exercise, which
no one is telling anyone to do, ever.

Further, agreements a respective employee may have in regards to job protection are irrelevant in a larger discussion that includes that includes
state job protection laws, because what you agree to, or are simply comfortable with, may be more or less restrictive than the law allows, and you
potentially do it at your own risk.

So, if you call and tell people it's an exercise you'll get a low turnout.  If you call and fail to tell people it's an exercise, you'll get a high turnout...once.

Not if the expectation is that you come when you are called, and further, history has shown us that with 6 months notice, 35 emails, 10 phones calls,
and a sunny day, you'll still have too many people telling you, I wasn't there, but would be there for the 'big one'.

I have already agreed about 4 times that a no-notice, especially the first one, is unreasonable during working hours.  Fine.

So we have a non-notice drive-in on an evening or weekend.  I'm sure that is too much to ask as well.

How about a full-notice but you have no idea where you will go?

Or a 3-day notice where yo know where you will go but it is mid-week, like Katrina (or most of the MidWest right now).

[JeffDG]

I have already agreed about 4 times that a no-notice, especially the first one, is unreasonable during working hours.  Fine.

So we have a non-notice drive-in on an evening or weekend.  I'm sure that is too much to ask as well.

How about a full-notice but you have no idea where you will go?

Or a 3-day notice where yo know where you will go but it is mid-week, like Katrina (or most of the MidWest right now).

And I have already said that there are other ways too.

Like doing "Cold Start" exercises.  People know when (day) that the exercise is happening, but not when until the call-blast goes out, which informs them where to report.  These are excellent tests of capability, because the IC or Project Officer can initiate the blast when the time is right, so we don't spin our wheels waiting for ceilings to go up, and we get an idea of how long it takes to get launched from nothing.

[RiverAux]

Jeff, it would seem to be the responsibility of CAP to ensure that in your case that orders are properly written when that law comes into affect.  The simplest thing would be for CAP to not write such orders in the event of a no-notice exercise.  That way there would be no way for your employer or you to get in a bind -- you just wouldn't be a participant. 

[Spaceman3750]

How about a full-notice but you have no idea where you will go?

We already played this game with Ardent Sentry to a degree. I won't be playing again.

[Eclipse]

How about a full-notice but you have no idea where you will go?

We already played this game with Ardent Sentry to a degree. I won't be playing again.

Not really fair considering the primary player called things off on us, though there was plenty of activity all over the state.

[LGM30GMCC]

No notice during non-duty hours, sure I'd likely go:

Here's the cite for USAF AD folks BTW from AFI 36-3003 Table 7. Authorizing Permissive Temporary Duty.

24 to perform emergency duties as members of the Civil Air Patrol, unit commander may approve up to 4 days.

So an ES-exercise...not an emergency, therefore taking PTDY for it would be in violation of that, and unless/until you got leave/pass for it you would be there on false pretenses...which would be really, really bad. I'd need to talk to a JAG but I'm willing to bet at the very least they could burn you leave, at the very worst go for something more severe. I don't know of many commanders that would let you stay if it were not an emergency and you had used this to get there. And likely would be disinclined to approve it again even if it was one. Especially not in the OPS world where you screw up the schedule and it affects a lot of other people.

[Eclipse]

So.

Don't.

Respond.

You're not rolling on a 1-day emergency anyway since it takes longer than that to get approval, and further, you can't go at all without
written orders, which would likely not be cut for a no-notice exercise.  However, again, if AFRCC cuts the mission symbol correctly, A is A,
the orders are proper, and you should be granted the leave if you want it.  Most likely the backchannels of this sort of thing would
be more than capable of confirming if your involvement in the exercise was more important than your day job.  If you are a key-twister,
and the other guy is sick, stay at work.

There's no point in continuing to cite all the 1% cases where the OSS will hunt down a volunteer "only" practicing.  By far the majority of
members do not fall into that category in even a remote way, and further to that, we all know that in the "real" world, how you characterize things
makes a huge difference, since most of us would be granted leave based on the integrity of the need, not the letter in the mission number.

[wuzafuzz]

Civil or criminal....whatever.  The bottom line is some state laws only protect CAP members for actual emergencies.  People who unwittingly respond to a non-emergent situation could be forced to burn vacation time or suffer the time without pay.  Anyone who initiates a call out that denies members the opportunity to make an informed decision whether to respond deserves a boot to the head. 

Exercises or not, all call outs should include some basic mission info.  Alert pages in my wing are brief but informative.  Something like "11-M-xxxx.  Need AOBD and aircrew with mountain pilot for missing person search in Land of Oz.  IC is Joe Cool (800-123-####).  Exercise messages start and end with "EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE."  Formats vary of course, but no one should be responding to an exercise without knowing it's an exercise.  For live missions the basics such as general location and mission type help all of us determine whether the mission rates leaving work, bailing on other plans, etc.

[Eclipse]

None of the states require leave with pay for CAP.  It's a way on the member or per the agreement with the employer.
Just like military leave, they only protect the job (or require a "similar" one be provided on return).

I'd have no issue with informing the member after they respond of the type of activity.  We have members now who won't even answer the phone during business hours or after bedtime.

[a2capt]

Plus, determining if a call out is a fake or not should be fairly easy. They have to include something about it in the page. Just look at the news ;-)

[sardak]

None of the states require leave with pay for CAP.

Wrong.  Colorado Revised Statutes
28-1-104. Public employees - leave of absence.
(1) Any member who is an officer or employee of the state or of any political subdivision, municipal corporation, or other public agency of the state and who is called to duty for a civil air patrol mission is entitled to a leave of absence from the member's office or employment for the time when the member is engaged in the civil air patrol mission without loss of pay...

28-1-105. Private employees - leave of absence.
This section entitles CAP members to leave without pay.

For purposes of these sections:
"Civil air patrol mission" means an actual emergency operational mission of the Colorado wing of civil air patrol that has been duly authorized under civil air patrol regulations, including, but not limited to, through the United States Air Force, the governor's office, or other political subdivision of the state that has the authority to authorize an emergency operational mission of the Colorado wing of the civil air patrol.

So no leave for exercises or trainings.

The law provides these same benefits, with the public-private employer differences, to members of other volunteer organizations when responding on actual emergency missions.

Mike

[Eclipse]

I stand corrected, or at least reminded, I do recall now that several states provide paid leave to employees for CAP and other volunteer activities.
Why shouldn't they?  It isn't their money, and in reality the employee is still serving the people of the state, just in a different capacity.

However there are no states which mandate paid leave for private businesses, and in nearly all cases one's ability to leave for any CAP
activity during their working hours is based mostly on their relationship with their employer and direct supervisor and much less on
any of the state's leave acts.  Union shops notwithstanding, which tend to be adversarial by design, if you have to wave a leave act in your
bosses face in order to go shore up a levy, or other humanitarian service, you're probably better off not responding.  The only way to enforce the
acts is through civil court action, and I think we all know which way a career track goes when you sue your employer. "Right" or not.

Continuing to quote the leave acts as if they were relevant to this discussion just gives us all posting numbers.  The leave acts only indicate what an employer is required to provide to employees, not the maximum benefit.  For the most part the leave acts are just "nice to haves", or check box requirements in a few states because of employer contracts or union agreements.  They give state legislators something to add to their election materials, but they have not made much of an impact in our actual readiness or ability to respond, since the majority of those who "come when called" did so and continue to do so outside the need for a leave act because of their personal flexibility or their personal agreements with their employers.

If you can't go, you can't go.  And if you're mandated to have 24+ hours notice, then you'll never be a factor in the normal 1-2 day ELT and missing person searches common to week-day call-ups.