Should we reclassify "senior members without grade" as "Airman"?

[Rotorhead]

Sounds to me like a solution in search of a real problem.

[wuzafuzz]

I guess I don't care one way or another.  Can't they just be members?  If they must have a title and are embarassed to be officers, make them flight officers.  Next item.

[Ricochet13]

This thread makes angels cry   

Agree!

[RiverAux]

Okay, up to this point there were 39 votes cast (6 for Airman, 8 for Officer Candidate, and 25 for stay the same).  I suspect that most of the folks who voted for stay the same were really just apathetic about it rather than REALLY liking having SMWOG.  So, I added three more options and reset the vote count to try to figure out how many are really opposed to the idea as compared to those who just don't care. 

[Thom]

I just voted for Officer Candidate, but not because I really like the title.  I just happen to think, having recently been one myself, the whole Senior Member (With Out Grade (sometimes...)) thing is confusing, a mouthful, annoying, and not terribly informative in general.

I don't care for going down the Enlisted CAP path and having Airmen and Officers, without having a real NCO Corps and path, and I just don't think we have the need or the time to do all the work needed to do it right.

But, Officer Candidate is also a mouthful.  We need some cool word for Almost-An Officer, I'm sure there is one out there somewhere.  The only other things that come to mind are just as much a mouthful, like Acting 2d Lt, or Provisional Officer.

But I know that SMWOG is just clunky.

Thom Hamilton

[RiverAux]

By the way, does anyone have an argument for why using the term "Senior Member Without Grade" and "SM" for their "rank" is a good way to deal with new senior members and those who don't want to be officers or NCOs?  If there is a pro-SMWOG argument, I sure would like to hear it. 

[wuzafuzz]

How about Third Lieutenant?   

Make all Senior Members officers.  Just tell everyone that's the program instead of offering the buffet option.  If they don't qualify for Second Lieutenant then make them CAP Warrant Officers or Flight Officers.  I know AF doesn't have Warrant Officers any more; they don't have Flight Officers either.  We can obviously do our own thing within limits. 

Heck, the Air Force would probably fall all over themselves to say "yes" if we propose grades that aren't confused with the real military.  (As long as they are identifiable from 100' away...at night  )

[RiverAux]

If you want your opinion registered, you will need to vote again as all the prior votes were wiped out when I reset the poll options.  Sorry about that. 

[IceNine]

By the way, does anyone have an argument for why using the term "Senior Member Without Grade" and "SM" for their "rank" is a good way to deal with new senior members and those who don't want to be officers or NCOs?  If there is a pro-SMWOG argument, I sure would like to hear it.

What problem does this actually address?  You are yet to provide any reasoning worth consideration that would let me believe the hours of deliberation and money spent re-writing the affected regulations would fix Anything

[Short Field]

Most of our SMWOGs disappear when it comes time to renew their membership.  Most people get promoted at the end of six months.   

I took a quick check and outside of newbies who were active, the SMWOGs on our squadron rolls never show up for meetings or actiivities but keep renewing.  I think one of them only uses CAP so that his membership card gets him on-base so he can use the golf course.  One of the others renews her membership in honor of her father who was a active CAP member.  She has been to two meetings in three years.

[IceNine]

How would calling them something else change that?

If they are going a whole renewal period without a promotion there is something broken.  Last I checked it only takes 6 months and just a little more than respiration and gravitational attraction to make 2Lt if the system is working.

[Eclipse]

What problem does this actually address?

Lack of interestng informercials in River's broadcast area between about 0700 and 0730 Saturday morning?   

[MIKE]

If they are going a whole renewal period without a promotion there is something broken.  Last I checked it only takes 6 months and just a little more than respiration and gravitational attraction to make 2Lt if the system is working.

Like the unit, or CAP as a whole...

Simple... They stopped showing up within six months of joining or abouts.  Rarely have I seen someone formally resign when they "quit", they just stop showing up and fail to renew at the end of their membership year.

[RiverAux]

By the way, does anyone have an argument for why using the term "Senior Member Without Grade" and "SM" for their "rank" is a good way to deal with new senior members and those who don't want to be officers or NCOs?  If there is a pro-SMWOG argument, I sure would like to hear it.

What problem does this actually address?  You are yet to provide any reasoning worth consideration that would let me believe the hours of deliberation and money spent re-writing the affected regulations would fix Anything

So, you don't have any pro-SMWOG argument?  I ask since that is the question that your post was in response to.  I get it that some people don't think the problems I describe are actually problems.  Thats fine.  But, there should also be some justification for our current system, don't you think?

Lack of interestng informercials in River's broadcast area between about 0700 and 0730 Saturday morning?

Thats about right. 

Most of our SMWOGs disappear when it comes time to renew their membership.  Most people get promoted at the end of six months.   

I took a quick check and outside of newbies who were active, the SMWOGs on our squadron rolls never show up for meetings or actiivities but keep renewing.  I think one of them only uses CAP so that his membership card gets him on-base so he can use the golf course.  One of the others renews her membership in honor of her father who was a active CAP member.  She has been to two meetings in three years.

Well, if you want to start discussing who is an "active" member, I bet you can find a lot more examples of inactive Lt. Cols than inactive "permanent" SMWOG in your Wing. 

But, lets assume that some percentage of our permanent SMWOG are inactive.  How does that impact what we call them?  If anything, giving them an absoultely bottom of the rung grade sort of reinforces their lack of status in CAP. 

[BuckeyeDEJ]

I'd rather we keep the status quo than try to inflate the status to "officer candidate" (not every one of them will be an officer, folks, so this doesn't work).

No one in the Air Force doesn't have grade. They have grade of some sort -- whether they're E-1 airmen basic (airman basics?) or the E-5s of Officer Training School.

If you are starting somewhere, with absolutely no knowledge or training, you're an E-1, an airman basic, bottom rung with nowhere to go but up. CAP's problem with all this is the expectation that everyone's an officer, which is a ridiculous problem that never has been reined in. (Six months' membership and a cakewalk gets you butterbars in CAP. If only the OTS folks had it that easy!) That makes cadets the de facto enlisted grunts, which is also disingenuous. But I digress. If you have no grade in CAP, you're an SM, but... well, we know the limbo THAT is.

Airman Basic for six months isn't a bad thing. ABs still outrank cadets. They're not in limbo in the system -- they have a name and identity, something to hang their hat on and motivate them, whether they assume butterbars or (wouldn't THIS be nice?) progress through CAP's enlisted system. I think if you're a shoo-in for a pilot or other technical promotion, "officer candidate" may fit, but that should be the only time.

Not everyone is officer material, and not everyone should be one. Boy, that'd go a long way to improving our professionalism.

[Short Field]

Well, if you want to start discussing who is an "active" member, I bet you can find a lot more examples of inactive Lt. Cols than inactive "permanent" SMWOG in your Wing. 

But, lets assume that some percentage of our permanent SMWOG are inactive.  How does that impact what we call them?  If anything, giving them an absoultely bottom of the rung grade sort of reinforces their lack of status in CAP.

Unless they came in with Lt Col from the military, they spent a lot of active time in CAP and progressed well.   If they were Lt Cols from the military, most of them wouldn't pay dues year after year just to be called "Lt Col".  You don't have to worry about calling the "permanent" SMWOG anything - you never see them again. 

I use to be an AIRMAN (after my promotion from AIRMAN BASIC) and didn't feel it reinforced my lack of status in the USAF.  I was pretty proud of that one stripe.

[Airrace]

I would say no changes. Leave it as is!

[AirDX]

SMWOG is just fine the way it is.  I'm a SMWOG right now - I just reupped after an 18 year absence.  What I'm not is any kind of "candidate" or "trainee".  I'm a highly trained aviation professional who needs to complete the new Level I material to be promoted to Captain again.

Neither am I an airman basic.  I left the Army after my two years as an E-3, so long ago it hurts to remember, and so long ago it's pretty much irrelevant, IMHO. But I am not an AB.

Leave well enough alone - this another solution looking for a problem.

[Gunner C]

So there's a rather large faction in CAP that wants SMs without grade and SMs with grade that doesn't mean anything. 

SM w/o grade is a huge misnomer.  Everyone has grade, it's just that we have a lowest grade - SM.  WIWAC the SM enlisted ranks started with SM, then went to airman, then airman first class, etc.

Non-pilots started out as enlisted, learned a skill, progressed, etc.  It worked out great!  Some became officers, some didn't.  When a person became a 2d Lt, it was a big deal.  Can someone point out the problem here?  (Perhaps it is that rank/grade meant something in CAP back then, but means nothing now.  Maybe that correlates with CAP being an institution that was much more respected by USAF back then than it is now.)

I think those who voted "I don't care" were being more honest than some.

[Eclipse]

So there's a rather large faction in CAP that wants SMs without grade and SMs with grade that doesn't mean anything. 

Nope.  There isn't.