Dressing Down

[tjaxe]

I would take TOTAL exception with your co-workers' attitude.  If it were me -- first I'd have to count to 10 about thirty times to cool off THEN -- I'd paste something like this to my locker.  These are just two recent cases of Civil Air Patrol members killed in the line of duty. We certainly are NOT just glorified Boy Scouts.

"Capt. Anthony J. Synodinos, the mission pilot, and 1st Lt. Edward G. Conrad, the mission observer, were on a search and rescue mission on April 6, 1954 that stretched from Long Island, N.Y. to Langley Field, Va. for a missing T-33 military jet that was never found. They were both members of the East Baltimore Squadron and had been in the air for about an hour, searching the Upper Bay in heavy fog, when their open-cockpit Ryan PT-22 airplane crashed into the water at 1:05 p.m."  (2004,
http://www.mdcap.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article.display&articleID=76)

"Three members of Wyoming's Civil Air Patrol, out searching for a missing teen, were killed when their plane crashed in the Bighorn National Forest, authorities said Tuesday.... The pilot of the Cessna 182R was identified Tuesday night as Lt. Col. James Henderson, 59, of Cowley. The two passengers were Senior Member James Meyer, 53, of Sheridan; and Capt. Patricia Larson, 52, of Sheridan, Stone-Hunter said." (2007, http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2007/08/22/news/18local_08-22-07.txt)

[isuhawkeye]

and they respond with the hundreds of fire and ems providers who are killed and injured in the line of duty every year?

www.thesecretlist.com

[DNall]

MABAS is by no stretch of the imagination becoming obsolete. I think this demonstrates that you don't know much about the organization or you would know that while it started in IL it now takes in member departments in several Midwestern States.  Please cite your source for the obsolescence of MABAS.

I believe it is. Not so much what they're doing, but the organization itself. I believe FEMA under the NIMS system is trying to do exactly what MABAS does now, but on a national scale with FEMA in the driver's seat. When they eventually get their crap together, there won't be a need any longer for a regional duplication of the effort.

[RiverAux]

and they respond with the hundreds of fire and ems providers who are killed and injured in the line of duty every year?

www.thesecretlist.com

The point wasn't to compare our risks to theirs but to show that CAP members do sacrifice for their country on an unfortunately regular basis. 

[tjaxe]

^ Exactly.

[isuhawkeye]

I don't think that will have the impact that you hope it will.

Though these individuals payed the ultimate sacrafice I do not believe that sacrafice is widley recognized, or appreciated.

[MikeD]

There's some fed employees in the unit, but I don't have a lot of experience with them. I got one SSG that works for me, is a border patrol agent, and absolutely no problems with his job, not even when we put him on a short notice slot for BNCOC.

Can you find out if that's just his boss, or he has a lot of leave/comp time, or if there's some federal policy on that?  As far as I know civil service only get 2 weeks of military leave a year.

[cap801]

Typically, I'm one of those people that tries to get everyone to see thing my way, but in this instance, I'd let out-of-touch-with-reality dogs lie.  It seems apparent that both of these individuals are so seeped in their hatred for this organization that little will be done to rectify the situation.  As the OP has already said, the issue has been dealt with in a non confrontational manner, and I think that anyone on these boards trying to offer counter-arguments for why CAP is a great organization (which is a good cause, nonetheless) will be wasting his or her breath.  I learned long ago that you can't fix stupid, and when I occasionally forget that I ended up wasting resources on a lost cause.

I also think that anyone who believes CAP is similar to first responders like firemen or police, or tries to be similar is just poorly mistaken.  CAP is here because a few guys back in 1941 saw the burgeoning general aviation sector as a valuable tool in certain situations.  At the time, that tool was as a platform to drop bombs on U-boats.  Now, it's a variety of things, and certainly not limited to locating ELT's.  My wing is going to be part of an annual exercise on Memorial Day weekend at Elephant Butte lake where CAP provides reconnaissance to the Coast Guard about boaters in distress as well as illegal activities (such as setting of fireworks).  Last year, my squadron's aircraft spotted a boat just after it caught fire and immediately alerted the Coast Guard for assistance.  Someone tell me what PD or FD or MABAS group can do something like that?

The thought that these other organizations are better than CAP or vice-versa goes to apples and oranges:  they're just different.  You wouldn't expect the Army to launch a naval assault and you wouldn't expect the Air Force to go rescue a boater in a hurricane.  They're just different.  Such is the nature of CAP.

[DNall]

There's some fed employees in the unit, but I don't have a lot of experience with them. I got one SSG that works for me, is a border patrol agent, and absolutely no problems with his job, not even when we put him on a short notice slot for BNCOC.

Can you find out if that's just his boss, or he has a lot of leave/comp time, or if there's some federal policy on that?  As far as I know civil service only get 2 weeks of military leave a year.

He's at BNCOC while the unit is at AT, so he's not missing additional time, it was just short notice for dif dates.

You have to remember it works both ways too. This same guy needs to go to a couple month long course for his job soon. He's going to miss drill & that's fine. We'll just find another time so he can keep it a good year. 

[Cecil DP]

There's some fed employees in the unit, but I don't have a lot of experience with them. I got one SSG that works for me, is a border patrol agent, and absolutely no problems with his job, not even when we put him on a short notice slot for BNCOC.

Can you find out if that's just his boss, or he has a lot of leave/comp time, or if there's some federal policy on that?  As far as I know civil service only get 2 weeks of military leave a year.

To be specific it's two weeks of paid leave (actually 15 days in most cases which is 3 work weeks (Your normal days off don't count), but if the military says go to school or an assignment for 6 months, they're still required to let you go until the military releases you.

[DNall]

Which doesn't mean employers (including fed agencies) won't make trouble for employees from time to time. It's important in those cases to have a highly supportive chain of command. In our case, we take it personal when people mess with our soldiers, so we slap them around a bit in hope sit won't happen again.

[MIKE]

Drift terminated.