November NEC Meeting - NCO Corps

[O-Rex]

The naval services do use NCOs to train their officers

What about AOC Candidates at P'Cola? 

[jb512]

And, ok.  I'll join in too I guess.  Here is what my rank chart would look like using the same promotion criteria that we already have in place:

4 yr           No or less
College     College
-----------------------------------
Col            Command CMSgt

Lt Col        CMSgt

Maj            SMSgt

Capt          MSgt

1st Lt        TSgt

2d Lt         SSgt
------------------------ Age or education separation
SFO           SrA

TFO           A1C

FO             Amn

Duty Performance - Same criteria.  4 year college starts at 2d Lt after 6 months (or FO for age) and no college starts at SSgt after 6 months (or Amn for age).  12 months and technician = 1st Lt or TSgt, 18 months after that and Level II = Capt or MSgt, etc on up to Lt Col or CMSgt.  Col and Command Chief are appointments for staff positions.

Special Appointments - Commander Appointments don't change, but without college the person must progress through FO ranks first.  Former cadets with college stay the same.  Former cadets without college use FO ranks (Mitchell = FO, Spaatz = SFO).

Mission Related Skills - With college, stays the same.  Pilots without college use FO ranks: FO = 2d Lt requirements up to SFO = Capt requirements.  Same with maint, comm, and ground instructors. 

Professional Appointments - Chaplain, MLO, Health, and Legal won't be changed much because of current college requirements but if those are not met, use appropriate FO ranks.  Health personnel in EMT or less than 4 year college requirements will use enlisted ranks starting at SSgt for 21+ or Amn for 18-20.  AE and finance will also use enlisted (age appropriate) unless they are at a 4 yr college level.
--------------------------

Could be tweaked a little, of course, but makes the most sense to me if we were to go to it (and no, I don't have a 4 yr degree either).

[RiverAux]

As long as position has nothing to do with rank you won't have actually done anything useful except create an unnecessary class system within CAP.  Now we'll have Tech Sergeants running squadrons with Captains in them. 

[jb512]

As long as position has nothing to do with rank you won't have actually done anything useful except create an unnecessary class system within CAP.  Now we'll have Tech Sergeants running squadrons with Captains in them. 

No, you'd have a Technical Flight Officer running a squadron with Captains in it.  With a squadron commander appointment and no college, the person would have the same grade advancement and time requirements, but would just have to start at FO.  Applying the same advancement, the person would advance to TFO (like the current advancement to 1st Lt for Sqdn CC), then after a year would promote to SFO.  With that level of expertise by then they could enter into the "commissioned" officer ranks at 2d Lt with their command experience in lieu of a degree.

[jkmassey]

Let's recall one item of history....  The USAF uniforms we are "allowed" to wear are approved by USAF as a courtesy.  They have a lot of input as to what is allowed and what the "standards" for wear are.  As I recall, the relatively recent promotion of the National Commander rank to Major General was out of sync with the Sec of AF and led to yet another "embarrassment" for the organization.

Also, as I recall, the CAP NCO ranks were dropped because there were a number of embarrassing incidents in which CAP NCO's crashed base NCO clubs and the hue and cry resulted in the dissolution of the CAP NCO program (excepting current and past DOD NCO's who desired to retain their separation rank).  Now that was in a time when drinking and smoking were de riguer in all services within the military.  So you can see how easy it would have been to become an embarrassment in a testosterone rich environment after having had a few too many.  I suspect there is enough bad memory remaining in the service (some 30 years later) to still put up considerable resistance to allowing Joe Smith, TechSgt, CAP with all rights and privileges assumed while on base.  The assumption that "officers and gentlemen" could better handle their liquor (and behaviour) saved CAP Officer access to Officer clubs, but still not without considerable grousing at some I have attended.

I will agree with many who have lamented the lack of professional training and standards for the officer corps in CAP.  In my opinion, TRAINING is the single thing CAP does the worst of any national service organization there could be.  I don't mean learning how to be a mission pilot and flying safe and effective missions (though that area itself is spotty at best), but continual training to meet the ever changing environment we are part of in service to the aviation community.  Training on administrative and financial management, on personnel management and evaluation, psychological aspects of stress and the work place, how to balance volunteer service against family and work responsibilities, resolving the schizophrenia of the CAP mission (Cadets, Aerospace education, and SAR), etc.  But every time a "new" training program is developed, someone decides it is adversely affecting recruiting or retention and the program begins to be "streamlined" so that a 80 hour course of training soon becomes a 40 minute on-line exercise.  I believe this abdication of training responsibility is the PRIMARY reason why CAP lost its central role in general aviation education from the 40's, why there are so many national ground rescue programs to which CAP now goes for certification, why CAP has next to no relationship with NASA for public education, and why CAP itself is that great silent and invisible organization.  But that gets off the point........

Ever since the CAP grade structure was disconnected from service related jobs, the one element of positive reinforcement that grade could provide was lost.  Prior to 1969, to become a Captain, besides training objectives, you had to serve as a squadron commander of a unit with over 25 members or as an assistant group staff officer for over one year.  To become a Major, you had to be a squadron commander of a composite squadron with over 50 members, or a group commander, or serving as a wing staff assistant.  To become a LtCol, you had to successfully serve on Wing Staff as a director for at least 12 months (some of these limits are from memory, but I believe I can find an old staff manning table to get actual numbers).  Once those service requirements were dropped (because many complained that they would never get a chance to be promoted because there were no squadrons with 50 members, and limited group and wing staff jobs) then retention except for the "glory hunters" (as another stated, the "bling" effect) began to fade.  There used to ALWAYS be a waiting list for service on group or wing staff.  Now it is often all a commander can do to get someone in a position no matter how unqualified they may be.

You see, there are three major differences between the actual military and CAP. 

1)  The first has been mentioned and is simply that as a volunteer staffed community service organization, your commanders and staff are made up of those who said "yes."  Qualification be darned.  Until you find someone to say "yes" then the slot remains unfilled and you MUST get it filled to pass your next evaluation.....

2)  Secondly, in the REAL military, all rank is acquired by qualification/experience and automatically filtered by retirements and separations.  In CAP, membership is for LIFE.  Once obtained, the rank stays no matter how you obtained it.  For CAP to ever have a rank structure that reflected a level of service then the permanent award of the rank must be tied to successful service to the organization over time.

3)  And thirdly, in the military, rank and authority are (usually) linked.  A serving line officer's rank determines the legal command authority in any situation affecting a given mission.  (Medical Corps officers, Signal Corps Officers, etc. are not line officer's for the purpose of command of a combat unit for example.)  In CAP, no rank EVER signifies directly the authority of the individual.  A Wing Commander who chose to wear a business suit and never obtain any CAP rank would have the SAME authority of a Wing Commander meeting full USAF uniform standards, wearing the uniform and rank of a Colonel.  And that same, SM Wing Commander would have as much authority over a retired CAP Major General as he had over any other senior member serving in that wing.  And note that in either case, the Wing Commander of wing A would have zilch authority in Wing B.  ALL authority in CAP is positional dependent, NEVER rank dependent.

As Wing Director for Emergency Services, I always made it clear to Incident Commanders in training that CAP rank had no relationship to their authority when they were serving as the active IC.  The CAP IC serves under the authority of their Wing Commander and all CAP resources within that wing are available as needed for the mission.

Sooooo, given the above it is clear that CAP has no need of the rank structure and it is in point of fact often counter productive to both retention and the promotion of a professional organization.  Rank may serve a ceremonial role for individuals serving in particular positions of authority, but as a "permanent" fixture, it is best treated as a specific reward for service performed to the organization over a long period of time.  The whole idea of re-introducing a CAP NCO corps is a misplaced focus distracting from far greater areas of concern......

[jb512]

The whole idea of re-introducing a CAP NCO corps is a misplaced focus distracting from far greater areas of concern......

Also an interesting angle for discussion.  From that perspective, you would also introduce ES qualifications into the mix.  An IC, for instance, would have command over all of the MPs, MOs, GTMs, etc. during a mission but would not necessarily be in a squadron, group, or wing level command position.  There would have to be some middle ground there for it all to link together.

[arajca]

Let's recall one item of history....  The USAF uniforms we are "allowed" to wear are approved by USAF as a courtesy.  They have a lot of input as to what is allowed and what the "standards" for wear are.  As I recall, the relatively recent promotion of the National Commander rank to Major General was out of sync with the Sec of AF and led to yet another "embarrassment" for the organization.

Correction - the current status of the CAP National Commander grade of Major General was approved by the SecAF. In the early to mid 80's, the CAP/CC talked the NEC into promoting him to Maj Gen  and the result of this and his antics as such was a smack down by the USAF. It also changed the grade of the CAP/CC back to Brig Gen until a few years ago, when the SecAF approved the promotion of the CAP/CC to Maj Gen.

[Grumpy]

Well, with all your educational requirements, experience be [darn]ed, are you also going to toss in some age restrictions too?  I can't think of the cut off point for commissioning in the AF right now.  But there is one.

Also, like I said before, if you're going to match us up with all the same qualifications as the active military, you might just well try and get us some paid positions because you're not going to get volunteers to do it for free  when they can get O-4 or O-5 pay in the service.

[Bluelakes 13]

JKMASSEY, that is one of the best posts I have seen here lately!

[Eclipse]

The whole idea of re-introducing a CAP NCO corps is a misplaced focus distracting from far greater areas of concern......

Also an interesting angle for discussion.  From that perspective, you would also introduce ES qualifications into the mix.  An IC, for instance, would have command over all of the MPs, MOs, GTMs, etc. during a mission but would not necessarily be in a squadron, group, or wing level command position.  There would have to be some middle ground there for it all to link together.

Not going to fly.

In an understaffed and manned volunteer organization which seeks out pre-trained professionals for its ranks you cannot tie grade to authority.

Period.

CAP does not have bilets, slots, and cannot tie professional development to command authority, and I will grant you this is what causes us some of our challenges.

Why?  Because in the RealMilitary® when you run out of people who want the job, you can >MAKE< someone do it (for better or worse).  That is not a possibility in CAP, and never will be.

[Dragoon]

There is one way to link grade to authority - at least better than we do now.

Make the rank temporary and somehow linked to the position you're holding.

In this model, a squadron commander will outrank the folks who work for him.  And, in fact, will outrank the folks who work for other squadron commanders.  You know, kinda like real life.

Of course, such a model would require folks to turn in the rank when they step down.

And to keep some connection of qualifications to grade, a less than totally qualified person would not wear the same grade as a fully qualified person in the same level of job (for example, a Level II guy in a major's slot only gets to wear captain until he gets level III).  This would cause some grade inversion, but a heck of a lot less than we have now.

With such a system, CAP could then then write regs to grant some authority based solely on current grade.

[Short Field]

The naval services do use NCOs to train their officers

What about AOC Candidates at P'Cola? 

Traning naval aviators for the USN and USMC...  USMC also uses NCOs to train their Marine Officer Candidates.  I am not sure what percentage of NCOs are used at the Marine Officer Basic School.  USN & USMC = Naval Service - at least until the Marines learn to walk on water.

[Brad]

Well I found this link here on e-services:

http://level2.cap.gov/documents/NCO_Briefing.pdf

It's a PDF of a powerpoint presentation that seems to go a bit more in-depth on this NCO idea. I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow though at this quote: "The Bottom line: The NCO’s primary function is to ensure the Commander is successful!"  Ummm, in an organization such as Civil Air Patrol, where would that leave the Officers? It's not like the RM, where there's enough of the elements working together to actually provide the right atmosphere and need for NCOs. In the RM, the Officers are the supervisors, they decide what needs doing. The NCOs decide how. The basics execute. With CAP though, it's not that simple. By it's very nature, case in point ES, Officers are all three levels....and it's worked perfectly fine for over 60 years. The closest thing we have right now is the Cadet Program. The Senior Members decide what, the Cadet Officers and Cadet NCOs decide how, and the basics execute.

Other than that there's no need for it, in my opinion.

[RiverAux]

This really puts the whole discussion into perspective.  The presentation says there are currently 44 CAP NCOs.  In other words 0.001282 of CAP senior members or a few more than 1 out of a thousand members are NCOs.  Now, there is no way of telling how many current or former NCOs we have in the organization now, but I am very sure it is a whole lot more than that and hardly any of them have made this choice.

Now, the miniscule number that have for whatever reason decided to be CAP NCOs are apparently going all out to come up with an entire new program with insignia, promotions, duty assignments, etc. to try to justify their personal choice. 

Some will argue that the number of CAP NCOs is so low because there isn't a purpose to the program now and that if it does get a purpose people will resign their officer rank to become NCOs to be able to participate in the program.  Seems like a long shot to me. 

[O-Rex]

Okay, let's assume that we actually implement this-don't expect droves of three-stripers running around your unit.  Prudence and forethought (?) would dictate that Wing Senior Enlisted Advisors be appointed (current/retired Chiefs) and then we could go top-down from there.

I agree that regardless, we are not going to have many NCO's-we would need to clearly define their roles, and educate the masses accordingly.  As it is, we already have alot of folks who wear officer rank and haven't clue-one on the concept of "officership," much less the  officer/NCO relationship.

As for "homegrown" non prior-service CAP NCO's, we'd do all a disservice if we "shake & bake" them ("Shazam: you're now a Senior Chief!")

If we're going to go through with this, I really hope we don't turn this concept into a complete joke....

[JayT]

I would love to see the distribution of those forty four NCOs. Are they spread randomly throughout the program? Or is there a small number of units that have several?

[pixelwonk]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that they can only track 44 of them.  The rest haven't got their collar beacons yet.  Soon, CAP Ground teams will have their L'Pers reconfigured to track the elusive and nocturnal NCO.
 
"Look at the size of that NCO! Watchout mate!
Because when they strike it can be that quick that if they're within range, you're dead, you're dead in your tracks. And his head weighs more than my body so it's WHACK! Now I've wrestled some big crocs, and I've caught some big NCOs. I bled a lot. I got hit across the face. We couldn't film for seven days. I got hit, whacked, underwater, across the face. I finished the shot, got into the boat and blood started coming out.  but this CAP NCO is the biggest creature we have been able to rescue from the clutches of being an officer.   I'm going to distract him with this donut while my mate bonks him with the clipboard and we'll slip this collar on 'im.
Crikey!"

[Short Field]

Well, I am still waiting for someone to explain to me what "airman's work" is.

Also, most USAF flying squadrons (the ones that own airplanes) are mainly composed of officers.  I would be surprised if a TFS has 5 NCOs in it.

[ddelaney103]

I would love to see the distribution of those forty four NCOs. Are they spread randomly throughout the program? Or is there a small number of units that have several?

This is a mistake in reading the brief.

They say "44," but then note they don't track NCO numbers unless the individual ID's themself on the application form.  Since the grade form for an NCO/FO is held locally and may (but doesn't have to) go to NHQ, the numbers could be way off.

Still, I think we're talking in the 200-300 range at best.

[Short Field]

Since rank is maintained in e-services, it should be easy to count.  Unless they only show up as SM in the data base.