November NEC Meeting - NCO Corps

[RiverAux]

There is no program yet to discuss.  Go look at the presentation cited earlier.  That is the entirety of what is on the table now.  That hasn't kept folks from going hog wild trying to re-deisgn our entire program in this one thread though. 

[ddelaney103]

There is no program yet to discuss.  Go look at the presentation cited earlier.  That is the entirety of what is on the table now.  That hasn't kept folks from going hog wild trying to re-deisgn our entire program in this one thread though. 

There should at least be a purpose.  Changing the program without an end goal in mind is "deck chairs on the Titanic" time.

"What are the problems that CAP has that a different NCO corps will correct?" or, "what is the improvement to be gained from a different NCO program?" to put a positive spin on it.

When the AF revamped uniforms, they came out with their ideas early.  This meant some black eyes, ("Blue tiger stripes? fuggetaboutit!") but they were able to make course corrections before they were too far gone.  Getting "buy in" from the rank and file could really help.  Do they really want to know the answer to the question "What if they built an NCO program and nobody came?"

[RiverAux]

From the presentation:  Three NCO functions:

1. Technical Expertise (Job Skills, AFSC, MOS)
2. Management Expertise
The organization's people
The organization's resources
The organization's activities
3. Leadership
Setting the Example
Enforcing Standards
Training
Mentoring

That is what they're thinking about.  I've already stated my opinion that none of these require an NCO.

[RiverAux]

One resource that might help is this presentation http://level2.cap.gov/documents/u_081903112213.pdf.  It breaks down senior membership by rank and by education level.  Since there are those who want to restrict officer rank to college graduates, this indicates that about roughly half of our current senior members wouldn't qualify under that criteria. 

Frankly, I'm a little surprised as I would have guessed that a clear majority of CAP members had degrees

[jimmydeanno]

That track has NEVER been available for enrollment. See my post above as to the function of the 222 code.

I'm enrolled in it...

[Grumpy]

One resource that might help is this presentation http://level2.cap.gov/documents/u_081903112213.pdf.  It breaks down senior membership by rank and by education level.  Since there are those who want to restrict officer rank to college graduates, this indicates that about roughly half of our current senior members wouldn't qualify under that criteria. 

Frankly, I'm a little surprised as I would have guessed that a clear majority of CAP members had degrees

I've been given the third degree.  Does that count?

[Dragoon]

One resource that might help is this presentation http://level2.cap.gov/documents/u_081903112213.pdf.  It breaks down senior membership by rank and by education level.  Since there are those who want to restrict officer rank to college graduates, this indicates that about roughly half of our current senior members wouldn't qualify under that criteria. 

Frankly, I'm a little surprised as I would have guessed that a clear majority of CAP members had degrees

According to someone I know who used to work at National, the "big secret of CAP" is that while our cadets are primarily white collar, our seniors are primarily blue collar.

I have no details to back up that claim, but I remember it because it was so surprising.

[pdjd7428]

Did anyone get to watch the Live Stream of the National Board and get to see what was decided on the NCO program?

[afgeo4]

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.

(sarcasm on)

HA HA HA!  Silly me. And here I thought it was the commander's CO's job to make sure he/she is successful. HA HA HA!

How wonderful it is to shift responsibility for development and oversight of commanders on to Non-Commissioned Officers. In fact, let's make that standard in all organizations!  Let's hold employees responsible for their supervisors' success! Yes, let's just leave the managers out of it. They already have so much to do... well with all that payroll to process... especially in CAP... Gosh... I'm not sure how they're able to hang on to their sanity. Let's not make them "manage" their subordinates.

(sarcasm off)

If that doesn't give you a clear picture of what's screwed up with our commanders, nothing else will.

[Dragoon]

It would sure give commanders a great excuse

"Of COURSE I wasn't successful - I don't have on of the 50 CAP NCOs in my unit to ensure my success!"

[Hawk200]

To be a great program, the CAP NCO/enlisted program would have to pretty much re-create CAP, or at least morph it into something different from what we know now.

It would also have to provide for a lot of flexibility to meet the personal needs of volunteers.

We all have folk in our units who say "I only want to do _____."  (Fill in name of selected activity)  There are those who only want to play with the cadets, and have zero interest in any other mission.  There are the guys who only want to be involved in commo.  Only want to be on a GT, with no interest in advancing beyond GTL. 

We could, under a great program, make such persons enlisted specialists.  There's no reason that the "Cadet Mom" who wants no part of ES and no part of AE could not serve as an airman-to-NCO.  Similarly, the commo guy could advance up through the NCO ranks, and never have to concern himself with cadets, except to train a cadet or two as radio operators.  They could become supervisors and subject-matter experts as NCO's.

The officers would have to buy into the whole package, and the officer PD program would have to establish broad knowledge of all CAP activity.

Since it looks like an enlisted program is probable, I'd agree with this type of program design, as long as it starts with slick sleeves. Promoting directly to an NCO grade after a video is blatantly foolish.

What I find disturbing is the advocating of a "flight officer for everyone" program, and the reasons behind it. To me, it appears that we'll just acknowledge the mediocrity, and lower the bar. No reasons to improve our member corps, just give them a meaningless rank. Then you can ignore everyone equally.

I don't have a problem with requiring our personnel to actually hold key staff positions in a unit to advance. But mandating that someone must take positions well outside of the practical realm is wrong(such as requiring time at a wing position). As many people have stated here, we're not the military. Requiring a volunteer to simply ignore the life they have is not the way. And with the people that can't, you are intentionally creating the "haves" and "have-nots". It's inequitable in the extreme.

I may differ on a few of their points, but I still think the Iowa program has the right foundation. Educate and train our officers. A couple of weekends over six months may be inconvenient, but it isn't a life altering program. The Iowa seems to be an OCS concept, and it seems to be the thing to do. When you add up all the training required to start at entry to Level 4, it's only about a week and a half. We should be better than that. We don't need to be training to the same level as the active military, or even the Guard, but we should at least make the goals challenging.

[wingnut]

I agree with John

But I would also like to add that If anyone has been in the US Air Force lately you will find that a huge number of NCO's have a BA or BS (obtained while on active duty). I was talking to a senior NCO at Edwards a few weeks ago and he told me that to make Master Sergeant, having a BA is almost expected and many Senior Master Sergeants and Chief Master Sergeant's have a masters degree.

But we got to do something about the  lack of military training for CAP officers, I was at Beale AFB many months ago with about 20 CAP "Officers" and a bunch of them did know how to salute or as some said (After I chewed som A*%); Gee I don't know what the rank looks like>

[Short Field]

When you add up all the training required to start at entry to Level 4, it's only about a week and a half.

14 Days:  SLS = 2, CLC = 2, RSC = 5, NSC = 5

Toss in a couple of evenings to complete the foundations course and then however long it takes to complete AFIADL 13. 

[Hawk200]

When you add up all the training required to start at entry to Level 4, it's only about a week and a half.

14 Days:  SLS = 2, CLC = 2, RSC = 5, NSC = 5

Toss in a couple of evenings to complete the foundations course and then however long it takes to complete AFIADL 13. 

It was an approximation, but thanks for the more concise breakdown.

If we adopt an enlisted program, is the bar going to get even lower? Our non-prior service officers aren't the most trained or educated when it comes to military bearing and C&C. Will our CAP grown NCO's be even lesser trained?

[Short Field]

Sorry.  I was just pushing the required training up all the way to Level V.  Scary when you considering that our highest corporate officers only require two weeks of formal training.

?     ?? Maybe it means CAP really isn't part of the Armed Forces and doesn't require the same level of military bearing and training. ??  ?  Don't know, just a passing thought.

   

[JohnKachenmeister]

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.

(sarcasm on)

HA HA HA!  Silly me. And here I thought it was the commander's CO's job to make sure he/she is successful. HA HA HA!

How wonderful it is to shift responsibility for development and oversight of commanders on to Non-Commissioned Officers. In fact, let's make that standard in all organizations!  Let's hold employees responsible for their supervisors' success! Yes, let's just leave the managers out of it. They already have so much to do... well with all that payroll to process... especially in CAP... Gosh... I'm not sure how they're able to hang on to their sanity. Let's not make them "manage" their subordinates.

(sarcasm off)

If that doesn't give you a clear picture of what's screwed up with our commanders, nothing else will.

The commander is responsible for everything his unit does or fails to do. 

That is pounded into the head of every officer from the first day of officer training.  Before we had to paint our first rock.

Every staff officer's duty, and every NCO's duty is to support the commander. 

But if it all falls apart, only the commander is responsible.

[wingnut]

well If we cannot properly uphold the basic principles of being a military type organization, then we should do away with the Air Force Style and Corporate (with military rank) and dress up like airline pilots, we seem to be heading in that direction anyway.

[wingnut]

Before I spoke I had not seen the Powerpoint

My take on it.

1. What the heck? we cannot get people to do the current CAP training, we have how many specialty groups??
2. I think its a good way to recruit non-pilot people into CAP.
3. It makes sense, I mean we all are officers, after being a cadet and becoming a Captain I have always felt that there are many in CAP who are not suited to be wearing a uniform of an Air Force Captain. We need more military training before going up the chain of officer rank.

[Larry Mangum]

I think WingNut hit the nail on the head gentleman, as we are not a military organization, at best we are a quasi military organization.   What good is an NCO core if we do not have lower ranks, what do they bring us? As a former serving enlisted man I fully understand the purpose of the NCO corp in the real military, but do not see a real need in CAP. Why do we need to further segregate our members into different classes.  We do that already in several ways; if under 21 but over 18 and not a cadet then you are a flight officer; can't meet the weight / grooming requirements then we will set you apart by making you wear an alternative uniform. Now you want to do that even more based on some discussion on this subject, based upon education or other criteria to be determined.  Why, what purpose does it serve? A college degree is no guarantee that a person will be a better leader or manager then someone who does not have a degree. If you want to fix some of the probelms in CAP, then we, as in the membership, need to spend our time and efforts developing a leadership program for our senior members and teaching leadership and stop wasting time and effort and trying to further divide the membership up. 

Before you flame me, I have know both Officers and NCO's in the military I would follow into the gates of  hell and some that I would not follow across the street.  In regards to former NCO's, let them wear their rank with pride. In regards to uniforms, I am no different them most prior airman, in that I do not like to see what I consider as "my blue suit" worn improperly by members who either do not meet the grooming or weight standards.

[Short Field]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  RANT WARNING  !!!!!!!!!

after being a cadet and becoming a Captain I have always felt that there are many in CAP who are not suited to be wearing a uniform of an Air Force Captain. We need more military training before going up the chain of officer rank.

Really!! ??   I have NEVER seen a CAP member wearing a USAF Captain's uniform unless they were an active-duty USAF Captain.   If I do, they will definitely hear about - if not face charges of impersonating an Officer.   CAP members do wear CAP uniforms and wear CAP rank.  CAP is NOT a military organization and CAP is NOT a para-military organization.  It is the USAF Auxiliary.    No amount of hooah or RM wannable uniforms is going to change that.   The ONLY people I have seen wearing a USAF Captain's uniform are the people who have earned it by being selected by a USAF Promotion Board to be a USAF Captain.