Idea: 2 Years of College for all CAP Officers

[Guardrail]

Okay...what do you call something that you do in your spare time and don't get paid for it?

Hobby.

That is 90% of the problem I have with many of you all's ideas about reforming CAP.  It is a hobby.  It is an important hobby where we help people, train cadets and educate the public about the benefits of air power.

But is is still a hobby.

If you don't like the word hobby...how about club?

I can hear the groans of angst right now!

For some, CAP is a hobby.  For others, it is an extra-curricular activity.  It all depends on the person.  I don't think we can argue about whether or not CAP is a hobby if CAP means something different for each person.

A hobby is something that someone enjoys doing in their spare time.  Not all members of CAP enjoy it, though I'd venture to say that most do.  I know I did, although I never did put CAP down as a hobby on my resume.     

[aveighter]

Okay...what do you call something that you do in your spare time and don't get paid for it?

Hobby.

That is 90% of the problem I have with many of you all's ideas about reforming CAP.  It is a hobby.  It is an important hobby where we help people, train cadets and educate the public about the benefits of air power.

But it is still a hobby.

If you don't like the word hobby...how about club?

I can hear the groans of angst right now!

Maybe not angst, but there are several here who now are slapping their foreheads after a big glass of cold reality water just hit them in the face.  And at last, and with clarity, the reasons for the vast gulf between world views is revealed.

For many, this is just good clean fun.  Take some extra time you would otherwise waste sitting in front of the sewer outlet (network TV) and go do some cool things.  Play with great toys, wear neat clothing and sport some really excellent titles!  And, do it all with low entry requirements, minimal standards and few ongoing expectations.  Yeah it costs a few bucks, but  what the heck,  a great hobby isn't cheap and clubs have dues, after all.

For others it is far more serious.  It is the fulfillment of a societal obligation,  a duty if you will.  An opportunity to step forward, raise your hand and say "take me, I'll go" knowing full well the full import of the act.  To volunteer, to step forward and shoulder an obligation when you know you don't have to.  For this honor some are paid, some are not.  The guys of WWII in their rickety planes wheezing off the ground with a bomb strapped between the gear were not hobbyists.  They were volunteers that saw a job that needed to be done and got with it.  They didn't find a hundred reasons not to perform, they found solutions to problems standing between them and where they needed to go. 

So there you have it.  On the one hand there are the serious ones that  understand the situation, as an organization and as a nation, see the obstacles arrayed against us and have come up with some original and, in some cases, quite elegant solutions to the problems and are chomping at the bit to get on with it.  They understand that time is precious, and time is short.  On the other hand you have the hobbyists, wonderful fellows to be sure, that see all this commotion as one giant wet blanket thrown over the party and pegging the fun meter somewhere left of zero.

The solution?  I mean a real actual workable solution?  Split the organization.  Corporate CAP for the cadet programs, AE and community service types and USAF auxiliary CAP for mission oriented, requirements based and accountable standards types.  I honestly don't see any other way because as we have seen, the world views are so diametrically opposed.  Short of a national level disaster analogous to the Nazi sub fleet ravaging the east coast I just don't see the motivation necessary to come together  as an effective force happening.  Quite frankly given the current state of affairs, with the exception of a few units here and there I don't think anyone at the national response level sees the organization as anything more than "Oh yeah, there are some civil air patrol people somewhere and I think they maybe have some little planes or something".

By that time, of course, it will be too late.

[lordmonar]

I think you mis-understand me....as I have said all along.  I am mission oriented, accountable and professional in my conduct.  But it is still a hobby.  I have never said that we should split off the programs...nor do I think that there are those who are not serous about what we do or think that our missions are not important.

But it is still a hobby by definition.  So what does that mean?  It means our members have other obligations that come first!  Any volunteer (in the unpaid sense of the word) program must take that into consideration when developing its plans and programs.

So you want to turn CAP into a NG light....good goal.  It won't work because no one can devote the time it takes to develop that sort of organization. AND we will never have a need to work at that level.

Yes the NG does a good job of developing good leaders on one weekend a month and two weeks a year.  But they also have a lot of full time members who take care of the day to day operations, training and planning.   They also pay for their members to do the required training.

One of the great parts of the Iowa Plan is that they do just that.  Come to training and it will not cost you a dime.  If you are new all we ask is six weekends and you will be on your way.

Requiring degrees (or the equivalent if you to play semantic games) only locks out a significant portion of you available pool of volunteers.  Creating more meaningful training is great...but if you don't remember that your volunteers are in it as a hobby and plan accordingly, you will quickly burn them out and waste all your efforts.

If you bog down your leaders with a lot of useless attendance tracking and administration BS you take away from their limited time they have to devote to the important duties of running their squadrons.

Now you may not like the term hobby because it carries connotations of something that takes up a lot of time but in the long run has no real value.  But in the end analysis it is the same.  Whether you like the hobby, club or non-paid service organisation....it all boils down to the same thing.  We are unpaid...we only have a finite amount of time to devote to the program...we are here for many reasons, but if we are no longer enjoying ourselves then we are going to quit.

[DNall]

If both NCOs and Junior Officers can do the same jobs and fill the same slots, then you don't need both.  Just make everyone junior officers and be done with it.

WOs & officers both fly side by side in the Army. Why do we need both? The NCO in this case is a senior enlisted leader taking the job on the basis of sheer experience & a proven record or performance. The junior officer selected tot hat role is has spent half their CAP life in training & is selected to these slots when there are good NCOs there to develop them or when there are not enough NCOs there to cover the unit needs. This is a development position for the officer to prepare them for bigger things.

The minute you tell officers that they can't fly missions anymore or chase ELTs in the dark and have to work mission staff, you'll have a revolt.  Today, some of our most critical HLS missions are being flown by former Wing and Region Commanders!

You ever seen a FW/CC in the AF? They sure as hell fly, but that's not their job anymore, they only get to do it after the job is done & their people are taken care of.

Field grade officers can participate, but that's not their function in the org. They come into the system eyes open knowing that this is the route to IC, not lots of flying, and that CAP is a cog in a big integrated emergency response machine that they are asking to play a part in. They're sold on a vision of leadership, not the field work. If they want to focus on a local unit & missions, enlisted is the way to go, & that's a choice everyone will have to make. If they don't want to be an officer anymore, they can resign & go down to enlisted.

This is the problem that CAP must deal with - people wish to work at all levels of the system, and move freely between those levels as their desires and schedules change. They aren't going to be pigeon-holed into a limited set of functions based on what's on their collar.

Sure they will, within reason. If you noticed the way I explained the system, it still didn't say they'd be assigned a role commensurate with their grade, just that if the LtCol wants to be an Assistant TCO that he has to do it on Wg or Gp Staff cause he can't be assigned lower then that. You might still get a situation where a LtCol works for a Major, but not one where a fresh Lt commands half a dozen LtCols. It reduces the problem to manageable. That's not to say they can't attend meetings around the corner from the house or help out there, they just can't hold a position or interfere with the chain.

That kind of "up or out" policy works fine in the Guard and Reserve where money is changing hands.  But for volunteers, when the Lt Col wants to take a break and work at the squadron as a staffer, you're going to tell him "No, you have to commute 100 miles to work on Group staff?"

A lot of Gps are arranged now with bad span of control. In fixing that you may have a shorter distance to travel. My Gp staff though meets face-to-face 3 times a year & does everything else by monthly conference call. Wg staff is only for Christmas & Conference, otherwise on the phone. The best case would be to follow Iowa a bit further & do a quarterly drill wknd at the Gp level.

Position based rank might work better, as it allows you to change your status from Field Grade Officer/Mission Staff back to Junior Officer/Ground Team Leader and back again as you move through your CAP years. 

That may correct the appearance, but the appearance isn't the problem. The issue is the people sitting in those chairs have no idea what they're doing. Sq CC slots aren't Captain because it just looks right to have a Captain there. It's associated with Captain because that's the level of training, evaluation, experience, grooming. etc it takes to develop a person capable of doing that job at an acceptable level. That's what grade is supposed to reflect is that level of capability as you're groomed & developed up.

As strange as this sounds, functionally it's less different than you think. The system still adapts to people's various points in life. Also, you'll find looking around that most other organizations work like this too. You have to streamline operations for the local unit, support those operations close to the ground with well resourced staffing, and drag talent up out of there to populate the executive layer as people are developed over their careers. Our problem is we require too much of local units on every front & all of it detracts from the mission, and we do almost nothing to fix the leadership deficit above Sq. Is this perfect, no, but it addresses the problem in a fairly conventional & standardized way that's proven successful with volunteers all over the country. I think it's the right way to go.


LM et al:
Skipping the hobby bit, cause I don't care how you define the word...

1) we can't split cause ES alone isn;'t worth a dime, nor is cadet programs or AE. Only as a package is it something worth buying. All these efforts to imporve the situation will still not make any piece along worth paying for - it's like those commercials on TV "act now & we'll throw in a dinky cadet program & some AE crap that looks good on paper." They just aren't goingt o pay for ES w/o CP & that's a fact. You split it off, the CP/AE will go to ACA where it'll fit right in & you'll find they have officer standards amazingly like those being proposed, considering that was one a few things we looked real hard at.

2) NG light, that would be SDF? I'd call it more like Reserve-light if you have to go that route, but as I've said repeatedly, this is not turning us into the military, it's standing up both operational & organization leadership in terms our benefactor understands for express purposes that we have to achieve to survive & grow strong. We do need that level of capability right now. Whay you think CAP is as jacked up as it is? If asnything, it's harder to run CAP than a military command of 53k. As to the time, CAP members already put in the same or more hours than a wknd/mo 2wks a year. None of what's being proposed has asked for a second more time than people are putting in right now.

[Dragoon]

WOs & officers both fly side by side in the Army. Why do we need both?

You don't know the Army very well, do ya?

Warrant Officers fly. Commissioned Officers command.

Warrant Officers fill certain technical slots like Check Pilot.  Officers hold down all the primary staff jobs in the unit (S1, 2, 3, 4, etc.)

Different Grades for different jobs. 

Field grade officers can participate, but that's not their function in the org. They come into the system eyes open knowing that this is the route to IC, not lots of flying, and that CAP is a cog in a big integrated emergency response machine that they are asking to play a part in. They're sold on a vision of leadership, not the field work. If they want to focus on a local unit & missions, enlisted is the way to go, & that's a choice everyone will have to make. If they don't want to be an officer anymore, they can resign & go down to enlisted.

So you're advocating position based rank?   

I think you're going to find that some of our most senior members do both.  They are senior staffers AND the guy who answers the ELT call at 2 a.m.  In a typical week, they do both field grade and junior NCO duties.  They, in many cases, keep the whole thing running.  I'm not sure we want to squelch that just to look more Air Force-y.

A lot of Gps are arranged now with bad span of control. In fixing that you may have a shorter distance to travel. My Gp staff though meets face-to-face 3 times a year & does everything else by monthly conference call. Wg staff is only for Christmas & Conference, otherwise on the phone. The best case would be to follow Iowa a bit further & do a quarterly drill wknd at the Gp level.

Perhaps.  I've found that the best Group and Wing Leaders and staff are those who travel around and visit units.  Something many field grades may not have time to do.  Meaning they hold the rank, but can't really do the job.

Position based rank might work better, as it allows you to change your status from Field Grade Officer/Mission Staff back to Junior Officer/Ground Team Leader and back again as you move through your CAP years. 

That may correct the appearance, but the appearance isn't the problem. The issue is the people sitting in those chairs have no idea what they're doing. Sq CC slots aren't Captain because it just looks right to have a Captain there. It's associated with Captain because that's the level of training, evaluation, experience, grooming. etc it takes to develop a person capable of doing that job at an acceptable level. That's what grade is supposed to reflect is that level of capability as you're groomed & developed up.

I would completely agree.  You're looking for a particular set of competencies and experience. 

But...if that experienced Captain then wants to work as a Lt, then I say make him a Lt!  Save the Captain's bars for the next experienced, competent guy to take the Captain job.

In other words, you don't just pin the bars on anyone.  PD advancement would specify whether or not someone was qualified to be a Captain or not.  But.... they'd also have to be willing to serve at that level.  In CAP you cannot demand that they do so.  You've already discussed turning an officer back into an NCO -what about turning him back into a lower-ranking officer if he doesn't want to work up high any more?

If asnything, it's harder to run CAP than a military command of 53k. As to the time, CAP members already put in the same or more hours than a wknd/mo 2wks a year.

I'll let the Commander of the XXVIII Airborne Corps know the low esteem you hold him in.

Also, if you think any good Reserve or National Guard leader puts in the bare minimum 2 days/month and 2 weeks a year......you are rather mistaken.  These guys are working all month long in the evenings to make those 2 days run well.

More importantly, I'm afraid you just successfully argued that we should not give out rank for active duty officers, because CAP leadership will be much harder than anything they've experienced at that paygrade.  Nope, they should start from the bottom until we've trained them to handle our "harder" leadership challenges.

Be careful - yes, CAP leadership is "herding cats," and that comes with its own headaches.  But it ain't even CLOSE to active duty command.  So much less is expected of a CAP commander in terms of unit performances, personnel and logistical accountability etc.  And then there's the whole "folks trying to kill you" bit.

CAP Leadership and Military Leadership are very different.  And the organizational structure and rank system are probably best being different as well.

[lordmonar]

You ever seen a FW/CC in the AF? They sure as hell fly, but that's not their job anymore, they only get to do it after the job is done & their people are taken care of.

Negative ghost rider!  The Wing king's job is the mission.  He has squadron commanders and first sergeants to take care of the people.

Wing kings must maintain their proficiencies just like the the lowly Lt's.

[DNall]

His job is the Wing doing the mission. If the Lts aren't staying qual'd the boss better not be drilling holes in the sky. Running the org is his first responsibility & flying comes second. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he gets his flying in, but not at the cost of the unit.

[shorning]

Wing kings must maintain their proficiencies just like the the lowly Lt's.

Not exactly. 

Generally, most Wing CC's are only going to be BMC or HDIP-fliers (and fly with an IP when they do fly).  (NOTE: At least that was the set up in the flying wings I've been in.)  That being said, it would only take a little work for them to get back to CMR.

[mikeylikey]

You don't know the Army very well, do ya?

Warrant Officers fly. Commissioned Officers command.

Warrant Officers fill certain technical slots like Check Pilot.  Officers hold down all the primary staff jobs in the unit (S1, 2, 3, 4, etc.)

Different Grades for different jobs. 

I have been in many units where Warrants held staff positions.  I know many Commissioned Officers that fly, go to Fort Rucker or any post that supports air and there are more Lt's and Capt's flying than Warrant Officers.  That is a huge misconception that there are more warrant officer pilots in the army.  I think it has something to do with the National Guard pushing warrant officer flight training heavy these days. 

Army Warrant Officers are technical specialists, while Commissioned Officers are branch generalists.  Up until 3 years ago, Warrant Officer was it's own branch, now those guys get to choose what branch they want to go in the Army.  I always believed the whole Warrant Officer thing was a dated practice.  Since they have all the rights and responsibilities as their Commissioned counterparts, I always thought just make them a 2LT.

[Dragoon]

You don't know the Army very well, do ya?

Warrant Officers fly. Commissioned Officers command.

Warrant Officers fill certain technical slots like Check Pilot.  Officers hold down all the primary staff jobs in the unit (S1, 2, 3, 4, etc.)

Different Grades for different jobs. 

I have been in many units where Warrants held staff positions.  I know many Commissioned Officers that fly, go to Fort Rucker or any post that supports air and there are more Lt's and Capt's flying than Warrant Officers.  That is a huge misconception that there are more warrant officer pilots in the army.  I think it has something to do with the National Guard pushing warrant officer flight training heavy these days. 

Army Warrant Officers are technical specialists, while Commissioned Officers are branch generalists.  Up until 3 years ago, Warrant Officer was it's own branch, now those guys get to choose what branch they want to go in the Army.  I always believed the whole Warrant Officer thing was a dated practice.  Since they have all the rights and responsibilities as their Commissioned counterparts, I always thought just make them a 2LT.

I have served in aviation units.  (Cav's got both air and ground together, ya know)

Look the the Table of Organization and Equipment for an aviation battalion.  Every officer is slotted against a staff, command or leadership job.  Every warrant is slotted against a technical job, or just listed as "pilot."

For example, Lieutenants lead aviation platoons.  All of the other pilots in that platoon are warrants. Someday, that Lt will make captain and command an aviation company.  Most of the warrants, on the other hand will make CW2 or CW3 - and stay right there in the platoon, being just a pilot.

(What's really funny is that Lt, when he arrives, has to be checked out by his warrant officer Check Pilot before he can fly PIC!  Because it's pretty well recognized that the warrants are the flying experts - a heck of a lot more stick time with a lot fewer staff distractions)

The responsibilities are extremely different.  That said, senior aviation warrants have occasionally be asked to fill in as platoon leaders when there weren't enough lieutenants, but as soon as an LT shows up, that warrant goes back to being just a pilot.

It's a bit different with some non-aviation warrants - you'll see them lead elements up to about platoon size in various weird technical fields (maintenance, intell, etc), but alway under the overall command of a commissioned officer.

[DNall]

I'm pretty clear on how Army aviation works.    which illustrates my point...

WO's fly first & take on tactical leadership roles second. Officers fly dramatically less & get pulled back to their primary duty of command/staff support. Okay, now watch this...

Your local unit (now re-designated a flight) is like a Ptn. That should be an NCO dominated structure. NCOs run every aspect of it & an NCO can command there based on experience, proven leadership, & being the best person for the job. OR, I can assign a competent & capable 1Lt down there to get operational experience & develop to be useful at the next level. That make sense?

Okay, ES-wise, the local Flight is caretaker of designated teams. NCOs will run the training for those teams & will be team leaders as well. This is the WO role we were talking about a minute ago. Those junior officers from Sq staff that live nearby will be down here to train with you & may be designated team leader for one of the teams assigned to that flight. Ultimately all the local flt GT people work for a GBD - Capt at Sq level anyway. You kind of see how that works, vis-a-vie the WO example?

Right then we come to Sq (this is what you'd think of as Company). Now, remember we pulled all but the most critical functions up off the local Flights. All they do is mission/CP. Now we put together a cluster of 3-4 local Flights (~150 people) & we call that a Sq, which is where we put most of the junior officers & where we do all that staff work to support local units - again much like a company. You can see the span of control here is more compressed in numbers & distances than our normal groups. That means the Sq staff can meet one Sat a month & spend the rest of the time supporting & training w/ local flights. See the nice part here too is since you're sharing resources on this Sq staff, you can have one Chaplain there that floats around doing ML & checking up on the teams. Just need one JA, one HSO... makes sense right?

Now, the Sq is also the basic operating unit. They draw GTs, aircrews, comm, from the assigned flights & staff from the Sq HQ staff, and together they have an organic combined arms team. Train small unit at Flight, bring it up to combined ops under a staff during quarterly Sq SaREx...  makes sense right?

On the cadet end, they're running the same schedule so when they come together they're at the same place, and they have enough people to run things in a way that just doesn't work with 10 kids. They have an NCO administering the program at Flt, and a DCC at Sq that's in charge of running one standardized program at all the units.

You had some other issues I'll try to get back to later.

[ZigZag911]

So you're advocating position based rank?   
I think you're going to find that some of our most senior members do both.  They are senior staffers AND the guy who answers the ELT call at 2 a.m.  In a typical week, they do both field grade and junior NCO duties.  They, in many cases, keep the whole thing running.  I'm not sure we want to squelch that just to look more Air Force-y.

As a group commander it was not unusual for me to be out at 'oh-dark-thirty' doing ramp checks, DFing, and doing all those other wonderful things associated with a successful UDF mission.

Too many cold, dark, rainy nights finally convinced me to finish IC training so I could stay home with a hot beverage and tell other people it was there turn to be cold, wet & miserable.

I still try to do a few 'midnight run missions' when they surface, because deep down I enjoyed it! It was such a nice change from haranguing people to get reports in and so forth.

[ZigZag911]

Negative ghost rider!  The Wing king's job is the mission.  He has squadron commanders and first sergeants to take care of the people.

Wing kings must maintain their proficiencies just like the the lowly Lt's.

This is the United States of America.

Constitutionally we have neither monarchy, royalty, nobility nor aristocracy.

There is no such thing as a "wing king".

Using the term, endearing as some of you seem to find it, simply continues to encourage arbitrary decision making, authoritarianism, and unwarranted arrogance on the part of corporate officers. whose duty is primarily fiduciary, that is, looking to the welfare of the corporation and its 'stockholders' (members) rather than their own advancement or aggrandizement.

[ZigZag911]

Dnall's concept of centralizing administrative functions makes a lot of sense, regardless of whether or not we change nomenclature.

If we want to continue using 'squadron' for the local unit iand group for the supervision & support echelon, fine....let's just stop demanding that every local unit (whatever we call it) be staffed to run the D-Day landings!

[lordmonar]

Negative ghost rider!  The Wing king's job is the mission.  He has squadron commanders and first sergeants to take care of the people.

Wing kings must maintain their proficiencies just like the the lowly Lt's.

This is the United States of America.

Constitutionally we have neither monarchy, royalty, nobility nor aristocracy.

There is no such thing as a "wing king".

Using the term, endearing as some of you seem to find it, simply continues to encourage arbitrary decision making, authoritarianism, and unwarranted arrogance on the part of corporate officers. whose duty is primarily fiduciary, that is, looking to the welfare of the corporation and its 'stockholders' (members) rather than their own advancement or aggrandizement.

Lighten up Francis. 

"Wing King" is a term of endearment for the Wing Commander.  There is very much such a thing as a wing king.

If you only comment on my post is that I used a non technical identifier for an official position in a unit table of allowance then I take it you do not disagree that the focus of the Wing Commander of a USAF AD unit is to focus on completing the mission.

[DNall]

Dnall's concept of centralizing administrative functions makes a lot of sense, regardless of whether or not we change nomenclature.

If we want to continue using 'squadron' for the local unit iand group for the supervision & support echelon, fine....let's just stop demanding that every local unit (whatever we call it) be staffed to run the D-Day landings!

Basically yeah. I was originally calling them mini-Gps to get the concept across. The reaosn a Ibumped it is cause Flt really is a unit that requires outside support, where Sq shouldn't be, and we're still going to nee the Gp layer in there in a good number of wings to maintain a span of ctrol that makes any kind of sense. I don't even want to hear about chainging flags & all that junk though.

[Dragoon]

Dnall's concept of centralizing administrative functions makes a lot of sense, regardless of whether or not we change nomenclature.

If we want to continue using 'squadron' for the local unit iand group for the supervision & support echelon, fine....let's just stop demanding that every local unit (whatever we call it) be staffed to run the D-Day landings!

It's a fine idea.

The rub is to find folks willing to volunteer to do all the centralized admin, instead of doing the fun work like flying and GT and cadet programs.

Remember the basic problem - you can make Lt Col just doing fun stuff - why do the hard stuff?

Heck, how many folks today are just dying to leave their squadrons and work at Wing, if only Wing would let them?

[DNall]

Cause you CAN'T make LtCol doing just the fun stuff, you can make SSgt-MSgt that way, but not LtCol. On the officer side you have to work lots harder & focus on playing the mission game up on the big IC staff. That in itself is going to be a motivator, the fast track to IC. It's also the fast track to command at all levels. I mean if there's 6000 officers of all grades, and you're getting selected & individually developed at each level, you lose for retention & people that top out by choice or not, the numbers at the top are plenty more than we need, but your chances after surviving that loga re pretty good ya know. There's a pay off, and they get sold a dif bill of goods than the enlisted troops.

[ZigZag911]

Negative ghost rider!  The Wing king's job is the mission.  He has squadron commanders and first sergeants to take care of the people.

Wing kings must maintain their proficiencies just like the the lowly Lt's.

This is the United States of America.

Constitutionally we have neither monarchy, royalty, nobility nor aristocracy.

There is no such thing as a "wing king".

Using the term, endearing as some of you seem to find it, simply continues to encourage arbitrary decision making, authoritarianism, and unwarranted arrogance on the part of corporate officers. whose duty is primarily fiduciary, that is, looking to the welfare of the corporation and its 'stockholders' (members) rather than their own advancement or aggrandizement.

Lighten up Francis. 

"Wing King" is a term of endearment for the Wing Commander.  There is very much such a thing as a wing king.

If you only comment on my post is that I used a non technical identifier for an official position in a unit table of allowance then I take it you do not disagree that the focus of the Wing Commander of a USAF AD unit is to focus on completing the mission.

My name is not Francis, and I presume you are not the drill sergeant from "Stripes"....

Quite possibly you know some wing commanders in the current gaggle that merit  "terms of endearment"; sadly, I do not share your experience.....the quality of corporate officers has declined radically in the past five to ten years, as the litmus test became whether a particular long (in my view, too long) serving National staff member could tell you how to vote.

As to the issue at hand, both you and the individual supporting the opposing view have some merit in your arguments....the bottom line is that any commander at any level must have a dual focus -- member and mission -- and trying to determine which came first is a real "chicken or egg" proposition.

[JohnKachenmeister]

Zig Zag:

If it will make you feel better then, "Wing king" is a perjorative.