Idea: 2 Years of College for all CAP Officers

[ZigZag911]

Zig Zag:

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

You say it, but you don't mean it!

OK, I get your point, I've made my point....I'll leave it alone (well, for a few months, anyway!)

[Dragoon]

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.

Okay, lets look at what you're saying (everyone pay attention here)



Under this system proposal, if you don't work above squadron level, you will not get promoted through the officer ranks.  No amount of training or going to class will suffice.



I'm all for this, but a lot of members aren't.  They will claim that the long term squadron member who works hard and goes to the classes deserves to be promoted too.



Now, how do you handle the guy who as MADE Lt Col, but no longer wants to do the fun stuff?  He just wants to fly, or teach cadets or whatever.

Do you demote him?

Do you make him hold a job at Wing, even though he's not the least bit interested in doing it anymore?

Do you just let him go back to the unit, keep his grade and work for the Master Sergeant?

[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.

Okay, lets look at what you're saying (everyone pay attention here)

Under this system proposal, if you don't work above squadron level, you will not get promoted through the officer ranks.  No amount of training or going to class will suffice.

That's right. Understand the local unit you're talking about becomes almost all-enlisted. Officers start above the local level & rarely come down, certainly don't stay down there. The only case where there could be an officer in alocal unit is floating thru for a couple years at Sq CC or ES/CP training officer. They won't always get those jobs & they won't tay on after they're done. If you want to work at a local unit then you choose to be enlsited at the start. If you're fed up with being an officer & want to go back to a local unit then you can resign your appointment & take equiv enlisted grade. Officers start at at joint staff level we're calling a Sq & stay there thru the company grades. If they don't want to leave there, they can decline promotion. Once they make Maj they go to Gp or Wg staff as the command sees fit. Besides the rare junior major in a Sq CC job, they can't leave Gp/Wg. If they want to later in their career they can request demotion to some other grade. There's no reason to do that though. They can be assigned to Wg w/o a job & even in a reserve role if they see fit, & are free to visit & help whatever unit they want, but they cannot take postions there or interfere with the assigned chain of command.

I'm all for this, but a lot of members aren't.  They will claim that the long term squadron member who works hard and goes to the classes deserves to be promoted too.

Now, how do you handle the guy who as MADE Lt Col, but no longer wants to do the fun stuff?  He just wants to fly, or teach cadets or whatever.
Do you demote him? Do you make him hold a job at Wing, even though he's not the least bit interested in doing it anymore? Do you just let him go back to the unit, keep his grade and work for the Master Sergeant?

I wasn't planning on asking them. It's drastic change we have to work toward over time. A professional officer corps would support it. We have a program to produce a professional officer corps, and create the enlisted structure underneath by necessity. Somthing like this program would be down range of that, but I hope not too far downrange. rest is answered above.

[COL Land]

First is ACA. They are just a cadet program & not formally tied to any branch of service (but strong informal connections). The OCS they require is two weeks in-res hardcore trng, a year of intense self-study, & two more weeks at the end, at a cost of several thousand to the candidate. That's much more strenuous & time consuming than what I'm asking & they don't even have an ES mission or federal backing.

I know this is an old post....however, just for clarification, the training costs for ACA Officer Development Training (Officer Candidate School (OCS) or Officer Basic Course (OBC)) are:

OCS Phase I (9 Days) Enrolled ACA Officer.......................... $175
OCS Phase III (9 Days) Enrolled ACA Officer........................ $200
         (Price includes commissioning insignia)
OBC (9 Days) Enrolled ACA Officer..................................... $200
         (Price includes commissioning insignia)

Under no circumstances is ACA OCS "...at the cost of several thousand to the candidate."  Granted, uniforms and travel can be expensive if purchased off-the-rack; however, not likely to the point of spending "thousands."   We also have www.clothingsales.acacadets.org to keep the costs as low as possible.

Completion of ACA's OCS program makes the OC eligible for the award of six college credits.  Detailed information on our commissioning requirements can be found at http://www.acacadets.org/PDF/acainst1120-2B.pdf

Respectfully,


J. M. LAND, SR., CDR, USNCC
Chief of Staff    www.militarycadets.org
American Cadet Alliance National Headquarters

"ADVENTURE BEGINS HERE!"

[DNall]

^that's $575, plus travel, plus uniforms, plus 27 days off work (plus transit time). That's a few grand, and nothing wrong with that. It costs several thousand in net lost income to be be a natioanl guard officer.

[mikeylikey]

How come they can get away with looking almost exactly like the military and CAP members look look like clowns? 

[DNall]

Cause they aren't formally affiliated with the military so don't have to ask permission, and aren't govt funded, so don't have to play nice for worry of having it taken away.

[mikeylikey]

got it!  I'm off to throw on my AF blues.....remove the nameplate and throw on metal general stars.  I'm not affiliated with the AF, or CAP when I do that.....but I expect everyone to call me General.  Will I go to jail if I start introducing myself to everyone as "general"? I hope not!

[COL Land]

^that's $575, plus travel, plus uniforms, plus 27 days off work (plus transit time). That's a few grand, and nothing wrong with that. It costs several thousand in net lost income to be be a natioanl guard officer.

Actually, not.   For clarification...

OCS is one course of instruction, spread out over two summer Annual Training periods.   Total $375, with commissioning package.

OBC is a different course of instruction for those who have been federally commissioned officers, or have extensive service in a Recognized Cadet Corps, and is one 9-day period only.   Total $200, with commissioning package.

[DNall]

That's wierd, cause OCS is usually where you learn how to be a theoretical officer, and then OBC is the first course you take so you learn how to do your techinical job & be an officer in practical terms. But anyway...

I don't expect them to be any different in price than what CAP adds up to, it's the quality we're concerned with. Getting quality interviewed & select candidates in the front door, then thru quality training, that makes higher quality officer that are semi-on-par with NG level officers. And then keep up that advanced training as they move thru their career so they can stand side by side with NG/Res officers in a disaster zone & work interoperably within the ICS system.

[DNall]

got it!  I'm off to throw on my AF blues.....remove the nameplate and throw on metal general stars.  I'm not affiliated with the AF, or CAP when I do that.....but I expect everyone to call me General.  Will I go to jail if I start introducing myself to everyone as "general"? I hope not!

Obviously wearing an indistinguishable uniform &/or claiming to be a military officer can be a crime. All it takes to meet the legal definition of distinguishable is a same color two-line nametag that says Civil Air Patrol under the last name. That's all most SDFs do. The AF is holding CAP to a standard higher than what the law requires. They are doing that because CAP folks are oin uniform on AF bases & they don't want their people thinking we are real officers with UCMJ authority. Therefor their standard is that a CAP uniform must be clearly distinguishable from 20ft away. That still doesn't mean it needs to be as silly as it is now.

[ZigZag911]

Therefor their standard is that a CAP uniform must be clearly distinguishable from 20ft away. That still doesn't mean it needs to be as silly as it is now.

A couple of AF AD (E5 and E4) just recently told us about an incident in which one of them, exiting a dining facility, encountered a group of CAP officers, saluted, and failed to receive a return salute (as an aside, unfortunately we have some members who feel CAP is "too military", and consequently treat real military personnel discourteously because they are uncomfortable with saluting, rank titles, the terms 'sir' and 'ma'am'.....I'm not entirely sure why they didn't join some other organization that had no military affiliation!)

Anyway, to return to the point, when asked why he bothered saluting a horde of CAP officers, the SSgt replied that "from 20 or 30 feet you can't tell them apart from USAF officers"....anecdotal, I realize, but if true, an indication that the current insignia distinctions don't serve their purpose.

[RiverAux]

Anyway, to return to the point, when asked why he bothered saluting a horde of CAP officers, the SSgt replied that "from 20 or 30 feet you can't tell them apart from USAF officers"....anecdotal, I realize, but if true, an indication that the current insignia distinctions don't serve their purpose.

No, its the fact that AF sees so little of CAP that they don't actually know what distinguishing marks are there to be seen.  Most, even if they recognize that we're not AF still won't know who we are and will whip out a salute just in case. 

The problem isn't our uniforms, its the fact that we're so separated from each other that neither knows how to act when they come in contact with each other. 

And not knowing how to act is just as much an AF problem as a CAP problem.  Its their responsibilty to train their people about what CAP is and what we do and what our uniforms look like just like it is CAP's responsibilty to do the same for for our members.

[DNall]

^That's highly unfortunate, we've worked to address that inour wing, but penetration is less than complete to be sure. You salute at 5 paces (10-15ft) not 20 or 30 feet. What you'll generally see is people giving you a wide pberth cause they don't understand what they're seeing. Honestly I think that's more of an education issue on their end, but we have plenty to do as well.

[ZigZag911]

^That's highly unfortunate, we've worked to address that inour wing, but penetration is less than complete to be sure. You salute at 5 paces (10-15ft) not 20 or 30 feet. What you'll generally see is people giving you a wide pberth cause they don't understand what they're seeing. Honestly I think that's more of an education issue on their end, but we have plenty to do as well.

It was the USAF gentleman who mentioned 20-30 feet....I guess that's 'target identification' range in terms of saluting

[RiverAux]

Frankly, it doesn't really bother me if the tiny percentage of AF members who actually come in contact with CAP accidently salute a CAP officer once in their careers.  It doesn't hurt anybody and that half a calorie they burned lifting their arm will help keep them Fit To Fight.   

To some extent the more that the AF tries to dis-associate CAP members from the AF, the less interested I am in volunteering my time to support the AF.


   

[mikeylikey]

^^  One way to alleviate all of that is to grant "Special Commissions" that place the CAP member in a reserve that is dedicated only to the CAP missions.  That is what they do in Australia, Canada, the UK, and most other countries with a cadet program similar to CAP.  I was sent the 50 some page booklet that the Army Cadets are presenting to everyone in hopes of growing their program.  They list that as one possible route for their program.  By the way, CAP is mentioned like 6 times as an example.  I will link to the booklet as soon as I can.

[Hawk200]

Anyway, to return to the point, when asked why he bothered saluting a horde of CAP officers, the SSgt replied that "from 20 or 30 feet you can't tell them apart from USAF officers"....

Even though I hate some of our uniform insignia, I have to address this. I've had Air Force enlisted salute me when in blues, and Marines salute me when in BDU's.

I used to stop and explain that military weren't required to salute us (I don't anymore, so everyone can leave that alone). The Air Force personnel said that it was officer rank, and used the old rule of thumb: "When in doubt, whip it out." The Marines replied with: "No sir, we are required to salute all officer rank insignia, regardless of its commisioned status".

I think overall that it's not a case of being indistuigishable (my gray epaulets and nametag are disitinctive enough, I won't even expand on the BDU issue), it's a case of they see the little details that say "officer" and work from there.

Either way, I've always been taught that you return any and all salutes you receive, even if it's someone being a smart aleck. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts. That's not something I just learned from the military, it's also based on a few stories that I heard from my father when he was in the military. It may be old custom, but it should be a continuing one.

[capchiro]

Why does everyone have to make such a big deal over saluting?  It is a courtesy and should be extended to the rank, not the organization.  And if saluted, return the darn thing, don't try to explain something to someone, especially when you don't have a clue about what you are talking about.  Having served, I can tell you that on some bases, there is a large contingent of foreign military.  Some of the foreign military enlisted uniforms look like field grade uniforms.  They get saluted by active duty all the time.  It's not a crime, it happens, the foreigners return the salute and everyone goes on without a big deal.  If you think you see an officer that outranks you, in any service, salute.  If someone salutes you, return the salute.  It's as simple as that.  It's a courtesy, it's a sign of respect, and it's a sign of brotherhood.  Quit embarrassing everyone because of your own feelings of inadequacy or ego.  IMHO, but worth every pennies worth.

[arajca]

I agree with that. Although, it is fun to watch some enlisted/junior officer's faces as they try to figure out whether or not salute me in the bbdu. A simple pleasure, I admit, but fun none the less. If they salute, I return it, if they don't, I don't worry about it.