Quote from: DNall on September 11, 2007, 07:48:44 PM
Think about guard troops... They should be fully qualified & combat ready. They may not practice on a daily basis, but they aren't posers. You MIGHT call them second string (and you might get punched for doing so), but they are still part of the same team & when they go to war no one knows the difference.

That's where CAP needs to be vis-a-vie professional responders.

Except that the average reserve component unit requires a rather extensive active duty trainup period before deployment.  They aren't "combat ready" by training 2 days a month.

If they were, we could shrink the active force by 2/3s and just rely on the reserve component.  After all, they're much cheaper!

We are never going to be, man for man, as well trained as the National Guard.  But that's okay.  As long as we're dedicated to doing the best we realistically can, and we don't promise more than we can deliver, we bring added capability to the mission at hand.

Quote from: DNall on September 11, 2007, 08:15:25 PMBut we don't know what we're doing! We're just a bunch of people with uniforms and a handful of planes. Our training is worthless in comparison to the standards FEMA is demanding of all responders. And our certification process of "do-it-yourself & someone who didn't see it will sign off," that's not acceptable. We have to be qualified by OUTSIDE standards & evaluators (who can be CAP members w/ outside certs). We can just walk up and say we're qualified. That doesn't make it true.

You have a rather idealistic view of what we "should be doing."  I really doubt it's gonna play out that way.

First, FEMA has yet to demand squat of anyone.  And when they do, they'll be setting reasonable goals that we'll have no more problem meeting than any other volunteer agency.

Second, the OUTSIDE evaluation is going to end up as a pencil whipping drill. Because FEMA ain't funded to provide the evaluators to all the outside groups in every specialty.  They'll in the end expect large groups like CAP to self certify.  FEMA will never be the expert on inland Air SAR, so they'll end up relying us to write and enforce the standard! 

Look at the ICS certification - for the most of us this comes down to a couple of online courses and some multiple choice open book quizzes - hardly diffficult stuff. 

There are lots of reasons to improve - but fear of FEMA isn't one of them. 

Quote from: DNall on September 11, 2007, 08:15:25 PM
RiverAux mentioned "state-level missing person SaR" & not understanding what our ground crews would do in the relatively few disasters. He also mentioned photo recon & light transport on our air side. Let me address those...

That's first of all work for about 3 planes, not 100. I'd say that we need to be first in assets literally as soon as the wind clears enough to get in the airspace. Assessment needs to start with general survey to determine hardest hit areas (where to direct federal/state assets), then you need to evaluate potential operating bases & transportation routes to/from. You then go back to damage assesment & backfill the detail/answer requests, and you support comm. The rest need to be working SaR & comm (support of other agency comm as well).

Far as ground, you need to put that front end set of crews in to do initial damage assessment - like Florida RECON, only we can do it as a combined air/grd unit, and we can relay pictures taken on the ground or in the air directly to FEMA/Governor.

The first thing you do after you get set up at those bases is go look for missing people, planes, & boats! Some of that is going to be AFRCC, and some is just driving around systematically looking for people in trouble.

The big thing we bring to the table isn't just the planes. Alone, they aren't very meaningful. It's the combined air/grd unit w/ strong comms capability, and we should be further developing field command & control apparatus. That's what makes us important is that we can employ such forces at the lowest levels.

I dunno, still sounds like the planes are the big thing we've got going.  That's how you'd do the damage assessment of large areas, and the main way you'd look for missing cars, planes and boats.

Sure, it would be good to be the ground damage assessment folks, but we're not the only ones who can do that.  Last time I checked, the Red Cross has a fair amount of this tradespace. 

Sending pictures from the ground is worth pursuing, but the comms network would need a whole new technology - we can't count on cells or even satellite bandwidth, and SSTV in it's current form is not idea for more than one transmitter per frequency. 

I get your basic concept - CAP could be the eyes and ears for the entire disaster.  It's not a bad vision.  Would need some bucks though.  USAF isn't likely to pay.

Quote from: Dragoon on September 11, 2007, 08:30:30 PM

Except that the average reserve component unit requires a rather extensive active duty trainup period before deployment.  They aren't "combat ready" by training 2 days a month.

That's not the standard, nor is it a good measurement in the context of this discussion.

Because Guard units ARE "disaster ready" (IOW, qualified for their state missions) by training 2 days a month.

IOW, there is no pre-deployment training for riots, floods, wildfires, earthquakes, etc.

The Governor calls, and the Guard goes.

And, by-and-large, do a pretty good job.

And these kinds of natural disaster/state active duty missions are a much better analogy than working in a joint and combined arms team in a high-intensity conflict.

Don't you think?

Quote from: RiverAux on September 10, 2007, 11:00:28 PM
Keep in mind that there are almost no full-time people doing disaster relief or ground SAR as their sole job.  Pretty much everybody is doing it on a part-time basis whether they are being paid or are a volunteer. 

Thats actually not true and not to be argumentative but its another one of those famous "most statements" thats not based on any proven statistic. I did DR and SAR long before I ever heard of CAP. Most of my education has been in DR and my training and experience in MSAR (medical search and rescue). Im working on my Master's with 25 people who are doing their degrees online because their career lives involved living out of a pack. In my class alone there are 5 smoke jumper medics and 4 people who have been in ES in some form as their career for at least 10 years.  Then add in people who work for the Red Cross, FEMA, CDC, NIH and folks like me who specialize on disaster medicine. People thing of disaster relief careers as desk jockies. The people driving the desks are the small portion of the business end of DR. Add in fire fighters, EMTs, Medics, the technical rescue squads of LAPD and Jersey City's ESU alone are huge employers.

As for volunteers at disaster sites, Im all for it and thankful for them as long as their training and abilities do not hinder the efforts of professionals as it did at times in both NYC and New Orleans. NOLA turned people away because they knew that untrained volunteers in a disaster zone are dangerous and more likely to become nothing but more casualties and take time away from the real effort when they get themselves in trouble due to shoddy training or thinking if you can work a shovel you can work rescue.

Please go to just about any county in the country and tell me how many people are working full time on DR and SAR.  If you're in a medium to large metropolitan area they've probably got a few time emergency coordinators on staff and there are some working in the state's emergency management agency, and maybe a few paid Red Cross folks, but go out into the hinterlands and its a whole different story.  You just happen to be in close proximity to the handful of professionals out there. 

I'm not sure I've ever come across a full-time paid SAR person on a search of any kind.   Plenty of persons who have it as a part-time part of their job description (cops and firemen mostly), but overwhelmingly volunteers of one form or another. 

QuoteAdd in fire fighters, EMTs, Medics, the technical rescue squads of LAPD and Jersey City's ESU alone are huge employers

All of whom only do SAR or DR as a side part of their job unless you've actually got a technical rescue squad sitting around on standby all day. 

Now, one could argue that any fire is a disaster, and it is for those folks, but in the context of this discussion we're not talking about those routine events that CAP wouldn't be involved in anyway. 

Quote from: Ned on September 11, 2007, 08:52:20 PM

Quote from: Dragoon on September 11, 2007, 08:30:30 PM

Except that the average reserve component unit requires a rather extensive active duty trainup period before deployment.  They aren't "combat ready" by training 2 days a month.

That's not the standard, nor is it a good measurement in the context of this discussion.

Because Guard units ARE "disaster ready" (IOW, qualified for their state missions) by training 2 days a month.

IOW, there is no pre-deployment training for riots, floods, wildfires, earthquakes, etc.

The Governor calls, and the Guard goes.

And, by-and-large, do a pretty good job.

And these kinds of natural disaster/state active duty missions are a much better analogy than working in a joint and combined arms team in a high-intensity conflict.

Don't you think?

We're switching the discussion a bit. Up till now, the comparision of guard/reserve with active was done to illustrate the relative competence of part timers vs full times at doing the same task.  In this case, fighting people.

This was done specifically to debate the "part timers are just as good as full timers" assertion.

Now, if you wanna talk about the Guard in a DR role that's something different.  Sure, they're awfully good.  Probably better than we are.

And that's kind of the point.

The Guard gets a fair amount of training dollars, equipment dollars, and dedicated training time, well and above what CAP gets.  So...they're better than we are.  Makes sense.  If we could get volunteers to do their job without pay, we could save lots of money!

CAP has a place, primarily doing stuff the guard isn't trained/equipped to do (like flying light planes around, and doing ELT work), and in augmenting them during surges (like big disasters).

We can help. We have a place.  And we matter.

But we're just not gonna be as competent as those who get paid to do it.  There will be individual exceptions of course.  But on average, our level of readiness and competence will be a direct reflection of the dollars and hours spent doing it.  Less dollars and hours - less competence.

Quote from: Dragoon on September 12, 2007, 01:31:03 PM
[
We're switching the discussion a bit. Up till now, the comparision of guard/reserve with active was done to illustrate the relative competence of part timers vs full times at doing the same task.  In this case, fighting people.

This was done specifically to debate the "part timers are just as good as full timers" assertion.

Nope, I think it's the same topic.  Our AD folks do their fair share of DR.  I worked alongside 7th ID guys on several California wildfires.  I also worked with them and a bunch of Marines during the LA riots.

And of course a whole bunch of AD folks performed well and saved lives in the recent past during several hurricanes, most notably Katrina.

And I don't think anyone has asserted that "part timers are just as good as full timers" any more than anyone has said that "part timers are worthless."

The truth is undoubtedly somewhere in between the two extremes.

QuoteBut on average, our level of readiness and competence will be a direct reflection of the dollars and hours spent doing it.  Less dollars and hours - less competence.

And on that, we can agree.

I was co-teaching an ICS300 class the other day when the other instructor made a remark about NIMS being a living document. When asked to explain, he said that it was constantly evolving and would continue to evolve as long as folks continued to come up with better ways to do it...sort of like CPR.

If we wait for it to stop changing, we'd best not hold our breath.

QuoteThe Guard gets a fair amount of training dollars, equipment dollars, and dedicated training time, well and above what CAP gets.  So...they're better than we are.  Makes sense.

Not if you're talking about doing disaster relief missions.  With the exception of certain technical abilities that they have (helicopters, engineeering equipment, and that sort of thing) we're pretty close. For example, a squad of National Guardsman infantrymen is no better trained to operate an emergency shelter or go door to door like CAP ground teams did after Katrina than we are.  They do have a few advantages, but they aren't out of our league. 

For example, the Texas Army National Guard has basically farmed out most of their shelter operations missions to the volunteer Texas State Guard who actually have received training in performing those missions. 

Quote from: RiverAux on September 13, 2007, 03:02:55 AM

QuoteThe Guard gets a fair amount of training dollars, equipment dollars, and dedicated training time, well and above what CAP gets.  So...they're better than we are.  Makes sense.

Not if you're talking about doing disaster relief missions.  With the exception of certain technical abilities that they have (helicopters, engineeering equipment, and that sort of thing) we're pretty close. For example, a squad of National Guardsman infantrymen is no better trained to operate an emergency shelter or go door to door like CAP ground teams did after Katrina than we are.  They do have a few advantages, but they aren't out of our league. 

For example, the Texas Army National Guard has basically farmed out most of their shelter operations missions to the volunteer Texas State Guard who actually have received training in performing those missions. 

I concur, but neither of these duties is a "first responder" activity, either, nor do they really require anything special except for self-sufficiency and common sense.

Quote from: Ned on September 12, 2007, 09:44:07 PM
And I don't think anyone has asserted that "part timers are just as good as full timers" any more than anyone has said that "part timers are worthless."

Actually, someone did.  Just go back a page to this quote

Quote from: DNall on September 08, 2007, 02:58:49 AM
First I would take VERY strong issue with the idea that part-time folks cannot do the job on the same level. Volunteer firefighters & reserve law enforcement can; and at least in my state they meet the exact same qualification & currency standards & their paid-full-time counterparts. The National Guard can, and don't for a second tell me about that BS paycheck that literally doesn't cover half the gas I spend going to drills. The state guard (SDF) in my state does & they get paid per deim only during actual deployments & still less than the gas they burn getting to/from them. EOC volunteers at the State & County level do & they don't get crap. Down toward the bottom you get stuff like Red Cross & CERT that are kind of on the line. Then there are dedicated volunteer search organizations in some places that are many times superb. That mostly brings to mind the mountains, but around here we have a dog search crew, a swiftwater team, and of course there's equisearch.

Don't tell me CAP cannot make the grade, that's a giant cop out & I won't stand for it.   

And this

Quote from: DNall on September 11, 2007, 07:48:44 PM

Quote from: Dragoon on September 10, 2007, 05:02:33 PM
So if part timers can do it as well as full timers, we can fire all the full timers, right?  After all, part timers are cheaper - and if we paid them even a little, we could have oodles more of them.

Sorry, I just don't buy that.  Training for something 40 hours a week beats the heck out of training 20 hours a month.

It's nice rhetoric, but iIMHO t's just unrealistic.

Whatever your day job is, I'm sure you do it MUCH better than a guy who only does it a few day a month. Simple math.  Experience and sheer repitition count for a lot.

CAP is the same way - our value isn't that we can out-do the paid professionals - it's that we can do things they don't train for (where we have the advantage), and that we can supplement the tasks they are trained for during surge situations.

I didn't say out-do! I said can-do.

Think about guard troops... They should be fully qualified & combat ready. They may not practice on a daily basis, but they aren't posers. You MIGHT call them second string (and you might get punched for doing so), but they are still part of the same team & when they go to war no one knows the difference.

That's where CAP needs to be vis-a-vie professional responders.

And away we went....

Quote from: RiverAux on September 13, 2007, 03:02:55 AM

QuoteThe Guard gets a fair amount of training dollars, equipment dollars, and dedicated training time, well and above what CAP gets.  So...they're better than we are.  Makes sense.

Not if you're talking about doing disaster relief missions.  With the exception of certain technical abilities that they have (helicopters, engineeering equipment, and that sort of thing) we're pretty close. For example, a squad of National Guardsman infantrymen is no better trained to operate an emergency shelter or go door to door like CAP ground teams did after Katrina than we are.  They do have a few advantages, but they aren't out of our league. 

For example, the Texas Army National Guard has basically farmed out most of their shelter operations missions to the volunteer Texas State Guard who actually have received training in performing those missions. 

In general terms - organized manpower with good comms, good vehicles and good command structure are valuable in a disaster, regardless of specific DR training.

CAP has some of all these things, more than many volunteer groups.  But the Guard has lots more than we got.  I'd kill for their radios, HMMWVs and trucks,  and military discipline during a disaster.

Quote from: Dragoon on September 13, 2007, 02:42:27 PM

Quote from: Ned on September 12, 2007, 09:44:07 PM
And I don't think anyone has asserted that "part timers are just as good as full timers" any more than anyone has said that "part timers are worthless."

Actually, someone did.  Just go back a page to this quote

You and I apparently read those quotes differently.  I read them as saying that part timers like reserve cops, volunteer firefighters, and Guard folks (all part timers whose roles have at least some comparison value to CAP) meet the same training standards as their full-time counterparts.  And accordingly are capable of stepping in at a moment's notice and performing their job to standard.

Which is true.  These dedicated folks routinely step in and replace and supplement their full-time counterparts.  Undoubtedly there are several thousand reseve cops and volunteer fire fighters on duty at this very moment.  There are hundreds of Guard soldiers and airman on active duty in California right now (who did not go through any extensive post-mob training) providing support at the border, working in counterdrug task forces, and fighting wildfires.



I sure didn't read those quotes as saying "they are just as good as full-timers."


But maybe we are just discussing semantics at this point.

Peace.

Quote from: ZigZag911 on September 06, 2007, 08:39:49 PM
The fact remains that our GTs are principally trained in DFing and air-ground coordination.....this is what we do that virtually no one else does, and certainly no one does as well as we do.

Should there be a further 'specialty'? yeah, I think so, but I don't think it's a first responder role....I think CAP ought to focus on disaster relief mitigation, in support of the Guard & Red Cross....shelter management, damage assessment, and so forth.

Just a quickie... in my 6 years in CAP Ive never done a single Sarex/Mission where an air element was involved. Nearest CAP bird is over 100 miles away.
It was 100% Ground Team Search (and Rescue) - not recovery-   ... as in locating lost kids in the woods, BLS life support on the way out etc...
Never ever did anything in support of the Red Cross, but they did roll out a field kitchen to support us once.
As for the Guard, in my area at least, the local Armorys tend to think of us as wayward boyscout troops. Wont even give us the time of day, couldnt even get a Recruiter to visit. 

I think we're seeing the usual confusion between GT and UDF. Yes, our UDF teams are the best (and often the only) resource that can do what they do...ELT searches in populated areas.

Once we move into the GT realm though, we do have some catching up to do, but we are on the right track when we speak of NIMS typing and outside training opportunities such as SARTECH and some of the USAR training available from local fire departments. Not saying that we should become USAR teams, but some of the training (National Grid System, ICS etc) is right up our alley.

The biggest problem is lack of utilization leading to a lack of training which leads to a further lack of utilization etc etc. If folks don't see the need, they won't train and if they don't train, they won't be called. It's a vicious cycle that we can break by training and then letting the folks that be (fire chief, EMA director, Sheriff etc)know what we can do in language they can understand:

"Sir, we'd like you to be IC for our next exercise. We have 2 type III Wilderness SAR teams and a type III IMT that we can bring to the table as well as an airplane and trained aircrew that costs less than a quarter of what your chopper costs. We also have additional partially-trained personel that can be used as a force multiplier working in teams with fully-trained personnel".

After a couple of exercises, they just might take us seriously.

Quote from: RiverAux on September 07, 2007, 02:02:15 AM

QuoteThe fact remains that our GTs are principally trained in DFing and air-ground coordination.....this is what we do that virtually no one else does, and certainly no one does as well as we do.

Thats funny since locating ELTs comprise and air-ground coordination comprise only about 10% of the tasks in the GT task book.  The fact is that CAP vastly underutilizes and underpromotes our GT capabilities while overpromoting our air SAR capabilities which are only of use in a few specific situations.    While there are certainly local independent SAR teams that overall have better GT skills than us, in most of the country the local CAP unit is only ground SAR organization available. 

So, I would argue that no other national organization does ground SAR as well as we do. 

Gene, that's all well and good, but where does CAP get the training required for NIMS? The average Squadron doesn't do any NIMS training, but rather sticks with SAR training offered through Wings, none of which includes ICS. Without the ICS 100, 200 and 700 as a minimum local Emergency Management, or Fire-Rescue isn't going to look at CAP. More and more, Fire-Rescue Reserves are training in ground search and CERT is better trained for disaster relief than CAP which specializes in air-ground search. Locally the Reserves are working withh the Sheriffs helicopter for air ground search using ham radio for communications. So the local effort duplicates what CAP is capable of. Add to that, they train one or two times a month, they may be better trained than the local CAP unit(s).  Perhaps CAP needs to reevaluate training to meet post 9/11 requirements and roles of volunteers. So basically CAP is training in the wrong areas and for a role that has deminished in light of 9/11 and Kitrina.

All the courses you mentioned are available online and I'm betting that within a year those and 300/400 will be required within CAP.  The basic ones are not a problem at all. 

I think Bill's tongue was firmly in his cheek. He was just at our ICS 100/200/700 and ICS300 training weekend down at the FL Fire College.

All it takes is either finding the classes or qualifying our own people to teach it. Yes, you can do the beginning classes online, but you learn so much more and get so much more interaction out of a live class that it is well worth your time if you can do it.

Quote from: SAR-EMT1 on September 15, 2007, 07:58:54 AM
Just a quickie... in my 6 years in CAP Ive never done a single Sarex/Mission where an air element was involved. Nearest CAP bird is over 100 miles away.
It was 100% Ground Team Search (and Rescue) - not recovery-   ... as in locating lost kids in the woods, BLS life support on the way out etc... 

I would suspect your experience is rather unusual....if I'm wrong, I'd be very interested in hearing fromother board members about this.

We do carry out ground-only missions...NJ Wing had one last night, a GT found an ELT, weather grounded aircraft....normally we do launch an AC whenever conditions permit unless it is very clearly a 'ramp search' situation.

Quote from: RiverAux on September 15, 2007, 03:14:59 PM
All the courses you mentioned are available online and I'm betting that within a year those and 300/400 will be required within CAP.  The basic ones are not a problem at all. 

Actually in MER those classes (ICS 100/200/700 and ICS300) are required, to remain current in a 101 card-Specialty Qualification Rating, as of 1 Oct 2007. IC's and Branch Directors have an additional year for their specific courses.