LRP class

[WoodlandSARman]

It is not the fault of CAP's training that you're not getting calls from the state parks.  Our standards are more than sufficient for lost person searches.  The fault is lack of coordination with the park and letting them know what our standards are and showing them that we take these standards seriously. 

And trust me... I plan to show them....... and coordinate.

[RiverAux]

I said there was a point at which the argument was ridiculous.  Carrying out ground team training to meet the tasks required for GTM, etc. certainly isn't past that point whether or not you get called on those missions. 

[SARMedTech]

Simply saying that CAP members wont be subjected to the kinds of conditions that would require them to utilize long stay field skills is a ridiculous reasoning for not training them that way.

There is a point at which the "it could happen" line of reasoning breaks down.  Anything is possible at anytime but you can't train for every possibility.  For example, it is possible that a CAP ground team COULD be asked to hike 15 miles into a wilderness area in the dead of winter to evacuate a live crash survivor weighing 350 pounds who needs to be carried out by stretcher because the blizzard that is going on has all helicopters down.  So, who wants to do this on their next winter SAREX? 

CAP members only have limited time for training, so that training should be focused on LIKELY missions and scenarios.  Keep in mind that in the not so distant future all our ground SAR requirements are going to be ratcheted up to meet national standards so we'll have even less time to use to train for scenarios that just are not going to happen. 

I reject your position. In my wing, we haven't had a GT mission in almost 3 years. Does that mean we should stop training GT members? Likewise, we only use Mission Scanners on SAREX missions and almost never use Mission Observer on real missions. Should we quit training them as well, to focus on what we are likely to do? We continue to train to the highest standard possible. We only settle for 100%.

One of the things that I have always admired about men and women that have served in the military is there tendency to be plain-spoken.

The idea that we dont need to train for the "might happens" comes right off the stable floor.

I recently talked to a state emergency management official in a western state (I wont say where so it doesnt seem like I am pointing fingers at that Wing) and he told me that when it comes to SAR operations, he only calls upon CAP as an absolute last resort. He was very clear about his reasoning for this: he stated quite eloquently that even at the Master and Senior and GTL levels, CAP SAR GTs are trained to just about the lowest level possible. He let me know that he would prefer to call on a CERT team before CAP if he had a choice.

When we go on an actual, we are talking about people's lives and it is absolutely idiotic thinking to say that there is any such thing as excessive training. We need to engage in training based on the most extreme situations and scenarios that we can. Its like strength training. If you work constantly with heavy weights and lots of reps, then when you pick up a 5 pound weight, its easy and you do it very well and safely. The fact in emergency services is that an operators first priority is his own safety, then that of his team, then the person he is charged with finding or assisting. Im not recommending rigorous training so we can be all high speed, but there is a reason that seasoned professionals who do nothing but manage emergencies tend to not want to rely on CAP when they have another choice.

River Aux- you say that in a few years time we will be required to adhere to national standards. I can guarantee that those standards are much higher that the ones we follow now. We talk alot in these forums about ICS/NIMS, Incident Commander training, etc, when what we need to be talking about are the basics of human SAR and I can tell you from experience that alot of the bare bones basics are still higher standards than what we follow in CAP. I myself am not in extraordinarily good shape but Im still shocked by the physical condition of some of the GTMs that my squadron puts in the field. Most SAR groups that have medical officers would not allow these men and women anywhere near an active search.

You mention training for things that will never happen. I dont know what the statistics are right now on how many police officers are shot in the line of duty. When my father began as a sheriffs deputy in the 1960's, it was a pretty safe bet that on 8 out of 10 calls you WOULD be safe. Then there was the period where the LEOs that wore ballistic vests were considered...well you know what they were considered. At that time vests were optional. Now they are mandatory. At the time that they were not, my father wouldnt wear one because they were hot and bulky. Then he got shot in the line of duty. He is now a private security contractor at age 62 and he practically doesnt go grocery shopping without his vest. We have many members on this forum who carry concealed weapons on a daily basis. On the average day they probably dont need them. But if they said, I probably wont ever need it and didnt carry it, then on the one day that they did, they would be up a creek. I wear a ballistic vest as an EMS provider even when not doing TacMed and get laughed at. It has saved my life on three seperate occasions because I decided to spring the extra bucks for the vest that will stop blades and sharps.

Dont you think that its better to train to the highest standards and the greatest capabilities that we can and have the best skills and equipment possible so that when the time comes that we DO need them, we have them. And that time will come. When people's lives depend on what we do, the bare minimum training isnt good enough. When emergency management folks say that they wouldnt call CAP if anyone else was available, its time to re-evaluate what we do and how we do it. CAP provides an extraordinary set of public services at no cost to the public or whoever it is that may task us. Why should we want to be anything other than as close to perfect as we can get. I am sure there are military folks here who can testify that they were drilled on skills sets that they might not use in a 25 year career but on the one time they did use them, it was worth the countless hours of training. Look at how many police officers say they only fired their weapon once in their 30 year career. You can bet your boots that when they did, all that endless training seemed worth it.

[Flying Pig]

I do like how you write......

[RiverAux]

What don't you guys get about there being some point in the continuum of possible CAP missions where it just become absurd to try to train for it?  We can all think of 100+ possible variations of a CAP ground team SAR mission.  We cannot try to train for all of them, so we have to focus out limited training time on those scenarios we are most likely to face and count on having a strong enough grounding in the specific GT-tasks to be able to carry out the extremely unlikely scenarios should you be the one squadron in the country asked to take it on.

If you want to talk about changing CAPs GT task guide to raise the standards -- I'm all for that, but that isn't the issue at hand.   Personally I think our current standards IF PROPERLY TRAINED AND TESTED are pretty darn good but thats a different thread.     

[SARMedTech]

What don't you guys get about there being some point in the continuum of possible CAP missions where it just become absurd to try to train for it?  We can all think of 100+ possible variations of a CAP ground team SAR mission.  We cannot try to train for all of them, so we have to focus out limited training time on those scenarios we are most likely to face and count on having a strong enough grounding in the specific GT-tasks to be able to carry out the extremely unlikely scenarios should you be the one squadron in the country asked to take it on.

If you want to talk about changing CAPs GT task guide to raise the standards -- I'm all for that, but that isn't the issue at hand.   Personally I think our current standards IF PROPERLY TRAINED AND TESTED are pretty darn good but thats a different thread.     

Nobody is saying that we can train for every eventuality. We are saying (at least I am) that we owe it to the people we serve to train in a way that provides us with the skill set to deal with as many eventualities as possible. What dont YOU get about that? Yes we have lots of good standards and lots of good people, but when you look at what other organizations that do SAR set as their standards, we dont come anywhere close in a lot of cases. Do you honestly think that when someone's survival is based on what we can and cannot do that "pretty darn good" is good enough? With the resources and training at our disposal we should be possess the best SAR teams in the country. Currently that isnt true, but it can be. Is there a reason that you dont want to be better than just good enough? The mere fact that we dont have an established system of emergency medical care available to our teams says that there is a gap between the way we train and what happens in the real world. Our training should serve to narrow that gap as much as humanly possible and that is not currently happening. When we get "outdone" by a little group like Cibola Search and Rescue in Albuquerque and we have military training at our disposal, thats a problem. Personally I think that every single GTL should have to attend and pass the AF's Inland Search and Rescue School. I wont take a GTL position until I have.

[RiverAux]

I've been to the 2-day version of the AF school and it isn't necessary for GTL at all.  Ground Branch Directors should probably have it, but it is not at all very helpful for planning the ground part of any sort of search CAP would be in.  It was a decent class, but its nothing special that any experienced group of CAP ES folks couldn't do themselves.

Unfortunately, CAP will never be as good as SOME independent SAR groups as long as we depend on the cadets for the vast majority of our ground SAR capability.  I don't have a problem with using cadets in ground SAR but the sad fact is that you only have 90% of them for 2-3 years and then they move on and you have to start training new ones all the time.  An independent SAR group is made up of adults who have been doing it for years and years and have the time to get beyond basic capabilities. 

Yes, there are adults in CAP who are long term gt persons but they are few and far between and you rarely see more than a couple of them within any of our ground teams.  Add all the die-hards in a group or wing together and you've probably got less people than in a local hard-core county SAR team. 

[SARMedTech]

I've been to the 2-day version of the AF school and it isn't necessary for GTL at all.  Ground Branch Directors should probably have it, but it is not at all very helpful for planning the ground part of any sort of search CAP would be in.  It was a decent class, but its nothing special that any experienced group of CAP ES folks couldn't do themselves.

Unfortunately, CAP will never be as good as SOME independent SAR groups as long as we depend on the cadets for the vast majority of our ground SAR capability.  I don't have a problem with using cadets in ground SAR but the sad fact is that you only have 90% of them for 2-3 years and then they move on and you have to start training new ones all the time.  An independent SAR group is made up of adults who have been doing it for years and years and have the time to get beyond basic capabilities. 

Yes, there are adults in CAP who are long term gt persons but they are few and far between and you rarely see more than a couple of them within any of our ground teams.  Add all the die-hards in a group or wing together and you've probably got less people than in a local hard-core county SAR team. 

Id be interested to know where you get the figures that support that most of CAPs ground SAR capabilities are from cadets. My squadron has no aircraft so we are pretty intensely ground ES. I cant imagine that we are the only ones.

I also dont think that a 2-day synopsis of the inland SAR school is representative of its totality. The AF itself bills it and sets it up as training for advanced SAR operators and stresses that simply because one is a GTL doesnt mean that one has the necessary skills and experience to complete the school. It involves advanced logistics and planning among other things, which I have found lacking in alot of training so far.  I will be taking the course in about a year as the capstone project to my MS in disaster/emergency management.

[RiverAux]

Id be interested to know where you get the figures that support that most of CAPs ground SAR capabilities are from cadets. My squadron has no aircraft so we are pretty intensely ground ES. I cant imagine that we are the only ones.

12 years in CAP in 3 different wings in 3 different regions is all the stats I need on this one....I'm usually stats focused, but my experience and every discussion about ground sar we've ever had on this or other boards seems to support  the idea that most of our qualified ground team personnel are cadets. 

[WoodlandSARman]

Before this gets any further lets NOT get on the "I have more time in and training then you do" drama.

My signature is just a HINT at what I have done in this program and for this program. I am leaving it out of this thread so regardless of what you have done in what wing is pointless to post.


When people say the word limited when it comes to training you INSULT me, the program and everyone.

Why limit yourself? One of my teams is in the Groups eyes the best team in the wing by far. It did not happen overnight. It started at least back in 98. They have more tracking gear in their van then you have every seen, most fairly cheap that they invented and it works very well. They have fully stocked EMT bags that their EMT's and Nurse can use, they have a PA, they have everything. The are also Id say the best trained GT in the wing. Why? Because they do not limit themselves in training.

In this wing we have former and current military, spec ops, Infantry, ect ect. Why not use some of the usefull training they can and want to provide? It is RETARDED NOT TO!

Its sad to say but true, for the most part 95% of CAP ES is a JOKE compared to some SAR teams out there. Why? Because they do not LIMIT themselves. There is the other 5% that is respected and up there with the other teams because they go above and beyond and they are the ones that allways have the phone wing.

I challenge ANY group in ANY wing to do what I will have done by the end of this year alone!

IN Wing is known for its GT's, Air Teams and NESA. We have some of the best air teams around, most spend very little time on the ground. At the SAR eval we had like 7 or 8 aircraft show up with full crews. We are proud to represent! We had so many GT's and Air Teams we did not know what to do with them! All the doubters can keep doubting and laughing. IN wing or at least IN Central will be put on the map and rock the boat HARD. The ball is allready rolling!
IN Wing prides itself in lot limiting itself!

I am not bragging at all, I am just saying, you all watch............

[WoodlandSARman]

I also think to many people put to much of a priority on cadets and keeping them in and happy.

This program WOULD survive with NO cadets. We have senior squadrons, this proves it. Granted it would not be as large but would survive. my winf alone has roughly 200 more seniors then cadets.

I have allways told my cadets that I will not baby them to keep them from leaving, if they want to leave then there is the door.


If I had to make a dream team GT out of my group (really wing) and pick one person from another group do you know how many would be cadets? NONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Are there good GT cadets that have been at it for years? YES!, are they the best? NO!

Any now senior member GTL that was a cadet GTL will tell you that to matter how long they were a cadet they are better as a senior. Same for GTM's. Its because they have learned to go above and beyoned and not have anyone hold them back.


What would happen if YOU were out and crashed of got lost in a really bad spot thats really hard to get to and we got you on the radio after you told us you would not make it unless we got out soon and said "were sorry but we are not trained for that kind of rescue"
It may never happen but it may.

People also need to be trained to be able to handle the fact that they may find one of their own.
When I was a cadet we lost a squadron commander in a crash, his GT found him..........

[Flying Pig]

"What would happen if YOU were out and crashed of got lost in a really bad spot thats really hard to get to and we got you on the radio after you told us you would not make it unless we got out soon and said "were sorry but we are not trained for that kind of rescue"
It may never happen but it may."

Ummmmm.....OK. Im thinkin at that point, someone else would be enroute to get them.

I would hope your response would still be "Hold on, were coming."

You need to take into consideration where you are.  When you have a  SAR, do you have State Police Helos, Sheriff Helos and airplanes arriving along with SAR Teams.  And I mean SAR Teams comprised of medics, swift water rescue techs, high angle rescue techs, divers, rappel masters, trained in winter ops and full mobile comand posts?  Full aircraft ground support crews, SAR members fully intergrated in high altitude ops and helicopter ops?  Can your IN. CAP teams medivac a victim immidiately after they are located?  Can you lower a litter, a medic and hoist a victim out at 10,000Ft.  Not to mention everyone being paid.  In Ca. those resources are available.  Not to mention the military.

I admire your drive, but all of that isn't needed where I am.  If your really in an area where your in a  position to tell someone they are out of luck, then I agree, you need to be ready.  But in Ca Wing, someone IS coming to get you.  In Ca. I think its our support and Air roles that are the key.  And remember, I am a CAP member making this observation.

I read through my post a few times to make sure I wasnt being to over zealous....

[WoodlandSARman]

In IN wing, we WILL come and get you because we train!

Yes we have any resource available to us. Are they allways available? No.

We might be able to have lifeline get them out but if they are a few miles in on foot and there is no available vertical helo extraction available for a while then thats a problem and you have to do things the old fashioned way.

Why can't CAP have REAL sar teams with the people you mentioned?

Please explain to me why?

I have been in this long enough to know that you do not allways have every resource available to you, ofter its very little. What happens when you go into the hills and you can't get a high bird for another hour or two and you have to comm?

To many people that live in a fantasy world that not have been on GOOD realistic SAR ex's or live missions were things go wrong and you don't get what you need.

To many people that rely on radios, and technology. We have a state park that so big and dense that if you get lost it will be a few days before you find a road if you don't stay put. There is only one or two GT's in this wing that I would send in there. Why? Lack of training.

Technology is great and helo extract but sometimes that fails and sometimes you can't get a vertical extract and have to get them out into a clearing that may be a mile away.

I went to NESA with a professional SAR team member from CA, thats what he did for a living. His team does NOT rely on technology.

[Flying Pig]

Im not saying you cant have that stuff.  Shoot for the stars and land somewhere in the middle.
Good luck.  Sounds like Indiana is lucky to have your vision.

[fyrfitrmedic]

 After reading this thread, I keep expecting to hear someone banging a shoe or something on a table while reading some of the posts.

[RiverAux]

I guess all I've got left to say is that any Wing and the residents in that state would be better off by having a ground team or two in every squadron that meets current CAP standards and can perform 95% of the missions we get rather than have 1 squadron that can do 100% of the missions. 

If you want to take your squadron, or those people within your squadron willing to do it, beyond our standards (while staying within the limitations in our regulations) thats fine by me I just don't see it resulting in that much of a return on your investment of time and resources since whatever gains you get will probably be fleeting.   

[ELTHunter]

Do you mean that as in "When was the last time you saw a team stay out that long?" or "When was the last time a team went back in after only 12 hours?"

The last time you saw a team go out active for 12 hours and not come back. I have never seen it. The most I have seen is training days at NESA but its with a lot of down time and I would consider it more training then active searching.

I spent 24 hours on crash site security once.  It was on an old mine site, not exactly way back in the boonies, but you had to 4 wheel into and out of it.  The nearest town was about 20 minutes away.

[ELTHunter]

SARMedTech and WoodlandSARman,

You make some good and valid points and there are many advantages to conducting the kind of training you are talking about.  In my squadron, we have historically done informal training in a very large National Recreation Area where we have hiked 25, 30 or 40 miles in 24 - 48 hours.  It was a lot of fun, everyone learns a lot about themselves and their teammates, and it is a heck of a confidence builder for a teenager.  It also gives a GTM a real feel for how team members are going to react in the field under stress, and the GTM's to apply survival and land nav skills in a real world environment.  However, realistically, CAP is not going to put members in that kind of situation, and I really can't imagine a scenario in an actual mission where it would be justified unless there was an extreme emergency.  The fact is CAP is not the only resource available now days for responding to back woods SAR.  I'd be willing to bet that nine times out of ten, in a scenario that these "LRP" skills would be used in, the National Guard, Sherriff's department or some other resource would be called in before CAP-USAF would allow a CAP team to go into that type of situation.  In these days of ORM, it's just not gonna happen.

To start with, I have seen very few senior members that were physically fit enough to hump extended periods in the backwoods like that.  Secondly, as others have pointed out, many times we have ground teams that are not even well trained on the basics, or have invested the money in acquiring good reliable gear that you can trust to take somewhere where you will be hours from the nearest road.  Thirdly, at least where we train, you usually have no VHF comm capability in situations like that without a highbird.  Say what you will about needing to train for comm out situations, taking a team into a situation where they are miles from civilization with no way to contact help, especially when cadets are involved, is not smart.  Simulating a comm out scenario is one thing, but putting people in that situation in training is another.

I'm not saying your ideas aren't good.  If you've got the people that can take it, they are equipped, have the preliminary training to do it, knock yourself out.  I'm just not sure that it is practical to do it in a "school" with large numbers of people, some of whom you might not be familiar with.  Before we ever did anything like that, they had to go on a "qualifying" hike first and we had to be sure they could handle the extended training.

As for using cadets and their qualifications as GTM's, I have probably seen more cadets than senior members that had both the physical fitness and the ground team skills that I would trust to go out on a serious extended mission.  They may require more attention because they can still lack good judgement at times, but than again so do some senior members.  I would have to agree with those that think CAP would lose a substantial portion of our ground teams without cadets.  Most senior members I know are more interested in vehicle searches or running things at mission base than they are going into the woods for any length of time, and show me a senior squadron where the majority of members are not pilots or aircrew.

One other drawback of having a gung ho ground team that's not afraid to jump out of the vehicle and hit the trail is that they aren't afraid to jump out of the vehicle and hit the trail.  I have had team members that were so anxious to get out and walk that if I hadn't have stopped them, we would have gotten out and walked miles up and down valleys and ridges and maybe found a crash site we finally were able to drive to within a quarter mile of.  When it comes to managing the mission, you gotta look at what's most efficient from both a time and energy perspective, as well as safety considerations.

[SARMedTech]

I guess all I've got left to say is that any Wing and the residents in that state would be better off by having a ground team or two in every squadron that meets current CAP standards and can perform 95% of the missions we get rather than have 1 squadron that can do 100% of the missions. 

If you want to take your squadron, or those people within your squadron willing to do it, beyond our standards (while staying within the limitations in our regulations) thats fine by me I just don't see it resulting in that much of a return on your investment of time and resources since whatever gains you get will probably be fleeting.   

Im troubled  by this attitude.  WoodlandSARMan is trying very enthusiastically to make CAP better and to increase our capabilities and our abilities to save lives. I wonder I how many CAP SAR GTMs have never been on an actual. I wonder how many have gotten to a site and found a dead pilot and passenger, not dead from the crash but from exposure, etc. This is a reality. It happens all the time that people die when the elements and unfamiliar terrain kill them. I dont know what your actual live SAR experience is. Ive been on about 30 actuals outside of CAP. In 5 of those, the people we were looking for died (at the medical examiners estimation) about 6-8 hours before we got to them. Now that...my experience, first hand...tells me that increasing the time spent afield and moving toward a target location makes a difference and there is no reason that we shouldnt train to be able to move more quickly, more effectively, etc. I cant imagine why anyone would say that "good enough" is the best we need to do.  If there are those that dont want to engage in the extra training, which can be very rigorous, they certainly dont have to. We may have 1 or 2 or 5 SARs a year which require these advanced skills, the kinds of things that WoodlandSARMan is talking about, but isnt it worth it if the outcome of the search is the saving of a life?

[RiverAux]

We may have 1 or 2 or 5 SARs a year which require these advanced skills, the kinds of things that WoodlandSARMan is talking about, but isnt it worth it if the outcome of the search is the saving of a life?

My point is that if we have 1-5 SARs a year across the entire nation that require these skills the chances that they occurred in an area where the CAP teams have gone far beyond our standards so as to respond is minimal. 

If you live in a state where you have large areas lacking roads where a 25 mile or 2-3 day hikes would be necessary to reach a crash site, yes you should probably go beyond our regular standards.  However, that isn't necessary in very many places east of the Rocky Mountains and would still be rarely, if ever necessary to actually do in the rest of the country.