Senior Member Grade

[Gunner C]

You do realize that not even the real military does things this way?  People advance in rank often without ever having any command authority.  Why should it be harder in CAP?  There are plenty of people who advance up through holding various staff positions and if you ignore all the special appointments that CAP allows, this is basically how CAP works right now.

Actually, there is a program just like this in the sea services.  It's call LDO (limited duty officer).  Petty officers, marine NCOs, and warrant officers become LDOs up to the rank of commander, or Lt Col in the marines.  They are retained in that grade only if there is a billet.  If not, they go back to their previous rank.  This is something that we could easily do in CAP.

[SarDragon]

Not exactly. USN LDOs revert only if they retire prior to 10 years of commmissioned service. There are now also LDO captains.

[BillB]

Gunner.... You missed the old program by only aq couple of years. The change was made in 1964-and fully in place in 1965. The new probram had all the comic book ribbons and grade was tied to training. Jack Sorensen told me, sitting in the basement of the O-Club at Mawell. (OK so it the Pit) that it was his mistake tieing grade to training. It should have remained trining shown by ribbons.

[Seabee219]

RIVERAUX SAID  You might want to review the senior member training program before making such statements.  CAP officers don't get very far into the program before coming to a dead halt unless they are willing to take on steadily increasing levels of responsibility of some type or another in regards to their administrative specialty.

I agree, I had to show improvment and I have held the DCC spot for 2 1/2 years and have shown great improvment over those years. I have gone to class,  held training ops, done everything CAP has asked me to do to make Capt, and I think I deserve it.  We do have some senior members that have been in for years and have not made it past 1st Lt, because rank does not matter to them...