I used to be a cadet in the great lakes region. That was 6 years ago and I would love to get back in and work with ground teams. What I dont want is to have to deal with the political infighting that nescesatated my leaving the orginization. The problems in my squadron/group/ and wing were so bad that I have several different opinoins on what grade I held at the time I left. There was one time that I wasent sure if I was an officer or enlisted. I am pretty sure that my CC didnt send in any of my paperwork to higher command at any time other than my GES and ROE cert. What do you guys think?

I don't quite understand the problem.

It is easy to avoid the political BS in a squadron....change squadrons...and the rest you just ignore.

About you being a former cadet....are you asking about how to rebuild your records?

Well, if you rejoin, you will rejoin as a Senior Member without grade, so your cadet rank won't matter. Cadet rank paperwork never leaves the squadron in any case. If you achieved the Mitchell or higher awards, that information is probably still available at National or if you've got the certificates, can get taken care of.

You will need to redo all your ES qualifications under any circumstance based on the length of time that you were out.

quote:

Originally posted by Lordmonar:
It is easy to avoid the political BS in a squadron....change squadrons...and the rest you just ignore.

Assuming all squadrons within a reasonable driving distance don't have the same problem.

If a group commander is corrupt, chances are he will allow the squadrons in his group to be the same way. I once met a lady at a Comm. BCUT class who said she could not find a decent squadron within 100 miles of her!

This is one reason why the combination of improved quality assurance by CAP and increased oversight by the Air Force is so badly needed today. A member should not have to drive a long way just to find a squadron that does things correctly.

quote:

Originally posted by Guardrail256:

quote:

Originally posted by Lordmonar:
It is easy to avoid the political BS in a squadron....change squadrons...and the rest you just ignore.

Assuming all squadrons within a reasonable driving distance don't have the same problem.

If a group commander is corrupt, chances are he will allow the squadrons in his group to be the same way. I once met a lady at a Comm. BCUT class who said she could not find a decent squadron within 100 miles of her!

This is one reason why the combination of improved quality assurance by CAP and increased oversight by the Air Force is so badly needed today. A member should not have to drive a long way just to find a squadron that does things correctly.

Who is going to pay for the increased AF oversight? Its a legit argument, but how would you make that work considering most squadrons are doing the same work with half the people? Where are these people who oversea CAP going to come from?

quote:

Originally posted by MCO85:
Who is going to pay for the increased AF oversight?

Congress.

quote:

Originally posted by MCO85:
Its a legit argument, but how would you make that work considering most squadrons are doing the same work with half the people?

Are you referring to the proposal to increase AF oversight, or the proposal to improve CAP quality assurance?

quote:

Originally posted by MCO85:
Where are these people who oversea CAP going to come from?

CAP-USAF. It wouldn't be active duty personnel; it would be the reservists and guardsmen assigned as State Directors and liaision officers/NCOs.

Sorry I didn't clarify that earlier, sir.

Remember....each AD/fulltime Reservists costs on the average of $150K/year....Oversight...meaningful oversight costs money.

quote:

Originally posted by Lordmonar:
Remember....each AD/fulltime Reservists costs on the average of $150K/year....Oversight...meaningful oversight costs money.

Right. I'm talking about traditional (part-time) reservists and guardsmen from CAP-USAF.

The AF needs every poerson it has to get the misssion done with the drawdowns right now... Every extra person doing CAP watch is one less person who is spending time training/doing their job.

Congress paying for it is a great answer... maybe you should tell them to upgrade the AF aircraft considering they are averaging 25 years old while your at it...

quote:

Originally posted by MCO85:
Every extra person doing CAP watch is one less person who is spending time training/doing their job.

And every extra person monitoring the [legal] online activities of someone who isin't even in the Air Force so their posts can be used against him when he joins is one less person who is tracking the [illegal] online activities of terrorists.

Nuff' said.

quote:

Originally posted by Guardrail256:

quote:

Originally posted by MCO85:
Every extra person doing CAP watch is one less person who is spending time training/doing their job.

And every extra person monitoring the [legal] online activities of someone who isin't even in the Air Force so their posts can be used against him when he joins is one less person who is tracking the [illegal] online activities of terrorists.

Nuff' said.

lol... they arnt monitering you right now.

You seem to need me to spell out everything I say because you can't seem to figure out what I'm talking about on your own. I'm not going to explain any further what I was talking about on this board.

And if thats all you have to say to dispute me then obviously you don't have a good answer.

Fine, here is my answer: have CAP-USAF PART-TIME RESERVISTS & GUARDSMEN oversee CAP. Kind of hard to dispute that, isin't it? After all, it's part of their job. I'm talking about these personnel (and only them) having even greater authority to oversee CAP than they already do.

It isn't that foreign of an idea. You don't even have to have a guardsmen or reservist do it. The Coast Guard has an active duty officer whose secondary or tertiary job is that of CG AUX liaison and oversight. This keeps the parent organization in the loop at all times. The second way you can get a guardsmen or reservist it participate is how the Sea Cadets reward reservist from the Navy to help, and that is in the form of reserve points. You don’t have to pay for their drill, you give them easy access to retirement points.

quote:

Originally posted by PORed:
It isn't that foreign of an idea. You don't even have to have a guardsmen or reservist do it. The Coast Guard has an active duty officer whose secondary or tertiary job is that of CG AUX liaison and oversight. This keeps the parent organization in the loop at all times. The second way you can get a guardsmen or reservist it participate is how the Sea Cadets reward reservist from the Navy to help, and that is in the form of reserve points. You don’t have to pay for their drill, you give them easy access to retirement points.

That is what I've been saying all along, though some people just don't get it.

By the way, great idea about the retirement points, PORed.

Just saying that it can be done or that someone else does it....does not negate the fact the USAF won't/can't do it.

AD.....so what officer are we going to stick with this duty...effectively killing his chances of promotions?

AFR/ANG...drill time for CAP service...sounds good but now we only get service 1 week end a month and 2 weeks a year....I thought the idea was to have full time USAF oversight.

AND we still have the little problem of the USAF drawing down. We got AD and AFR/ANG units that are undermanned and you want to divert personnel to CAP.

As for awarding retirement points....you know there is a war on right now, don't you? Why let some AFR/ANG guy pick up retirement points helping CAP when we got people picking up 365 day deployment orders.

Bottom line....it may be nice to have lots of USAF oversight...but it just ain't gonna happen.

Secondary to that....just because we have more oversight does not mean any of CAP's problems are going to be solved.

If more AF oversight won't immediately solve CAP's problems, what will? Do you actually think CAP is capable of fixing their own problems at this point? My goodness, CAP can't even hold all their people accountable! Just look at the Pineda debacle and how people get promoted in this outfit (Levitch, Parker and Fagan come to mind).

If the AF can't start holding CAP more accountable, then maybe it's time for Congress to step in. I think that CAP members should start a letter-writing campaign to their elected representatives demanding change to CAP so that people are held more accountable and the corruption stops.

Like PORed said in another thread, CAP has so much potential, and is such a great program for it to be constantly derailed by small problems. A lot of the problems would go away if Congress gave CAP a swift kick in the pants and a stern warning to boot. Perhaps witholding funds until CAP can hold its people accountable is in order.

You are talking about the national commander who was kicked out???? Looks to me CAP can in fact hold their own people accountable.

The problem with trying to get the USAF to hold CAP accountable is that you have to start with trying to change the law...then you have to get the USAF to WANT to get involved with our office politics.

And again with your negative waves.....CAP is not and has not been derailed. At the worker bee level....all this hand wringing at national, region and wing level has had almost no impact on getting the mission done.

How would withholding money from CAP stop people like Pineda from doing the things that he did? Think about how that works.

quote:

Originally posted by Lordmonar:
You are talking about the national commander who was kicked out???? Looks to me CAP can in fact hold their own people accountable.

Not really, since Pineda was able to become National Commander in the fist place. Lack of accountability is what led to Pineda's appointment as National Commander, in addition to every other command position the man ever held. Kicking Pineda out of CAP was nothing more than waiting until the last minute to deal with a problem; a problem that got worse and worse as time went on.

There are other examples of lack of accountability in CAP, like the phony Silver Medal of Valor awarded to Pineda and the cadet abuse case in Tennessee that Col Jim Rushing swept under the rug and never reported to the proper authorities. Remember the emergency change to the Cadet Protection regs? That incident was the reason why.

And what happened to Col Rushing? Well, he got bumped up to SER/CC, of course!

quote:

Originally posted by Lordmonar:
The problem with trying to get the USAF to hold CAP accountable is that you have to start with trying to change the law...then you have to get the USAF to WANT to get involved with our office politics.

The current law is a reflection of how little Congress cares about CAP, and the USAF's unwillingness to get involved with CAP's office politics is a reflection of how little the USAF cares about CAP.

The theme of politics is "what have you done for me lately", and in that regard the Air Force does care about CAP's politics. The catch is, they only care enough about CAP's politics to get what they want, which is inland SAR, a tiny amount of Homeland Security and quality recruits from the CAP cadet program.

quote:

Originally posted by Lordmonar:
And again with your negative waves.....CAP is not and has not been derailed. At the worker bee level....all this hand wringing at national, region and wing level has had almost no impact on getting the mission done.

I agree with you, Lordmonar; CAP is a grassroots organization and things are pretty much as they should be at the squadron level. But a rotten tree cannot bear good fruit, and the example of how to deal with normal politics at every level above the squadron has been piss-poor (and only gets worse the higher up you go).

And you are right about another thing, Lordmonar: the mission is getting done. But it is not getting done at full capacity and accountability and professionalism are lacking. Show me a squadron that has problems with accountability and professionalism, and I will cite Group, Wing, Region and National as accessories to the problem.

quote:

Originally posted by Lordmonar:
How would withholding money from CAP stop people like Pineda from doing the things that he did? Think about how that works.

It would give the CAP leadership an obligatory incentive to improve. It seems to me like the CAP leadership are, in practice, somewhat autonomous. Well, having Congress (the federal entity that can yank CAP's charter in a flash) hold CAP accountable would put a screeching butt halt to that. It would also send a good message to the Air Force: "Hey, if you don't have the time to hold your auxiliary accountable, we will step in and do it for you!"

quote:

Originally posted by ilgsar:
I used to be a cadet in the great lakes region. That was 6 years ago and I would love to get back in and work with ground teams. What I dont want is to have to deal with the political infighting that nescesatated my leaving the orginization. The problems in my squadron/group/ and wing were so bad that I have several different opinoins on what grade I held at the time I left. There was one time that I wasent sure if I was an officer or enlisted. I am pretty sure that my CC didnt send in any of my paperwork to higher command at any time other than my GES and ROE cert. What do you guys think?

To fill in what RiverAux said...

Unless you achieved the Mitchell Award (C/2d Lt) there is no benefit from your cadet time, other than the training you recieved.

If you are that concerned as to what grade you were when you left, give a quick call to NHQ and ask them to research if you received your Mitchell Award (they'll appreciate an approximate date). They'll get back to you.

The rest of your qualifications are expired, so you're starting over anyway.

Good luck with your newly renewed motivation!

quote:

Originally posted by JimmyDeano:
Unless you achieved the Mitchell Award (C/2d Lt) there is no benefit from your cadet time, other than the training you recieved.

I can think of another benefit: it looks great on a resume! Cadet experience looks good to employers, leaders in volunteer organizations and many others.

I know my cadet experience has helped me both personally and professionally, and although I managed to make it to the Earhart Award, having left CAP in Level 2 of the cadet program would have still been rewarding and beneficial.

Cadet rank isin't everything; the ability to succeed in leadership situations and think critically is. I've seen Spaatz cadets fail at leadership and critical thinking. Again, cadet rank isin't everything.