I've been thinking for a while of how beneficial it would be for CAP to adopt the same system of rank as the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

In the Coast Guard Auxiliary, leaders in the organization wear insignia that is similar to that of Coast Guard officer rank insignia, but is used to denote office held rather than level of progression in the professional development system.

Even though some Coast Guard auxiliarists are higher than others in the chain of command, they are all equal in rank; they all have the rank of 'Auxiliarist.'

I'm thinking CAP could use the officer rank insignias they currently have now and also inscribe little "A's" on them, and make them indicative of position held rather than promotion through the professional development system.

Besides, rank has little meaning in CAP and detracts from the fact that CAP officers are auxiliarists first and officers second.

The Air Force doesn't see CAP members as officers; it sees them as auxiliarists. The reason for this is becuase CAP officers are not held to the same standards as AF officers and the process to become a CAP officer is vastly different from the process to become an AF officer.

I'm not saying get rid of officer rank altogether; I'm saying make it more distinctive and indicative of position held in the chain of command rather than level of promotion in the professional development system.

I think my proposed idea would give rank more meaning in CAP and show the membership that status as an Air Force auxiliarist means much more than status as an officer in CAP.

Are you also aware that the titles of the USCG Auxiliary offices are not military titles?

The titles and acronym of the elected officers from bottom to top:

Vice Flotilla Commander VFC
Flotilla Commander FC

Vice Division Captain VCP
Division Captain DCP

Rear Commodore RCO
Vice Commodore VCO
District Commodore DCO

(National) Area Commodore ARCO
National Vice Commodore NAVCO
National Commodore NACO
National Immediate Past Commodore (NIPCO)

Only District Commodores and above are ever addressed (written or oral) with any title before their name and that title for all of them is Commodore sometimes abbreviated as COMO.

The staff officers from District on down are just Staff Officer with the appropriate level (district, division or flotilla) before their title. There is a little bit more variation at the upper realms of district and national for staff officers.

So if you really want to copy the whole USCG Aux thing, you have to eliminate all the military titles and invent new ones. And only your 'generals' would be entitled to be addressed by a title before their name.

Are you willing to go that far?

quote:

Originally posted by FL51D7:
Are you also aware that the titles of the USCG Auxiliary offices are not military titles?

Yes. And that's just fine by me; neither the USCG Auxiliary or CAP are military organizations.

A military auxiliary doesn't need to use position titles identical to the ones the parent service uses to be like them.

quote:

Originally posted by FL51D7:
So if you really want to copy the whole USCG Aux thing, you have to eliminate all the military titles and invent new ones. And only your 'generals' would be entitled to be addressed by a title before their name.

Are you willing to go that far?

Absolutely; rank has little meaning in CAP anyway. CAP members need to be reminded that they are auxiliarists first and officers second.

There are already too many members of CAP who think they have the same authority as AF officers and abuse the privilige of 'officership.'

The Coast Guard Auxiliary doesn't have rank in the same sense that CAP does, yet they are way ahead of CAP terms of having a good relationship with their parent service. If CAP were to adopt the same system of rank as the Coast Guard Auxiliary, I believe CAP/USAF relations would improve.

For one thing, all the CAP members who joined so they could act as if they were USAF officers and 'lord it over' people they are responsible for would leave in a mass exodus.

Yes, we all know CAP is a corrupt and incompetent organization of posers as documented in the brief career of one cadet. What would we do without someone to point this out while supposedly offering ideas to "improve" the organization?

You know, you actually started off good by offering your "suggestion", but then you succumbed and in your follow-up took the opportunity to make sweeping indictments of the whole organization. The idea is one that has been floated before and on the face of it, is worth discussing, but can you start just one thread without dumping on CAP?

WE ARE CAP OFFICERS, NOT AIR FORCE OFFICERS! Is that so hard to understand. Different standards for different organizations.

quote:

Originally posted by RiverAux:
Yes, we all know CAP is a corrupt and incompetent organization of posers as documented in the brief career of one cadet. What would we do without someone to point this out while supposedly offering ideas to "improve" the organization?

You think I would paint CAP with that broad a brush? Come on!

I neither said nor implied that CAP is a corrupt and incompetent organization. I have said that there is corruption in CAP and some members (including high-ranking officers) are incompetent. Big difference.

quote:

Originally posted by RiverAux:
You know, you actually started off good by offering your "suggestion", but then you succumbed and in your follow-up took the opportunity to make sweeping indictments of the whole organization. The idea is one that has been floated before and on the face of it, is worth discussing, but can you start just one thread without dumping on CAP?

Like I said, I did NOT make sweeping indictments against CAP. There is corruption in CAP, but CAP is not a corrupt organization. There are incompetent members, but that does not mean the entire membership is incompetent (which it is not). Understand, RiverAux?

quote:

Originally posted by RiverAux:
WE ARE CAP OFFICERS, NOT AIR FORCE OFFICERS! Is that so hard to understand. Different standards for different organizations.

Right there you are repeating what I said in my first post.

It should have been clear to you that I know the difference between CAP and Air Force officers, and that each organization has different standards. Again, this was stated in my first post.

What I'd like to see is more emphasis on CAP members being auxiliarists and less emphasis on them being officers. That is the whole purpose behind my proposal for CAP to adopt the same rank system as the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

So let's talk about that and stop quibbling.

quote:

Even though some Coast Guard auxiliarists are higher than others in the chain of command, they are all equal in rank; they all have the rank of 'Auxiliarist.'

I understand where you are going with this but please......

There is NO CHAIN OF COMMAND. Not implied, not defacto, not nothin! No Auxiliarist can order or compel another Auxiliarist to do anything.

There is NO RANK. No Auxiliarist with more bars or stripes than another Auxiliarist can order, compell or otherwise require an Auxiliarist to do anything.

The sooner we burn that into our consciousness, the happier the Auxiliary will be.

quote:

Are you also aware that the titles of the USCG Auxiliary offices are not military titles?

And that is also very much on purpose. There is no Auxiliary division captain called "Captain Smith" nor is it appropriate in the Aux to call that person "Captain". It's Mr Smith, division captain.

There is no "Commander Jones" for flotilla commanders. Nor is it appropriate to call a flotilla commander "Commander". It is Mrs. Jones, flotilla commander.

Note that these titles are never captilized either and that is also on purpose.

USCG officers will sometimes refer to the Auxiliary officers by their military equivalent titles as a courtesy (or because they are not sure how the Aux really works), but it is strictly a courtesy and should not be taken seriously.

Unfortunately, this reality does not allways reach our leaders.

So the CAP thing of refering to themselves a "General" and etc. just frosts my socks. I literally choke when I hear that. They are no more a "General" than the guy who sweeps the parade-ground. I am amazed that USAF hasn't corrected that because I think it causes a lot of unnecessary grief for CAP.

quote:

Originally posted by ENGELJ:
There is NO CHAIN OF COMMAND. Not implied, not defacto, not nothin! No Auxiliarist can order or compel another Auxiliarist to do anything.

I feel that CAP should be the same way. There are too many power-hungry people in CAP who think they are real military officers and think they have total authority over members of lesser rank.

That is one reason why in CAP, there needs to be more emphasis on the members being auxiliarists and less on them being officers. The 'I'm a real military officer' mentality gets to the heads of too many people and the result is counter-productive.

CAP members are not real military officers; they are real auxiliarists of a military service. This needs to be emphasized.

quote:

Originally posted by ENGELJ:
There is NO RANK. No Auxiliarist with more bars or stripes than another Auxiliarist can order, compell or otherwise require an Auxiliarist to do anything.

Didn't say there was in that respect, sir. I said that all auxiliarists have the same rank: auxiliarist.

I'm sure most folks on the gold side would agree.

quote:

So the CAP thing of refering to themselves a "General" and etc. just frosts my socks. I literally choke when I hear that. They are no more a "General" than the guy who sweeps the parade-ground. I am amazed that USAF hasn't corrected that because I think it causes a lot of unnecessary grief for CAP.

THEY ARE A CAP GENERAL. No one claims they are an AF General. The AF knows and approves of it. Do you get all upset when police and fire departments use military rank and titles? Heck, I saw a police chief wearing 5 stars on tv not long ago.

This does not cause significant problems between CAP and the Air Force. There are probably just as many incidents of CG Aux folks letting their position go to their head as there is in CAP in relation to the AF. Most of the time these are second and third-hand stories. I've been in CAP for over a decade in three different wings and three different regions and have personal knowlege of only one instance of a CAP officer getting a bit too uppity with the AF.

CAP was wearing military rank and insignia and using military titles before we joined the AF. Its worked pretty well for 65 years, so deal with it.

Since not everyone is getting the purpose of this thread, I'll provide a visual:



This is a common problem in CAP.

This is why CAP needs to redo the whole rank structure and focus more on the members being auxiliarists and less on them being officers.

Note: I am not saying get rid of military rank and insignia; I am saying change the rank structure and put more emphasis on the members being auxiliarists.

Oh, having AF officers demean CAP members is common? Didn't you catch that this cartoon was making fun of the AF officer, not the CAP officer?

And just how in the world is it even possible for rampant CAP "rank" abuse to impact the AF? The vast majority of CAP units are very far away from any AF unit except recruiters offices. Probably 90% or more of CAP officers only see an AF person when one of the Reservists visit a SAREX or come to their unit. The other 10% probably see them at encampment or at an airshow.


CAP members just don't interact with the AF enough for this to be any sort of real issue. The CG Aux exists in a different environment where they actually do interact with the CG on a very regular basis, most often with units that probably don't even have an officer of any kind present.

The CG Aux doesn't have this regular interaction with the CG because they don't have ranks, its because there are tiny CG units scattered all over the US, most of which are adjacent to an Aux unit that provides direct support to them. I strongly suspect that if the CG Aux had rank policies similar to CAP that they wouldn't have any problems either.

AF bases are scattered far and wide and probably only have dealings, if any, with 1 or 2 CAP units on a regular basis and even then probably only a few times a year. So, should CAP change its entire organizational structure because of a bunch of urban legends and a few real cases?

I think Matt misses the point of that particular cartoon....it is not that the USAF thinks little of themselves....but that Fighter Pilots (specificaly Lt Dahl) are too full of themselves.

Once again.....Mr Smith takes a little bit of information and extrapolates to a very wrong conclusion.

As river Riveraux said...you started off strong...then you should have left it alone.

FWIW....using USAF style rank to denote position and using maybe Flight Officer Rank to denote progression in the system does make some sence. It has been discussed on CAPTALK ad nasium in fact.

Three main questions....

1) What do you do with from AD/NG/RES officers?
2) What do you do with former commanders/staffers?
3) What do you do with those SM who are wearing rank but do not currently hold office?

Answer those three....and you may have a plan.

Listen: what I'd like to see is MORE emphasis on being auxiliarists and LESS emphasis on being officers.

I think changing the CAP rank structure to allow for using USAF style rank only to denote position is just the trick, but that's just me.

If there's a better way to get everyone to realize they're not real Air Force officers and be proud of their status as auxiliarists, I'm all ears.

First you've got to accept the premise that there are enough people letting rank go to their head for this to be a problem. The fact that most CAP officers do not really participate in the professional development program in order to earn it demonstrates to me that there aren't many of these phantom problem officers. Everyone in CAP has the potential to be a Lt. Col., but only a fraction do so.

The thing you're overlooking is that CAP problems originate with people who have let their POSITION, not their rank, go to their head. Just like with any organization, you get some people who take the opportunity to use their position to act like a jerk. The rank on their hat doesn't make a difference.

quote:

Originally posted by Lordmonar:
Three main questions....

1) What do you do with from AD/NG/RES officers?
2) What do you do with former commanders/staffers?
3) What do you do with those SM who are wearing rank but do not currently hold office?

Answer those three....and you may have a plan.

1) Assign them to positions equivalent to the rank they hold in the military/held in the military. Example: assign AF Lt Col as CAP Lt Col and SQ/CC, SQ/CD, or any other position commensurate with the rank of Lt Col.

2) Allow them to continue to wear the rank insignia of their last highest office held.

3) Assign them to a position equal to their level of responsibility.

You are saying that you are going to FORCE people to take jobs?

So, we're going to give people who were a military officer 30-40 years ago a leadership position in an organization that just joined?

No, if you're going the CG Aux way, they have to start just like everybody else and work a position.

quote:

USCG Auxiliary or CAP are military organizations.

Yes, CAP is a traditional military style cadet program. Right out of the handbook.

quote:

Originally posted by NikolaiStrugatsky:

quote:

USCG Auxiliary or CAP are military organizations.

Yes, CAP is a traditional military style cadet program. Right out of the handbook.

True, though CAP and the USCG Auxiliary are not military organizations. They are military-style organizations.

Interestingly, the AFJROTC Cadet Program is a derivative of the CAP Cadet Program; the Air Force patterned it after the CAP Cadet Program.