Wrapping up Encampment
Wrapping up encampment, this past week has been filled with discipline, learning and fun. We hope cadets will live up to the standards taught throughout this week and also this afternoon because today was the last inspection. Making sure shirts were tucked in, insignia were correctly placed and beds were made, the cadets stood at attention while the Standards and Evaluations team inspected their rooms for the last time of the NH/VT encampment. Coming into encampment just looking around at all of the cadets, the uniforms were different, all sorts of ribbons and insignia not on correctly, drawers not standardized. Looking back at encampment all of the cadets left as brothers and sisters all standardized the same, one big family that may go on to be lifelong friends.
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Saturday Morning Inspection
Today is the last full day of encampment. The cadets are very excited for graduation, but have to make it through their final inspection. The passing score is a seventy-five out of one-hundred. For the past few hours, the cadets have been scrambling to make their rooms and uniforms look perfect. The tension builds as the cadets wait outside their rooms while the Standards and Evaluation Team inspect their room. As their rooms are inspected, the cadets are quizzed on various common knowledge questions, including the Chain of Command, the Cadet Oath, and various other Civil Air Patrol facts. Also, the cadets are having their uniforms inspected. After a hard morning’s work of preparing for this inspection, the cadets are going to do great on it!
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Cafeteria Staff
During this week the encampment cadets and staff have been served excellent food from the Norwich University (NU) Cafeteria such as various grill foods, salads, breakfast fruits, and many other things. The place that the cadets get the fuel to do their exciting activities is this amazing NU cafeteria. Some of the PAO staff sat down with Nora, the operations director and talked about what happens here to make the food so good. Nora has been working at NU for two years and with Sodexo, the parent company since 1998. This facility employs 140 to 150 employees during the school year and about 30 during the summer. During the school year they serve about 1,800 people per meal and somewhere between 50 and 1,000 during the summer. This is where the amazing food that the cadets run on is coming from.
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Obstacle Course
It’s another hot and sunny day at Norwich, and the cadets were lined up for a briefing at the Norwich obstacle course. The two flights, Charlie Flight and Delta flight were competing against each other to see who would finish the course first. There were seven different obstacles that the cadets had to go through. There was a series of logs that the cadets had to rapidly jump over, a zigzag balance beam that they cadets had to walk across, a wall that they had to jump over, a rope that they had to swing over a log with, another series of logs that were closer together that they had to jump over without using their hands, a sort of latticework that the cadets had to weave through without using their hands, and a giant ladder that the cadets had to climb up and down. The cadets were all cheering each other on to encourage each other to do their best. Needless to say, the obstacle course was a huge success!
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Water Survival
Today, these cadets learned about water survival. In this class, each cadet had to complete several tasks based on water survival. These tasks include treading water and swimming underwater, as well as some other things. The cadets also used various swimming techniques, such as the backstroke. Basic water safety was stressed. Each of these cadets enjoyed the class, as it was highly interactive and provided a break from being under the hot sun. Some exercises also involved teamwork and cooperation.
The cadets now look forward to the rest of the day, especially Foxtrot flight, as they will undergo a “white glove” inspection with the standards and evaluations team. |
Rappelling Tower
That’s a long way down! Today cadets did the rappelling wall, which is a huge wooden tower stretching forty feet high! A long walk up the stairs puts them at the top where they must rappel down it to reach the ground, but they aren’t alone. Instructors tell the correct technique and how to grip correctly with your hands, and obviously someone at the bottom, to stop them from falling, if they accidentally let go of their rope. Of course safety gear is worn at all times while on the tower. A helmet and gloves are worn to protect from bonking heads on the wall and to stop rope burn. A Charlie flight cadet says “The scariest part is leaning back to stand on the face of the wall because your body is parallel with the ground!” After leaning back, it is smooth sailing for the rest of the way. All you have to do is slowly let the rope slide through your hand and just walk down the wall! It is a great experience for the cadets because once they have faced their fears and gotten down the wall, they can look up at it and feel a great sense of accomplishment.
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Warning: This video could make you dizzy. This is a video of the type of rappelling descent that the cadets were doing and the camera is attached to the helmet.
CAP In the Public Eye Class
Cadets can sometimes forget where they are and who is around them. This class was designed to teach cadets that the public is always watching. All CAP members must know how to act and also how to appear while in public. Cadet Chief Master Sergeant Lanoue taught all of the things that you need to do in order to keep CAP’s reputation high. The way members wear their uniform isn’t just for the public though. If you have a good looking uniform, the wearer also gains respect for himself/herself and in doing that builds up confidence and leadership, which is what CAP strives to do. What the public sees at a fair, parade, or any activity that cadets attend in uniform, is a representation of the entire organization itself, so cadets must be on their best behavior and always look their best. Civil Air Patrol's public image is important to the success and continuation of our program.
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USAFA Briefing
Just as the morning fog cleared up over Norwich, the cadets marched down to the National Guard facility for a class on the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) given by Second Lieutenant Smedley, a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and a former Spaatz Cadet (Cadet Colonel). He did a short presentation about life at the Academy, but mostly answered the cadet’s questions about the USAFA. He also told the cadets about what goes on in the different grades, and how some parts of it sound surprisingly like encampment. Lieutenant Smedley had a lot of interesting and humorous stories about CAP and the USAFA. This class was a great help for the cadets to consider attending a military academy.
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Air Force Tongue and Quill Class
Today, Cadet Second Lieutenant French taught a class on the Air Force tongue and quill. The tongue and quill is the official Air Force way to write a letter, email, write an important document or communicate verbally. Lieutenant French went over the proper things to do when teaching a class, such as making sure you are not distracting your students with improper movement and making sure you are loud enough for everyone to hear. Then Lieutenant French went over the parts of a letter, including subject, greeting, body, and closing. She also went over the difference between writing a letter for personal or professional reasons. The lieutenant talked about how you write a greeting in a letter and how you need to put the person’s name in the greeting. She then went over what to write in the body of a letter and how long it should be for the circumstance. Lieutenant French then had the cadets each write a letter to their flight sergeants to practice the skills they had just acquired. Overall the cadets learned how to write and verbally communicate important things and how to do it well.
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Chain of Command and Rank Class
Cadets often have trouble identifying and distinguishing rank and grade. Today, the first class was about how to tell the difference between rank and grade. They also learned about the different cadet promotions and their requirements. Each achievement is named after a notable person who is important to Civil Air Patrol. It boosted the knowledge of the cadets, staff and even senior members in the room because even though you know who the person is, you might not know that something they did could have started the spark that lead to being able to lift the first plane off of the ground! All the while, the cadets were writing notes, asking questions, and absorbing the knowledge that the instructor was telling them. Cadets left the classroom today with a better understanding of what the achievements are and why the people who inspired the achievements were chosen. Now when cadets go back to their home squadron, be it in Vermont or New Hampshire, they can teach new cadets and will start the cycle of learning and telling all over again.
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Core Values Class
Today the cadets received a class from Chief Hillyer and Sergeant Washington. The class was on the CAP core values. These core values are integrity, respect, volunteer service, and excellence. They emphasized that you have to use all of these in their everyday life and not just CAP. There were plenty of other ways the cadets came up with of how to make use these in life outside of CAP, such as volunteering in different organizations. It was a very interactive class with cadets giving them examples of when these core values should be and could be used. They also went over possible dilemmas that these core values could encounter. These included things such as if someone does not give you respect, do they deserve to receive it from you? They went over how volunteering may not help you directly but why it is the right thing to do and how you don’t have to do big things to make it volunteer service and therefore the right thing. The cadets learned a lot from this class and it will serve them well in life.
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Barracks Inspection
Up in the
barracks, the cadets are hard at work. They are cleaning their rooms for a
“surprise inspection”. A surprise inspection is when the basics know there is
an inspection, but do not know when. The inspection actually occurred around 10:45am, while they are at flight time, working on their drill. The cadets
are working extremely hard to make sure that their rooms are perfect. One cadet told
me, “We are all making sure that everyone’s rooms are standardized, like talking
about which ribbons to display, and which to put on our blues.” Each cadet has
been assigned duties according to his strength, such as one cadet is really
good at insignia placement so he goes around helping people with insignia,
while other people who are really good at making their beds go around helping
people with their beds. The cadets are
really starting to become a team, with each one doing their part.
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