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Marie Cady (center) with two CAP volunteers
So as I sit here trying to prepare for this weekends Michigan Wing Guided Training Exercise, I thought I'd dig into my unit's squadron history file; aka, the plastic tub with 'stuff' in it, and see what's interesting.

As I rifled away at different papers, I came across the following article that was torn out of a local Grand Rapids, MI magazine. I carefully cut away the torn edge of the page and taped the crumpled bottom edge of the paper to further preserve this history.

The article described the actions and accounts of one Marie J. Cady, one of Michigan Wing's founding CAP members. This was the first I had seen this, or had even heard of, Marie J. Cady. So I decided to scan the article into a PDF to share with all of you. I have also ran OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on the article to include in this blog entry for 'Teh intarwebs' to forever index and keep a record of.

I hope you all enjoy it. As my unit's new historian, I will do my best to create 'YACAPB History Moments' to share with you all. I look forward to your thoughts, comments and insights on what I post here.

Click 'Read More' to get the text of the article and to download the PDF file.
 
 
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Cadets Seath & Curtis get thier first CAP Flight
The first attempt at "Operation:GO!" was relatively successful! Especially when you take into consideration all the factors that were in play; a short lead time for planning, a conflicting date for other events, the weather, etc.

The weather was really the biggest factor affecting us, as it had been raining/storming off and on for the better part of the week leading up to the event. We had the mother of all storms blow through the night before that dumped many, many inches of rain on the area; flash flooding of areas that I can't recall having ever flooded before, were going underwater, quite wild. The rain pretty much cleared out in the early AM.
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(Hopefully) A Future CAP Cadet! :-)
The storm system was still trudging east; which presented another issue for us, our glider tow plane and pilot were still in Flint, and the glider was in Marshall. Flint was IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) and Marshall was MVFR (Marginal Visual Flight Rules). So unfortunately, the glider flights had to be scrubbed.

The weather almost caused an issue for our change of command for our group commander. Two of our color guard cadets were getting an O-Flight in from KGRR (Grand Rapids) and by the time they made it into Sparta, they had all they could do to get changed from their BDU's into their blues!

 
 
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Well, in less than 24 hours from now, I'll be at the Paul C. Miller Airport (8D4) running around like a 'chicken with his head cut off', most likely, or at least I hope, with a big smile on my face.

Tomorrow is "Operation:GO!" a Civil Air Patrol (West Michigan Group 703) Open House and 'Fly Day'. This event was a culmination of a few really great ideas that came together at light speed.
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The idea, originally, from my end anyways, was to have an open house with a few other closer CAP squadrons and use our 'strength in numbers' to help raise awareness of each of our unit's; as in the past, trying to get anyone out to a unit level open house is like pulling teeth, especially with regards to the media.

At the same time, the group senior squadron was planning an O-Flight (orientation) day with the wing glider. From a planning perspective, both of these events were set to be on the same day. Coincidence? I think not.
 
 
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'Patches? I ain't got no patches. I need patches! I will send you some stinkin' patches!'

Well, not actually 'stinkin', and only if you want to, and you send me one of yours first... I'll send you one of my new unit patches in return.  I am just now starting my patch collection, and while I don't ever think I'll get to the level of 'Ace' Browning out in MNWG, I think it would be fun to get close to that level, eventually.

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CAP & USAF Patches from Fargo, ND
This post was actually inspired by some recent conversation by Maj Chad Derby, PAO and SE from the 119th ANG Cadet Squadron in Fargo, ND.

Chad asked me if I wanted to trade with him and if I had a collection going myself, which I answered to the negative. So not only did he send me one of his unit's patches, but a couple USAF patches too to help get my collection going. Thanks a lot Chad... I'll be sending you back a Boulle-Norman M.C.S. patch and a Michigan Wing patch too, hopefully you do not have the latter either. ;-)

The best part about doing this is it only costs the price of one USPS 1st Class stamp! How ya like that?
 
 
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CPFT Question Hits the Desk of Lt. Dahl
Wow...just caught this a short time ago and had to post it. Great stuff Farva...great stuff.

Check out the strip here & at AFblues.com... this is CAP-USAF comedy gold. ;-)

If your an out of shape cadet in CAP and you don't like to run... care to share your answer?
 
 
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USN Blue Angels Streak Across The Sky
The weekend of June 5-6, 2009, the Indy Air Show was the the 'place to be' for a good lot of CAP folks from Indiana Wing as well as a few chosen members of Michigan Wing who were invited to 'come and play' at the state's premier air show event.

Members of my unit, Boulle-Norman Memorial Cadet Squadron, made their way to the Mt. Comfort Airport just north of Indianapolis, IN on Friday and on Saturday to assist in the ground operations of this air show, which featured the U.S. Navy Blue Angels.

One of our newer Senior Members, 2LT Robert Bonner, had the privilege of running communications from mission base for most of the day Saturday. Coming from a position where 2LT Bonner has logged over 40,000 hours behind a radio microphone for the City of Grand Rapids, MI, it seemed like the logical choice.

The cadets who traveled down augmented teams from the local area in performing security of the static and active airport ramps. One particular aircraft being looked after was a USN F/A-18 Super Hornet, which was positioned with it's wings in the up position, causing an 'exposed edge' which needed to be protected.
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A-10 Pilot gives crowd the thumbs up!
Working the show as a Public Affairs Officer, the highlight for me was having the unprecedented access to the active ramp during the afternoon on Saturday. For someone who has a love of aircraft and aviation as well as photography, I was in my glory and snapped close to 500 photos in just that one day!

Here is a link to my photo gallery, enjoy!

The photo you see to the right I am particularly fond of, in fact, if I would not have backed away from the taxiway when I did, I would have been wearing the right wingtip of that particular A-10 for a hat! ;-)
 
 
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Well now, I seem to be a couple days late in getting this latest blog post out. Way too many 'irons in the fire' these days! Especially CAP related! To quote a certain cadet commander for an upcoming encampment that I'll be attending; "If I was actually getting paid for all the work I'm doing for CAP lately; money would NOT be a problem!". I know EXACTLY how this cadet feels.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not complaining in the least, I love every second of every day for what I do that is CAP related, my only problem is that the 'jobs' that actually bring in revenue are not showing up at my doorstep like they should be. Since I launched my home business, C3Designs, I haven't had one solid bite, nor has Monster.com, Dice.Com or Careerbuilder.com presented anything remotely close to what it is I do. So if anyone out there on the 'IntarWebs' has some work they can send my way, I'd be most appreciative.

I keep checking www.usajobs.gov in the hopes there is something I can do that is government or civilian contractor related that I qualify for, but it would seem those don't exist in my 'backyard'. Ah well, all in good time, right?
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A couple of weeks ago I was presented with an opportunity to go out to a small municipal airport in Greenville, MI to do some recruiting for CAP at an annual EAA Young Eagles 'Fly Day' event. That was this past Saturday, and short of it being really cold and windy in the morning, the day was pretty great; the Young Eagle folks flew over 160 kids that day! Two of which were my own.

I had no plans of them flying that day since we had planned to recruit hard and heavy, but since things were pretty slow going at the start and finish, both my son and daughter were able to fly. Joshua, who is currently a C/CMSgt is no stranger to flying and loves every chance he has to go up; enjoyed his flight like any other; but my daughter, who has never been off the ground in an airplane before got her first taste of flight this day in a 1966 Cessna 150, Tail Number N2419J.  She was very excited and quite proud of herself when she returned to our display holding her 'Young Eagles Certificate' and photo that was taken of her and the pilot by the airplane. I was proud of her too, for 12 years old, she's quite brave and will try just about anything handed to her. I always imagined her first flight would be in a CAP aircraft, but not anymore and that's just fine by me! I'm just glad I could be there when she did it.
 
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