So, who does this guy think he is anyways?
Me posing with CAP Flight 2023
As a Cadet:
I joined CAP as a cadet toward the end of 1984. I was freshman in high school and had a classmate, Joe Rocha, who was a member of the South Macomb Cadet Squadron tell me about CAP after I had seen him in his uniform one day after school.
I started attending meetings regularly and did just about everything I could, as it came my way. The squadron CC was Lt Col (then Capt) Ronald Padavan (Ret.). At the age of 14 this man was ‘larger than life’ to me and I was drawn to everything he had said and had done. He was the ‘top cop’ at Selfridge ANGB, MI, and from the moment I learned about what he did, I knew then that was what I wanted to do when I ‘grew up’. I took and ace’d the ASVAB and had everything set with the local AF recruiter to join as soon as I graduated HS and become a member of the USAF SF team.
In the fall of 1986 when I had just returned from a practice SAREX in Bellaire, MI I was in incredible amounts of pain. All that summer I was growing rapidly and the growing pains were more than normal for a teenager at the time. After an agonizing evening of endless pain, my parents finally took me to the emergency room where after being x-rayed, poked and prodded, I found out that both of my hips had ‘fallen apart’ due to a condition known as SCFE (Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis). The next morning a couple of very insensitive interns told me that I’d never play sports or do anything remotely physical for the rest of my life. My dreams of joining the AF were dashed in an instant.
I spent the next three months learning how to walk again and recovering both physically and mentally from what had happened to me. But no matter how much I was begged to stay in CAP, I just could not bear to be reminded weekly of what I would not be able to be an active part of. So with that I quit, never again to think about CAP (or so I thought).
As a Senior Member:
I was married in the spring of 1996 to a woman who had just gotten divorced and had a 2 ½ year old son. We had a baby girl together a year later. As the years went by, I still never really gave CAP a single thought (who was I kidding?), even thought I knew a lot of the lessons I did learn during that time helped shape who I was at the time.
As my stepson grew older and more inquisitive about what I did when I was a kid, I told him about my time in CAP and told him maybe one day when he was old enough he’d like to join as a cadet. Somehow all of those stories did not seem to gel with him enough, to want to join anyways, and I certainly was not going to push him into it if he wasn’t interested.
In 2006 we were at the ‘Air Fair - Airshow' in Muskegon, MI and the local cadet squadron had a booth set up. Which, after my wife and daughter split off from my stepson and I, we stopped by and talked to the members there. I guess it was just being there and meeting the other cadets and actually ‘seeing’ what being a cadet was all about that finally ‘sparked’ an interest for him. Soon after that encounter we found a local unit in Grand Rapids and joined.
Since then, time has literally 'flown by'. I think the two of us together, in this short amount of time have done more in CAP than I had ever hoped to have done when I was a cadet. From participating in the wing wide academic/quiz bowls and taking first place, to joining the drill team and competing at the wing and region and national levels, to attending wing conferences and going to encampments, I don’t think we could possibly do more.
Besides being Deputy Commander, I wear many other hats at our unit, with Safety, Cadet Programs and Public Affairs among them. We have 4 core senior staff for +/- 20 cadets and I look forward to each and every weekly meeting and external event. It took a while for the existing cadets to come to know me and learn to trust me, but since that has occurred we’ve all worked very well together. I’m proud of everything our cadets do and achieve and look forward to every future endeavor we participate in.
I also act as the Director of IT for Michigan Wing & the Great Lakes Region. I have since completely replaced the wing website as it is today with public and members only site and plans are in the works in the future for replacing the Great Lakes Region website.
Everything I’m doing in CAP is keeping me as busy as my regular job does, if not more, and I wouldn’t change a thing! I love every minute of it and look forward to growing together with my stepson, my daughter, now that she's a member. My wife first joined in 2007 as a CSM (Cadet Sponsor Member). She went ‘Active’ as a Senior Member approximately 9 months later.
Sure, I have my regrets about leaving CAP as a cadet, but as many others have pointed out to me, there’s nothing I can do about it now except turn that regret into the vigor for excellence in the program as it stands today.
I joined CAP as a cadet toward the end of 1984. I was freshman in high school and had a classmate, Joe Rocha, who was a member of the South Macomb Cadet Squadron tell me about CAP after I had seen him in his uniform one day after school.
I started attending meetings regularly and did just about everything I could, as it came my way. The squadron CC was Lt Col (then Capt) Ronald Padavan (Ret.). At the age of 14 this man was ‘larger than life’ to me and I was drawn to everything he had said and had done. He was the ‘top cop’ at Selfridge ANGB, MI, and from the moment I learned about what he did, I knew then that was what I wanted to do when I ‘grew up’. I took and ace’d the ASVAB and had everything set with the local AF recruiter to join as soon as I graduated HS and become a member of the USAF SF team.
In the fall of 1986 when I had just returned from a practice SAREX in Bellaire, MI I was in incredible amounts of pain. All that summer I was growing rapidly and the growing pains were more than normal for a teenager at the time. After an agonizing evening of endless pain, my parents finally took me to the emergency room where after being x-rayed, poked and prodded, I found out that both of my hips had ‘fallen apart’ due to a condition known as SCFE (Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis). The next morning a couple of very insensitive interns told me that I’d never play sports or do anything remotely physical for the rest of my life. My dreams of joining the AF were dashed in an instant.
I spent the next three months learning how to walk again and recovering both physically and mentally from what had happened to me. But no matter how much I was begged to stay in CAP, I just could not bear to be reminded weekly of what I would not be able to be an active part of. So with that I quit, never again to think about CAP (or so I thought).
As a Senior Member:
I was married in the spring of 1996 to a woman who had just gotten divorced and had a 2 ½ year old son. We had a baby girl together a year later. As the years went by, I still never really gave CAP a single thought (who was I kidding?), even thought I knew a lot of the lessons I did learn during that time helped shape who I was at the time.
As my stepson grew older and more inquisitive about what I did when I was a kid, I told him about my time in CAP and told him maybe one day when he was old enough he’d like to join as a cadet. Somehow all of those stories did not seem to gel with him enough, to want to join anyways, and I certainly was not going to push him into it if he wasn’t interested.
In 2006 we were at the ‘Air Fair - Airshow' in Muskegon, MI and the local cadet squadron had a booth set up. Which, after my wife and daughter split off from my stepson and I, we stopped by and talked to the members there. I guess it was just being there and meeting the other cadets and actually ‘seeing’ what being a cadet was all about that finally ‘sparked’ an interest for him. Soon after that encounter we found a local unit in Grand Rapids and joined.
Since then, time has literally 'flown by'. I think the two of us together, in this short amount of time have done more in CAP than I had ever hoped to have done when I was a cadet. From participating in the wing wide academic/quiz bowls and taking first place, to joining the drill team and competing at the wing and region and national levels, to attending wing conferences and going to encampments, I don’t think we could possibly do more.
Besides being Deputy Commander, I wear many other hats at our unit, with Safety, Cadet Programs and Public Affairs among them. We have 4 core senior staff for +/- 20 cadets and I look forward to each and every weekly meeting and external event. It took a while for the existing cadets to come to know me and learn to trust me, but since that has occurred we’ve all worked very well together. I’m proud of everything our cadets do and achieve and look forward to every future endeavor we participate in.
I also act as the Director of IT for Michigan Wing & the Great Lakes Region. I have since completely replaced the wing website as it is today with public and members only site and plans are in the works in the future for replacing the Great Lakes Region website.
Everything I’m doing in CAP is keeping me as busy as my regular job does, if not more, and I wouldn’t change a thing! I love every minute of it and look forward to growing together with my stepson, my daughter, now that she's a member. My wife first joined in 2007 as a CSM (Cadet Sponsor Member). She went ‘Active’ as a Senior Member approximately 9 months later.
Sure, I have my regrets about leaving CAP as a cadet, but as many others have pointed out to me, there’s nothing I can do about it now except turn that regret into the vigor for excellence in the program as it stands today.
