Unfortunately, it's been a devil of a time trying to get images to go through email. The proposed patches and (basic) heraldry overview is below for commander and unit consideration. These are the most up-to-date proofs. All suggestions have been implemented where possible. Red, White, and Blue
Blue and White
The "Pilsner"
0 Comments
Per Col James Dodrill, West Virginia Wing Commander: "Recently, Capt Toni Wheeler submitted her resignation as Wheeling squadron commander due to pressing personal commitments. I am sincerely grateful to Capt Wheeler for her service as squadron commander and wish her well in her future CAP endeavors. Also, I am excited to announce my selection of the next Wheeling commander. Please join me in congratulating Lt Col Paul Hicks on his appointment at commander of the Wheeling Composite Squadron. Lt Col Hicks assumes his new role after already having served in several positions at the squadron level. He also brings with him 30 years of service experience in the U. S. Army Reserve which included two years serving in Iraq. Lt Col Hicks retired from the USAR in 2018 at the rank of Colonel (O-6). On behalf of my command staff, I wish Lt Col Hicks the very best as he embarks on his new command." Capt Wheeler will stay on as the unit's public affairs officer.
The change of command ceremony will take place on Wednesday, Feb 6th, at 1900hrs local. Please join us in celebrating Lt Col Hicks' appointment! ALCON, Be advised that West Virginia Wing is shifting to a new email platform. All Wing Staff and unit commander email addresses ending with @wvcap.net will be discontinued after the first of the year. It is vital that you update your address books and contact lists during this changeover period. If you currently have an assigned account through the WV gmail system, you should receive notice from Maj Wheatcraft in the next few days. If you do not, contact me ASAP. You will lose your WV gmail access after the first of the year. You will need to provide a personal contact email address. Everyone, please make certain your contact information - including email - is updated on eservices NLT 28 Dec 2018.
I received the Wheeling Composite Squadron's inspection report this evening. How fortuitous is it that our report comes on the eve of our awards ceremony? Awards are a way of acknowledging someone for going the distance. The result is a piece of paper and a ribbon for your chest. "The commander recognizes my efforts!" However, flowery words and ribbons for the individual do not always properly reflect the unit as a whole. It takes a SUI to shine a bright light on the squadron itself. Our squadron was inspected by the Wing IG personally, and he was thorough in his approach. The inspection team assessed all eleven areas vital to unit functioning. Nine areas were deemed "effective" and two were "highly effective"; no discrepancies were found during inspection. That's, well, damn fantastic! We did have one minor area of concern: too many of us aren't working towards rating increases in our specialty track. For some, it comes down to just taking the online test; for others, it requires much hoop-jumping. I would like to see some hard effort put into those "None" ratings. And, yes, we need to recruit. All-in-all, this report is a glowing testament to the hard work put in by our personnel. Your creativity, zeal, and determination make the 049 what it is today. More so, your teamwork allows us to function effectively as a whole. Look at how far we've come - look at how much farther we can go! Let's make 2019 our best year yet. We'll ramp up recruiting efforts at schools, raise funds for our cadets, and encourage more of our neighbors to get involved in CAP. All the while, we'll train and broaden our knowledge. Serving as your commander is a privilege that I don't take lightly. Thank you for all you do for CAP, and for the WV049.
Wheeling Composite has a new Deputy Commander for Cadets. 1st Lt J.R. Ewing requested a sabbatical due to his need to complete required training and to better support his Police Department's obligations. Although it saddens us to know that he won't have much time to spend with us, I fully support the reasoning behind the request. He has given remarkable service to our unit for so many years. The new Deputy Commander for Cadets is Lt Col Paul Hicks. Col Hicks recently retired from the Army Reserves, and currently serves as our Logistics Officer. Cadets and parents, please update your contact lists accordingly. Thank you, J.R. It was an honor having you as part of my command team. Thank you, Paul, for stepping in to fill the role. You both have my sincere appreciation.
A reminder to all that our SUI was rescheduled to 3 Nov to accommodate DR training and preparations for deployment to support DR relief down south.
The good news is that only a few documents need updating. ALCON: A reminder that tonight's meeting involves Character Development. Our CDI, 2d Lt Brown, will present an hour-long session for cadets. This session comes straight from National. Due to hastily rearranged schedules last week and the week prior (to be at the ready for activation and several days in the Carolinas working POD), some of our senior members will not be present tonight. Capt Wheeler, MSgt Wheeler, 1LT Ewing, and Major Sherman will not be in attendance. Our Leadership Officer and his cadet are likewise excused. That aside, our senior members should attend. The presentation touches upon CISM and building inner strength. Though geared for persons under 21, it is a fantastic opportunity for senior members to refresh their own training, especially when dealing with suicide and suicide prevention.
So much kerfuffle over the need to purchase more patches. Sadly, the master copy is too small and fuzzy, and nobody (including the SQ/CC) knows where to find a larger copy. Not that people want one. It was a bland patch. Some people (read: me) can never leave anything well enough alone. I've kicked around a few ideas. The top image is an equally bland, three-color patch. No real heraldry to it. The star indicates the unit's location in the state. The plane flies along the boarder between WV and OH (typical of our missions). There are some hills and a bridge.
Whatever we choose - be it redoing our latest to a larger format, or picking something new - we need to get on the ball. We're quickly running out of patches for our uniforms.
- Capt Wheeler ALCON, Today, 15 September, is the deadline for annual award submissions. Anyone in our unit can submit someone's name for an award - even if that person belongs to another unit. Please refer to the instructions Col Moody sent out via email. Pay heed to requirements for each award. Wings decides if the nomination meets criteria; it isn't uncommon for a submitted recommendation to be downgraded to a lower level award, such as a Commander's Commendation turning into a CAP Achievement Award. With the exception of CAP Achievement Awards, which are presented at the unit level, all Awards will be presented during the Awards Ceremony before the start of Conference. (Those that can not attend the Conference to receive their award will be honored on 7 November before the start of our monthly business meeting.) Today is also the deadline for early bird registration. Take advantage of those low prices for Conference and Banquet tickets. And finally, for those wishing to stay overnight, the cut-off date is Thursday, September 28, 2018 for hotel registration. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Thank you for all you do for CAP.
Our SQ/CC and SQ/CCC attended this month's Wheeling-Ohio County EMA Local Emergency Planning Committee Meeting today. Excellent timing, as Hurricane Florence is still on the move.
The commander has already passed information along to our unit's Command Team as well as WVWG/CC Col McCroskey. She will also provide a short briefing before Saturday's DR exercise. WV049 will also attend next quarter's meeting on 13 December. ALCON:
Please bring your 101 card, updated CAPF161, and CAP ID card with you tonight. If you have already sent Col McCroskey your availability form, make certain to send a copy to SQ/CC for local use. Parents have already received a school excuse letter. We will reissue a new one should we remain activated beyond the dates therein. ALCON: Be advised that our Disaster Relief training exercise may turn into post-storm SAR and DR operations if called upon. Per Lt Col Dodrill's email two hours ago:
On the forecast track, the center of Florence will move over the southwestern Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda and the Bahamas Tuesday and Wednesday, and approach the coast of South Carolina or North Carolina on Thursday. The strengthening high pressure system to the north will prevent Florence from curving to the north and out to sea. On Tuesday, Florence will be over very warm water well to the southwest of Bermuda and very well could be a Category 5 hurricane as it approaches the East Coast of the United States. This hurricane could cause catastrophic inland flooding in the Carolinas and Virginias. We may be called to assist damaged areas in our state as well as potentially support the other states in our Region. Check your email, text messages, and voicemail throughout the day. Make certain your contact information is correct in eServices. Unit Information Dissemination:
Contact numbers for Command Staff
Please also take a moment to prepare your family for a potential natural disaster. You can find more information at https://wv049cap.weebly.com/sqn-hub/disaster-preparation. Senior members, cadets, and cadet parents: PLEASE contact your command staff with your availability throughout the week and into the weekend. We need to know who we have available should we be activated. We are holding an all hands meeting this Wednesday, 12 Sep 2018. Cadet PT activities and Aircrew training have been suspended in order to prepare for activation. Bring in your day packs and other essential equipment. We will load the van ahead of time. Parents are welcome to attend. We will also hold our Disaster Relief training this Saturday if we are not activated. We need all available hands for this.
Andrew Feldman, Jacques Heinrich and Warrent Ratis photographed damage from the 9/11 attacks from above the following day. (Warren Ratis) Sept. 12, 2001 was a somber if not sobering day for our nation. The crisis from the day prior was still ongoing. Emergency Services volunteers and employees had converged at the site during the night. Still, it was difficult to assess the fullness of the situation. Ariel photography was necessary. The Civil Air Patrol rose to the challenge. On orders from Gov. Pataki to photograph the smoldering World Trade Center from above, a three-man aircrew boarded their Cessna 172 XP. It would be the first non-military flight allowed following the attack. Their craft was nearly alone that morning. Planes had been grounded across the nation. They were briefly challenged by a NYPD helicopter, though it left them be after receiving word that the mission was indeed authorized. The aircrew continued their sortie. It wasn't difficult to spot their target. The smoke heralded the grim situation beneath it. CAP trains hard. The reward doesn't always consist of sunshine and roses. Still, there's a potent feeling that rolls through an aircrews' chests whenever we spot the bright orange of a lost hunter's jacket or find a group of people clustered on a rooftop during a flood. We taste sorrow when we find the scattered debris of a downed aircraft. Sometimes we return to base without any news, and we pray that the CAP ground teams or other emergency services agencies were more successful. Nothing could have prepared our aircrew for what they saw as they reached their target. Lt. Col. Warren Ratis, Lt. Col. Jacques Heinrich, and Lt. Col. Andrew Feldman were among the first to see the devastation from above. Their sortie lasted for hours as they snapped photos of the horrific scene. These images would be utilized by FEMA and the state government to assess the scope of the disaster in order to plan a recovery mission. "There were huge amounts of smoke emanating from where the buildings collapsed and we had to steer away from it," Ratis said. "It was stunning how spread out all of the debris actually was -- like a quarter-mile or a half-mile. There was so much powdery debris, it was like it snowed on lower Manhattan." "It was very somber but our mission came first," said Heinrich. "We knew we had a job to do. It didn't really hit us until later what we saw." "You never forget what you see, obviously," added Ratis, who used to work in the World Trade Center and knew eighteen people who were killed. "But it's still hard to believe." Seventeen years have passed. Tomorrow, the nation will once again pause to remember the tragedy - a tragedy that occurred before some of our youngest cadets had even been born. To these future leaders, the event is framed in history text books. They know it occurred but they are incapable of understanding what it was truly like to experience it. The same could be said of many of our senior members too young to remember World War II or the sentiment behind the "sweating plane" patch.
The Civil Air Patrol continues to rise to the challenges laid out by the U.S. Air Force and government agencies such as FEMA. Threats to our native soil, terrorists attacks, natural disaster damage assessment - this is what we train for. It is how we - volunteers from all walks of life - can best serve our community, state, and nation. We are following in the footsteps of those that came before us. Our cadets will follow in ours someday. Seventeen years have passed since that fateful day in New York City. The events are seared in our minds. As we pause to pay respect to the lives lost on 9/11, we should also celebrate the lives saved due, in part, to the determination of Lt. Col. Warren Ratis, Lt. Col. Jacques Heinrich, and Lt. Col. Andrew Feldman. Strive on with diligence.
Information courtesy of Ready.gov. For more disaster survival tips, please visit www.ready.gov/
A SUI, a DR training exercise and the potential for a real world mission all in the same week?
Don't underestimate the 049. Bring it! Thank you to all the helping hands that helped us spruce up HQ and ready our 24-hour vests for possible activation. The Unit Business Meeting is tomorrow, 5 September 2018. UOD Cadets: Blues UOD Seniors: Blues/Corp White/Corp Polo We will host a promotion ceremony for Seniors and Cadets at 1900hrs local. Please join us in welcoming Senator Ryan Weld and Delegate Phil Diserio. CALENDAR AND EVENT REVIEW 2018
SQN CLEAN PRE-SUI: 9 September 1400hrs until done. ALL HANDS NEEDED.Location: local RECRUITMENT MEETING: 12 Sep 1930 hrs SQUADRON SUI: 15 September Location: local AWARD NOMINATIONS DUE AT WING: 15 September WING DISASTER RELIEF TRAINING: 15-16 September Location: TBD NATIONAL CDI COURSE: Wednesday, September 26 CDI special presentation: "Wellness" (1900-2100hrs local) Location: local UOD: Blues Cadets report at 1830 hrs local 049 Seniors report at 1900 hrs local: CDI; Staff Officer work day WV GUARD/YEAGER AIRSHOW: 13-14 October 2018 Location: Yeager Airport, 100 Airport Rd #175, Charleston, WV 25311, USA. POC: Lt Col Mike Nimmo. WV WING CONFERENCE/CHANGE OF COMMAND CEREMONY: 19-20 October Location: Morgantown Marriott at Waterfront Place, 2 Waterfront Pl, Morgantown, WV 26501 The SUI documentation is completed. A few monthly reports are all that's left of my CAP work today. Oh, and those annual awards are due soon. Seems never-ending, no? It's hard to believe something as straightforward as inspection preparation could take up so much damn time. All told, it was well over 48 manhours on my part, divided into microbusts of frantic work whenever I found a free moment for CAP. That's what it is really about: time and effort. A SUI gives commanders a means to take a hard look at their unit. How far has it come, how far do we have to go, and what bright promise does our future hold for us? How much time and effort did we spend striving towards excellence? What more can we give? I can't predict the future. I can, however, assess our past. People, we really have come a long way. Stagnant units are inactive units, or they are units that haven't much encouragement to do things. Opportunities arise and the stagnant unit shrugs in collective apathy. Ours wasn't much different - we glided along the thermals, a worrisome cycle of downhill momentum until we caught the next column of rising air. It's hit and miss. We did a lot of gliding last year. We couldn't always find that column. Vehicle usage is one of my favorite metrics. How far did we collectively glide in 2017? Van Usage Report: 1 Sep 2016 - 1 Sep 2017 Total Times Used: 18 (annual goal is 48 uses) Total Hours: 212 (annual time goal is 420) Total Miles Driven 1881 (annual goal is 4200) That's... abysmal. It's also why I'm not fond of gliding. Give that vehicle an engine and prop and you'll find that powered flight takes you farther faster. There's no need to pray for a thermal to keep you aloft. Crack that window open and shout CLEAR! Van Usage Report: 1 Sep 2017 - 1 Sep 2018 Total Times Used: 38 (annual goal is 48 uses) Total Hours: 617 (annual time goal is 420) Total Miles Driven 4188 (annual goal is 4200) Those numbers will seem small to commanders of large units. For us - a scattering of senior members and a few cadets - it's phenomenal. It's more than I expected when command passed to me last October. Those numbers reflect CAP life: Encampment, NASA Space Day at the Challenger Learning Center, honoring our law enforcement on Memorial Day, SAREXs and Ground Pounders, the Wing conference, Professional Development Weekend, the #TotalForcePartners painting relay, and more. We had the power to fly as much as we wished, and to take advantage of opportunities that a glider just can't touch. There are more metrics, of course. Those successes shine brightest once the SUI paperwork is done. Our members are pushing forward in their specialty tracks. All our members have completed Level I. We had people attend SLS, CLC, and UCC. All active members have CPPT crossed off their lists. We've flown our quadcopter and put up a weather station. Our supply room has never gleamed so brightly - nor have we ever been so bereft of mouse poop. Our van happily beeps when we back up, and our new tires have taken us all sorts of places. Some things aren't measured during a SUI. We now have a qualified Ground Team. Our aircrew never fails to rise to the occasion - pun intended. O-Flights give our cadets experiences that might last a lifetime, small moments nested between the trials of Hawk Mountain and similar external cadet activities. A commander is, in a sense, the pilot that steers a unit and keeps it moving forward. However, a unit can't go anywhere without fuel. It is the time and effort put into the unit by each member every day and week, month in and month out, that keeps us in motion. Without it, we can't sustain flight for very long. We'd crash. Look how far we've come. Look at the power that got us to where we are now. We have farther to go. We have more to do. Recruitment has to be a priority - fresh minds with fresh ideas are potent elements. We need to divvy up some of those multiple hats people are wearing. We need to grow. Fundraising needs to happen. We'll get there. I have faith in that. We have determination. It also helps that we have Ewings and Browns to nurture budding leadership. That grumpy Wheeler guy from Wing comes in handy. Schneiders, Shermans and Augerbrights answer the call to fly. Our Ellefsons and Karolchiks and Burkharts - and that McCroskey fellow up at Wing - get them in the air. We would lack order without our logistics god, Hicks. We'd struggle with tech without our Titus-Glovers. Sprinkle in cadets to keep us hopping, while you're at it. And, though they can not be there due to life circumstances, we keep our Bollings, Steiners, Sims, Johnsons, Dragonirs and Knollingers in our thoughts. There are more, of course. Our patrons served their time. I am so proud of my unit's efforts. I'm proud of each and every individual. These are the people that volunteer their time and effort, and contribute their talents, with integrity and respect. They strive for excellence in everything that they do. They exemplify the best of the Civil Air Patrol, though I doubt they're aware of it. Thank you for all you do for Civil Air Patrol, West Virginia Wing, and the Wheeling Composite Squadron.
People have asked - your wish is our command!
No big reveals here. A lot of folks overlook that blue button under "Contact Us" on our front page. ;)
|
ScheduleFor a full schedule of events, please visit our
UNIT CALENDAR Additional events can be viewed on the WV Wing calendar.
We meet weekly at the Wheeling-0hio County Airport. Cadets report 1830 hrs local Seniors report 1900 hrs local In addition, we hold a meeting the 2nd Sunday of every month, 1400 -1700 hrs local. This day is also reserved for Cadet Program elements or events. WV049 Staff Notices
CHANGE OF COMMAND CEREMONY: 6 Feb 2019 Archives
February 2019
Categories
All
Copyright© 2018 Wheeling Composite Squadron Civil Air Patrol All Rights Reserved.
LINKS OR REFERENCES TO INDIVIDUALS OR COMPANIES DO NOT CONSTITUTE AN ENDORSEMENT OF ANY INFORMATION, PRODUCT OR SERVICE YOU MAY RECEIVE FROM SUCH SOURCES. |