Civil Air Patrol provides eyes in the sky, boots on the ground

Long before he could ever get behind the wheel of a car, Mason Gooden was learning to fly airplanes.

The 16-year-old Barren County High School junior began taking flight lessons when he was 10, and his flight instructor suggested he check out the Civil Air Patrol.

The Civil Air Patrol began one week after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. In 1946, President Harry Truman signed a law incorporating the CAP as a benevolent, nonprofit organization. Two years later, the CAP became a permanent auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force with three missions: aerospace education, cadet programs and emergency services. The Bowling Green-based Southern Kentucky Cadet Squadron, which Mason is a member of, trains young people 11 to 21 years old in leadership skills, survival, team work, first aid and community volunteerism. The senior squadron here focuses on air operations.

Mason is a cadet second lieutenant but aims to be a cadet colonel, the highest rank he can achieve in a cadet squadron. Gooden has been a CAP member for four years. He has his eyes on the U.S. Air Force Academy and hopes one day to be a fighter pilot.

He is one of 38 members of the Southern Kentucky Cadet Squadron. The squadron just this spring assisted with relief efforts after Louisville floods, assisted in the search for a missing hiker in Red River Gorge and helped search for a missing aircraft in Shawnee National Forest.

“There’s something for everyone in Civil Air Patrol,” said Cory Felts, commander of the Southern Kentucky Cadet Squadron.

While it is an auxiliary of the Air Force, it is not a military recruiting ground, Felts said. Instead, it’s a way for young people to learn how to get involved in their communities and help others, he said. Statewide, there are 609 CAP members; all are volunteers. 

“I don’t push for them to go into the military,” said Felts, a first sergeant for the Nashville-based 118th medical group of the U.S. Air Force. “My preference is that they enter college so they can get a skillset to give back to their communities and state. 

“Those that want to go into service, we support them and point them in the right direction, but it is not something that we push. From our unit alone, we just had one former cadet who went to the Naval Academy and is now an ensign attending flight school in Florida, and his youngest sister who just graduated from high school just entered her first year at the Naval Academy in Annapolis.”

There are three types of squadrons within the CAP nationally; a cadet squadron with primarily cadets, a composite squadron that is a blend of cadets and seniors and a senior squadron of senior members who primarily focus on air operations.

Bowling Green boasts two squadrons, the cadet squadron led by Felts and a senior squadron led by Ted Seaman.

Seaman of Scottsville is a retired Miami police officer and is also retired from a career in military intelligence in the U.S. Army.

“In the military you are there to serve your country,” Seaman said. “All of a sudden, you are retired and you have nothing to do. You sit around, and you get bored. This gives you an opportunity to still serve the community, feel useful and utilize the skills developed over a lifetime to benefit the community.”

The CAP senior squadron in Bowling Green is 57 strong and made up of military retirees, commercial pilots, airline pilots, doctors and other professionals.

The average person may not notice their presence, but during last year’s snow and ice storms, CAP pilots and their crews were flying over power lines to report breakages to power companies, and they flew over roads looking for stranded motorists to report to police agencies so help could be sent. CAP volunteers assist in 90 percent of all search-and-rescue operations in the country in which aircraft are used. CAP cadets volunteer at the Mini Corvette Challenge and Thunderfest providing parking assistance. They also volunteer their time for other community events. 

Last summer, when boater Melissa Trent went missing after the boat she was in toppled over Greencastle Dam, CAP volunteers flew over the river day after day in an effort to find her. Trent was reported missing April 21, 2014. On May 3, 2014, her body was pulled from the Green River in Ohio County.

“From the air you can actually see into the river,” Seaman said.

During flooding, CAP shoots aerial photographs to document damage for Federal Emergency Management Agency response.

Cadet squadrons provide ground support.

“We work in tandem with the air crew,” Felts said. 

For example, if there is a catastrophic communications failure, a ground crew will watch for movements of an air crew such as the tipping of a wing in one direction or another as a signal of where to search for something.

The cadet program offers young people multiple learning opportunities in search-and-rescue skills and aerospace education. Included in that education are powered and unpowered flights and basic summer encampment that is a nine-day basic training to prepare cadets for their CAP volunteer career. Basic training is held at the Wendell Ford Regional Training site in Greenville.

Once a cadet attends the basic camp, he or she is eligible to attend other special CAP camps such as honor guard, Hawk Mountain Ranger School in Kempton, Pa., a hot air balloon academy, National Emergency Services Academy, the Model Aircraft & Remote Control Academy in Kansas and many others.

Brittany Copeland, a Western Kentucky University sophomore who is studying theater arts, has been a member of CAP for five years. She is a cadet commander.

She credits CAP with helping her find her voice.

“I learned a lot of leadership skills, which does help a lot,” Copeland said. “You can work with others as a team or take charge. I’m really shy, but in Civil Air Patrol I can’t be that. I had to overcome that barrier. I’m pretty loud and outspoken now.”

That’s the beauty of the cadet program and one of the most rewarding aspects, Felts said.

“I enjoy watching them grow and who they turn into,” Felts said. “I started in this in 2009. My oldest son A.J. and I were looking for something to do together. I had heard about Civil Air Patrol. I found out when they met and thought, ‘Hey, this is pretty cool.’ My wife subsequently joined as well, and my youngest son Mason when he turned 11 last year he joined. It’s something we enjoy doing. 

“We enjoy watching to see who it is they become. They transform over two years. They go from being a quiet kid to stepping up and doing something,” Felts said.

Ransom Bennett, a senior CAP member who is a chaplain for the cadet squadron here, echoed the same sentiments.

Bennett is a computer technician for Warren County Public Schools and a former pastor.

“I enjoy watching cadets learn how to be leaders to take them through that process,” he said.

Bennett says the program helps students later in life.

“Another component is we train them to be physically strong, mentally tough, to be able to critically think and think outside the box and think quickly and to have a balanced core in themselves that they respect themselves and they respect others,” he said. “I can’t imagine a better employee going into the workforce. We don’t train them to go into the military. 

“The majority go into the workforce and carry those values they were taught into the workplace. If you’ve got someone who is a critical thinker and a quick thinker and a desire to add what they have in the organization, I can’t think of a better group than the Civil Air Patrol to provide that leadership going into the workplace.”

Whether a cadet or a senior member, all enjoy completing a successful mission.

The cadet squadron handed out cleanup kits to people affected by the spring flooding in Louisville. They also went door-to-door in their neighborhoods during the winter snowstorm to check on their neighbors.

When the senior squadron flew over Barren River last year in the recovery effort to find Trent, Seaman felt the CAP was providing some measure of comfort to her family in knowing that eyes in the sky were also looking for her along with rescue personnel on the ground. 

 “I’m doing good things for good people,” Seaman said.

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