Golfers, the focus of attention in the CSRA this weekend, generally make it a habit to avoid being "in the weeds," but at least one group of teenagers and adults headed out deliberately into the brambles and brush Friday, with community service on their minds.
Aiken's Civil Air Patrol members used Friday to focus on ground-team training, with cadets looking to qualify for service in search-and-rescue operations.
Guiding much of the activities was the Aiken Composite Squadron's commander, Lt. Chris Medlin, a paramedic whose background also includes service through the Aiken Department of Public Safety. Maps, compasses and full water bottles were among the main items of interest.
Friday's emphasis, Medlin said, was on "getting these senior members and cadets trained up and qualified as much as possible towards meeting all the training requirements for being a fully qualified ground-team member."
Some of the older CAP participants were looking to qualify for service as ground-team leaders, due to a CAP requirement for each ground team to have at least four members, including a leader, to minimize risk.
Medlin said, "It can be whatever terrain, such as when we're out here, we're going to go cross-country, through the woods, through the briars, through the scrub oak – whatever it takes ... If that's where the possibility of what we're searching for is, that's where we have to go, and this is the first experience a lot of these cadets have going out and doing something like this."
The local CAP squadron, he said, was re-activated in December 2018 (having been out of commission since 2014), and success in Friday's activity means that the local group will be qualified to help with search-and-rescue efforts in South Carolina and neighboring states.
Much of the instruction focused on radio-based technology used in such situations as finding missing aircraft. Teaching also touched on such topics as hydration, knife safety and preparedness to deal with such surprises as foul weather and venomous snakes.
The national organization, as described on its website, is "America’s premier public service organization for carrying out emergency services and disaster relief missions nationwide."
The website also notes, "As the auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, CAP’s vigilant citizen volunteers are there to search for and find the lost, provide comfort in times of disaster and work to keep the homeland safe. Its 60,000 members selflessly devote their time, energy and expertise toward the well-being of their communities, while also promoting aviation and related fields through aerospace education and helping shape future leaders through CAP’s cadet program."
Cadets can enroll from the age range of 12 to 18 (and be on board until age 21), and senior members are 18 and older. "Almost all of our senior members are former cadets, from as recent as a couple of years ago to all the way to in the 1970s," Medlin said.
"A lot of people come back into it to pass on what CAP gave them as cadets – taught them leadership skills or personal reliability of responsibility, things like that ... and they came back into it in order to pass on to the cadets today and train them and give back to what gave them so much as teenagers themselves."
The Aiken Composite Squadron normally has its meetings on Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in Millbrook Baptist Church's white annex building, next to the old chapel (174 East Pine Log Road). Details are available from Lt. Norwood Bodie, the squadron's deputy commander, at (803) 270-2675 and norwood.bodie@scwgcap.org.
