CAPblog

Witch Hunt?

So now that CAP is undergoing another regime change, why is it that this one seems to be so different?

Why is it that this one seems to come complete with torches and pitchforks? Is it because it's October?

As soon as the news broke, my email box started filling with rants and accusations about all the other folks in leadership that are crooked, how corruption is rampant, and, blah, and blah, and blah...

Here an example...

One of the accusations du'jour is that Col. Robert Diduch, (NER Commander) and Larry Kauffman, (Former CAP Chief of Staff, and now Fleet Manager as a paid NHQ staffer) are in cahoots to make money from the maintenance of CAP aircraft.

The background on that juicy bit of malarkey seems to all be coming up false... First there was the bit about Diduch owning a aviation services business, (he works in Real Estate) and Kauffman stepped down from his long time position as Chief of Staff in order to avoid any conflict of interest when he was asked to manage the consolidated maintenance program full time.

...and I'm supposed to believe that anyone is paying for the privilege of fixing CAP aircraft, at the discounted prices that NHQ is negotiating due to the size of our fleet?

Hey, if I've got this wrong, please let me know.

If you've got information that can be corroborated, that someone is on the take, then fine, post it. But be prepared to be ridiculed by me, and your peers, if you're talking out of your ass.

I'm getting a little tired of everyone with a real or imagined bone to pick with CAP leadership, and or NHQ Staff, seeing this as their golden hour to push forward their own grievances and agendas.

Tossing up random accusations without specific details, hoping that maybe something will stick, is stupid.

The only agenda we should expending calories on is the agenda of better serving our nation, and fixing the real problems we have that are obstacles to service.

Last I checked, the word civil is still in our name. Let's try to please act like it.

Oh, and leave the Witches alone, some are cute.

Tony Pineda's Letter to Congress

From Tony Pineda, ex-National Commander:

Dear Civil Air Patrol members.

This is a letter that I sent to numerous members of congress two weeks ago explaining the illegal actions of the Board of Govenors not only to me but to the CAP family. Please pass to your members. I will send you a second email soon with more information.  Thank you guys.

Tony

:: If anyone is interested, you can read the full text of Pineda's letter to Congress below.

CAP is NOT BoG'd Down

Today's note from CAP Leadership:

Dear Members of the CAP National Board:

I have received many emails and calls from our Civil Air Patrol members thinking that there had been a CAP Board of Governors conference call Sunday night to discuss the suspension of Maj Gen Pineda. As you may know from receipt of similar emails and blogs being forwarded to you, there is much speculation on what the BoG is or is not going to do. All of this is adding to the impatience – and that is not good for our members and our missions. Further, it concerns me that people would think that the BoG is shrinking away from the situation and has cancelled meetings. Nothing should be read into the rescheduling of a call.

Let me set the record straight. The BoG did not conduct a conference call meeting 30 September – once this date was checked with the BoG members, it was discarded due to schedule conflicts. Instead, a conference call is scheduled for Tuesday, 2 October, on this matter. There have not been calls cancelled – the scheduling of the call has been attempted more than once to ensure that there could be maximum participation on such important matters to the CAP.

Further, there may be additional calls necessary before a conclusion is reached. As these meetings are private, I will not speculate on their content, nor will I be in a position to give you call-by-call progress checks. What I do promise is a statement once all proceedings are completed and a decision has been rendered.

I ask for everyone's patience during this time and that board members seek accurate, up-to-the-minute information from me or Mr. Don Rowland.

I will be meeting via conference call with the members of the NEC this week, and the members of the National Board next week. I look forward to talking with each of you then. Thank you to each of you for your leadership of our organization. Be safe.

                Very Respectfully,

                Brig. Gen. Amy S. Courter
                Acting National Commander

:: Achem... Great for anyone who even cares about the issue of Maj. Gen. Tony Pineda's timeout anymore.

NotF  will, I'm sure... continue to froth up in a lather.

Good on Leadership for communicating with the field in a timely matter. (Not that NHQ can or should comment on each and every rumor that makes it onto the inter-webs.)

It's transparency in the organization that helps us all be more effective.

Ray Hayden's Naughty Rant - UPDATED

This is the not so nice page. We are not going to be politically correct, we are not going to be nice - we are going to cuss, probably a lot.

PAGE CHANGED ON 8 AUGUST

CAP Insights: the not so nice page!

:: Ray Hayden's blog warns everyone that, "If your a wuss, if your a mamby pamby cry baby, if your a communist bed wetting sympathizer - if your ears bleed when you read naughty words - DO NOT GO TO THIS PAGE..."

This rant uses plenty of naughty language to amp up the tone. (I think he's shooting for exasperated martyr...)

He takes credit for bringing down Tony Pineda, all the while explaining away how and why he took the test for another guy.

I don't get him suddenly having a crisis of conscience years after the fact.

I don't condone his silly idea of a general strike by the membership to protest against the organization's leadership.

I don't follow him using the modicum of celebrity that he's gained by playing the role of whistle blower, to create a bully pulpit from which he'll show us all the way to salvation of the organization.

I'm just not buying what he's selling.

UPDATE:

After I linked to the Not So Nice Page... Hayden completely changed the content of the page last night, changing it to a (still not so nice) missive directed mostly at me. He also took down the original post off his blog... darn... it was classic. I wish I would have archived his original rant.

The new stuff just doesn't have quite the same, big jar of crazy ring to it.

CAP in Live Free or Die Hard?

Word is that Civil Air Patrol gets a mention in Live Free or Die Hard, the latest installment in the Die Hard franchise. (Thanks for the tip

Apparently every federal TLA gets a mention in this movie, and when the NSA guys talks to the FBI guy, telling him that CAP is on patrol over D.C., he could have been talking about a "CAP", vs the U.S. C-A-P... but oh well, I'll choose to believe he was talking about us, and take it as a PR win.

The critics have not been kind to DH4, but I don't care. I'm a fan of watching Bruce Willis blow stuff up... so yeah, I'll probably go see the flick.

I think it would be worth it just to see the F-35 in action. (Note: I KNOW that the A-model only carries ONE internal gun, not two like in the movie. I guess someone decided that two cannons just looked cooler.)

But I'm so gonna go see TRANSFORMERS first.

Another One Bites The Dust...

To all members of California Wing,

Major General Tony Pineda called and relieved me of command effective today. The recent audit of CAWG finances showed that while there is no money missing from CAWG, there is disagreement on the amount of restricted funds in CAWG's books. A number of you have been working to help clarify the situation and I owe you thanks for all your time and effort. MGen Pineda feels appointing a new wing commander would be beneficial in rectifying this situation. He has appointed LtCol Jesus Muniz as the interim commander. LtCol Muniz was recently a member of Sq 144 and is currently serving as the Colorado Wing Director of Aerospace Education. He can be reached at [email redacted]

I would like to thank all the members of CAWG for their hard work and dedication to our missions, to our squadrons, and to CAWG. I treasure the time I have spent with each of you. Let's all work together to continue to make CAWG the best in CAP.

Virginia Nelson

:: This came over the wire just a little while ago. 

What the HELL is going on?  In the last year, we've lost HOW MANY NEC and NB members to untimely departures? (and by untimely, I mean "did not leave of their own true volition")

We've heard this theme before here on CAPBlog: Doesn't the NEC or the Board of Governors give a crap about what seems to be a systemic gutting of the higher echelons of the corporation in favor of loading the board with sychophants and "yes men"?

You have to wonder:  Why do you need to go outside of your wing to get a new wing commander?  Better yet, why is your new wing commander a staff officer of a wing TWO STATES away from where he lives? 

Inquiring minds and all....

A Ponzi Scheme?

Amanda over at NOTF published a long rambling fur ball of a post today... She even referenced CAPblog content twice.

Yuck. Now I feel like I need a shower.

She gets started with a long piece accusing the Civil Air Patrol as a being a big Ponzi Scheme.

<engage Gunny Hartman voice here> Call me names all you like, but talking smack about my beloved Civil Air Patrol? That really frosts my cookies! </hartman>

Calling it a ponzi scheme does not make it one.

She then goes on to to bullet point each and every accusation against, and percieved wrong doing by Tony Pineda. Honestly I just don't have time to click off on every one of them tonight. This thread on CAPtalk attempts does about a good a job addressing it that I have found.

Last week NOTF published a rumor postulating that Amy Courter had resigned from her post as Vice Commander... which by the way, was COMPLETELY FALSE!

There are some people that will always enjoy reading NOTF, I am not one of them.

Lazy Friday

Couple weeks back, I was enjoying a lazy Friday afternoon here in the CAPBlog office.

CB was out, again, due to the "OPTEMPO Flu," (padding his logbook, no doubt, on CAP's dime..), and I had my feet up on my desk, nose buried in the CAPRs ... Well, OK, my head was back, mouth open, regulation set splayed across my chest, sound asleep and snoring loud enough that the folks in the adult video store next door were complaining about the "construction noises," but you don't need to know that... when I heard the metal flap on the office's mail slot slap open.  An envelope plopped on the worn linoleum just inside the door as I heard feet scamper down the hall toward the fire stairs.

My curiosity piqued, I eyeballed the envelope from my semi-supine position at my desk.  Thankfully, CAP folks aren't the targets of IED attacks. Yet. Would have to be a pretty flat IED in any event, to fit thru our mail slot...

With a heavy sigh (I was comfortable, darn it.. And a little sleepy), I hauled my lanky frame out of the chair, wandered to the door and retrieved the envelope.   Plain brown wrapper.  Odd.  I don't normally get these kinds of deliveries.  Expecting the latest issue of some gentleman's magazine, or last month's Smithsonian Air & Space,  I tore the envelope open.  Inside, some official looking pages with a hastily scrawled post-it note: "For you."   Man, I sure wanted some some sexy shots of the F-22...

Closer inspection of the sheets revealed them to be six proposed agenda items for the upcoming CAP Winter National Board Meeting in March.  Interesting.  Don't normally see these so early. Its usually another couple weeks before the official agenda is released.

As I leafed thru the assembled papers, one thing became clear:  A attempt to shift the power structure of the organization is in the wind... 

More after the jump...

Testingate

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

- Abraham Lincoln

I don't know where to start...

I'm upset, frustrated, and betrayed.

While I haven't seen a finding yet from the CAP IG yet regarding the, "Testingate Scandal," I got some disturbing intel tonight from a highly placed source that confirmed my worst fears about this whole mess if true.

To this day, Tony Pineda denies the allegation that Ray Hayden took the Air Force Air Command and Staff College test for him.

I was told that he wrote a paper which was part of the course, and that that paper was on record at NHQ. So I wrote about it. Nobody raised their hand and countered that.

Hayden's allegation always came with the caveat that he had no paper trail, no smoking gun. He told the press that there was no way to prove the allegation, and that it would be his word against Pineda's...

Word is that Hayden submitted to a lie detector test by a third party to substantiate the credability of his claims.

Two times.

Hayden passed the test.

Two times.

So either Hayden is one hell of a liar, or this stinks...

From the begining the explanation I got for why we couldn't just track down the Test Control Officer that proctored the test, and ask him who took it was that, "The test was online, Tony just logged on at home and took the test."

That explanation never sat well with me.

Every AFIADL course that I ever took (Mission Scanner, Observer, and the Senior Officer Course) has been proctored closely by a TCO, and executed on a oldschool scantron sheet. I just couldn't bring myself to believe that if my Scanner booklet to this day looks like it was produced on a an old hand cranked ditto machine, that somehow the USAF was magically using on-line testing years back? (riiiight!) It just didn't make sense to me.

So I chose to not talk about that part of the story with anyone. It just seemed too stupid.

So now I sit here wondering what's next?

The IG finding can't come fast enough.

If all this is proven to be BS. Then that's just fine with me.

The whole point of this blog is that no one of us is smarter than all of us. If anyone has better information... I'm all ears.

Somebody is lying. It's time we figure out who it is.

A Dark Cloud

First... The press release from National Headquarters...

The Civil Air Patrol inspector general is presently conducting an investigation into allegations that a CAP member in the Florida Wing took Air Force Air Command and Staff College tests for CAP National Commander Maj. Gen. Antonio Pineda in 2002 and 2003.

The investigation is being conducted by CAP Inspector General Col. James Linker, who reports directly to the CAP Board of Governors, the governing body of CAP. Once the investigation is complete, the results will be provided to the chairman of the BoG, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Nick Kehoe, and made public as appropriate.

In a statement released on Dec. 20, General Pineda stated the allegations are totally false and without merit, and the investigation will prove so beyond any doubt. "These allegations will be investigated thoroughly by the CAP inspector general. In the meantime, with the support and help of CAP's National Board members, I will continue to focus all of my energy on ensuring that CAP achieves its goals and remains one the best professional volunteer organizations in America."

NHQ: CAP inspector general investigates allegations against national commander

:: This whole mess started started when the allegation was first published on News Of The Force, along with comments posted on this blog. I chose not blog about it because of the long storied history that Skip over at NOTF has with TP. It's well known that the publisher of NOTF has a long running grudge against TP that dates back to Pineda's time as Florida Wing Commander. (lawsuits, name calling, etc.) I gave up long ago trying to keep up with all the rumors and accusations that NOTF publishes as gospel.

Word is that Ray Hayden, was being 2B's out of CAP for a dust-up at a SAREX mission base, when he didn't get the air-cover he wanted from his buddy, so he decided to throw Pindea under the bus by blowing the whistle.

Next, the Miami Herald chose to cover Ray Hayden's story in a series of articles...

The national Civil Air Patrol is investigating an accusation that its commander, Maj. Gen. Antonio Pineda, had a subordinate take a military exam for him.

Pineda, who has led the volunteer search-and-rescue patrol since August 2005, lives in Plantation and has served as an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Hayden told The Miami Herald that in 2002 and 2003, he took a correspondence course and exams on Pineda's behalf, through the Air Force's Air Command and Staff College.

''I took his exams for him,'' Hayden said Wednesday.

A spokesman for the Civil Air Patrol confirmed that the organization's inspector general, Col. James Linker, is investigating Hayden's claims.

Pineda has denied any wrongdoing, and in a statement released Wednesday out of the Civil Air Patrol's headquarters at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala., said ``the allegations are totally false and without merit, and the investigation will prove so beyond any doubt.''

Miami Herald: Civil Air Patrol probes cheating claim
Miami Herald: FDLE to probe Civil Air Patrol cheating complaint

:: So far, the story has been picked up by a few other MSM outlets, including local TV near Maxwell AFB. (Which is in Alabama, not Texas!)

There has been plenty of debate online. Many of us were surprised that a MSM outlet published the story of Hayden's accusation. Fewer of us were surprised at how badly the story was written.

So where does that leave us?

The CAP Inspector General, Col. Linker, has to do his job. He's got to investigate the claim, and report back to the CAP Board of Governors.

It seems to me this will be settled one way or another by tracking down the Testing Control Officer who proctored the test, and finding out who he handed the test to...

If it was Tony Pineda, then it's case closed.

If it wasn't... well then we have a problem.

CAP Officers take Air Force courses all the time for both mission related skills and professional development. We all take care to protect these tests and ensure that the results are fair and true.

NHQ staff claims that they have a copy of the paper that Pineda wrote on file, which they say accounts for 80% of the grade for the course. This still doesn't answer the question about who took the test.

I believe that the Commander needs to be completely cleared of the charges, or step down from his post.

The IG investigation better not come up with anything like, "the test was sent to the Florida Wing HQ, we don't know what happened to it after that..."

We can't go on with a dark cloud hanging over the guy in charge.