A couple weeks ago I was at my CAP meeting and my Flight Sargent joked that his voice was tired and he didn't feel like drilling the Flight and asked if there was anyone who wanted to take his place that night. My hand went right up! I had a little experience drilling at the San Juan Capistrano Swallows Day Parade and it is something I want to become good at. He looked at the Flight Commander who shrugged his shoulders and smiled which must have meant "go ahead and let him I guess" because they let me drill the Flight!
I can't say I didn't make any mistakes, but I did okay and I learned a lot more about how to drill including cadence, the order of commands, etc. I am learning more and more that I would rather take steps toward leadership even if that means I need to learn by making some mistakes than just be a follower and never expand my knowledge or skills. Learning feels good. Leading feels good. I also have found that now that I have drilled the Flight, I am better at following commands when I am in the Flight that is following the commands.
Since then I have taken every opportunity I have been offered to practice my drilling skills and participate in outside CAP activities. At the local Air Show I was in charge of helping secure the flight line. It was a great experience and a great opportunity to practice my authority with civilians. I don't mean that in a bad way, but when you are working in a rescue effort or in a community emergency you have to make sure that people listen to you and take you seriously to help keep them out of danger.
I also took personal responsibility to put together some recruiting material for our squadron to take to events so we can help build our membership. I made it first to hand out at the Swallows Day Parade, but was happy when at the Airport Days 2 months later they handed out contact material to the cadets it was these cards I had designed! I made flyers too. It gave me a really good feeling that they were using them!
I can't say I didn't make any mistakes, but I did okay and I learned a lot more about how to drill including cadence, the order of commands, etc. I am learning more and more that I would rather take steps toward leadership even if that means I need to learn by making some mistakes than just be a follower and never expand my knowledge or skills. Learning feels good. Leading feels good. I also have found that now that I have drilled the Flight, I am better at following commands when I am in the Flight that is following the commands.
Since then I have taken every opportunity I have been offered to practice my drilling skills and participate in outside CAP activities. At the local Air Show I was in charge of helping secure the flight line. It was a great experience and a great opportunity to practice my authority with civilians. I don't mean that in a bad way, but when you are working in a rescue effort or in a community emergency you have to make sure that people listen to you and take you seriously to help keep them out of danger.
I also took personal responsibility to put together some recruiting material for our squadron to take to events so we can help build our membership. I made it first to hand out at the Swallows Day Parade, but was happy when at the Airport Days 2 months later they handed out contact material to the cadets it was these cards I had designed! I made flyers too. It gave me a really good feeling that they were using them!
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