Danville cadets survive survival school

Twelve members of the Danville Composite Squadron survived the wilderness October 10-12 during the CAP Virginia Group 4 Cadet Leadership and Survival Weekend at Ft. Pickett, Va.

Of the 18 cadets at the event, half were members of the Danville squadron.

The school, which is not a required part of the cadet program, does support parts of the program that are required.

Cadets attended classes on leadership and communication, including a behavioral assessment that illustrated their primary leadership styles.

Saturday was spent in the field. Cadets were broken out into teams of four and dropped into remote sites on the Army installation. “They had to use their land navigation skills to get to a camp site on their own,” said 1^st Lt. Mark Evans, the squadron’s deputy commander for cadets. “Once there, they had to set up tents and emergency shelters and get ready for another mission.”

Cadets took classes in tactical movement, cover and concealment. The Army also treated cadets to some time on the rifle range. Cadets and seniors were given basic instructions in the use of the M16 rifle and, under the watchful eye of the range master, were allowed to fire the contents of a magazine through one.

Night provided a more challenging environment for participating cadets. “In a tactical scenario cadets were given the mission of navigating for a mile in the dark, hitting pre-determined compass points along the way, in an effort to locate and ‘enemy’ camp,” said Evans. “Once found, they were to observe the activity and then return where a senior ‘intelligence officer’ would be waiting.

“Once complete, the cadets had to navigate to an extraction point where a van waited to pick them up. The van was on a time schedule so if they missed it they would be walking the 3 miles back to camp in the dark. Just to make it a little more interesting, there was an organized opposition force in the field looking for them. Being seen or caught meant failure.”

On Sunday the teams packed up their equipment and marched the two miles back to base camp to participate in the leadership reaction course.

Members of the Danville delegation included cadets A.J. Ingle, Mike Alfred, Mark Rominger, Mike Wilson, Cadet 2^nd Lt. Nathaniel Evans, April Hylton, Nick Moore, Ben Abele and Josia Noble. Senior sponsors included 2^nd Lt. Don Abele, 2^nd Lt. Virginia Hylton and 1^st Lt. Mark Evans.

The Civil Air Patrol is a benevolent, non-profit organization performing humanitarian services on behalf of the U.S. Air Force. In addition to its missions with young people, CAP members fly search and rescue, counter-drug, disaster relief and homeland security missions.

Danville’s squadron was activated in April 1950.

Members of the Danville Composite Squadron meet Thursday nights from 7-9 p.m. at the Danville Regional Airport. The organization’s web site is located at http://www.vawg.cap.gov/danville.