By Ray Hayden | CAP Insights

It is finally time to go ahead and address a situation that you all would have thought might come up some day, Membership Terminations, and Membership Account Flags.

First lets discuss a Membership Flag. A Flag on an account is a term that has been around for a long time. In the banking industry, we would “flag” an account for any number of reasons, good, bad or informational in nature. A flagged account did not mean a bad thing necessarily.

For the Civil Air Patrol, it means a bad thing. It is either a derogatory or non informational event that kills your ability to renew your membership once renewal time comes around.

The flagging of a members records has been used as the lame way of “Membership Termination” by those who abused the system for as far back as anyone can think of. In the earliest time, you did not need a computer to do it, so it has likely been a “technique” by corrupt morons since the inception of the organization.

Membership Terminations, on the other hand are PROPERLY handled via the use of CAPR 35-3. According to the regulation, “Membership in CAP is a privilege and not a right.”

We have a slightly different take on that. Once you jump through all the hoops, spend your money and buy your uniform stuff, if someone wants to toss you out on your ass, they had better have a damn good reason to do it.

If you are the type of person who ought to be removed from the program, because you’ve done things that kind of make you a scumbag too, you already know it, but the problem is that a LOT of folks had done either nothing wrong, or got stuck in the trap of being in Pineda’s (and others before him, don’t be fooled into thinking that Pineda was the first) wake, and because you now know something, you have to be removed too.

Many of the atrocities of Pineda are in the News of the Force Website, and should be required reading. A lot of folks who talk a lot of shit will bad mouth News of the Force (NOTF), when in fact, none of these same assholes will give Skip the nod for being right for so damn long!

Has Skip got a few facts off from time to time? Yes, he has – as have all “real” news outlets. We recall a “real” news outlet, the Miami Herald in fact, that moved CAP’s National Headquarters out of Alabama!

Skip and NOTF however, have persistently and consistently told the truth to the best of their ability, and to better than the “big boys” of the news industry, have done so for YEARS – why don’t you give it up and admit that Skip Munger and NOTF had been right, when those who talked shit for so long, had been so wrong – and proven so?

There is a looming problem that could show it’s head again, ignorance.

That is where CAP Insights comes in. Our purpose will be to remind the Membership of the evil past of the Organization with the express purpose of your not allowing it to happen again.

A big part of what has to take place is to remedy the past transgressions that had been done improperly, if not illegally. Heads must continue to roll while others truly must be reinstated to allow the healing to continue, and correct the political attacks of the past.

CAP Insights knows, as does Ms. Susie Parker at National HQ, that a lot of memberships had been flagged by Pineda, his buddies, and those from before Pineda’s time – done so, in such a way, that it is obvious that it was a political attack.

The truth about the paid staff at National HQ in the CAP is that they had been scared of Pineda.

Here you had a volunteer who could make your paid career hell on earth. CAP Insights has stated that the Paid Staff at National HQ MUST – without exception – be removed from the direct control of the Volunteer Command Staff. The paid staff are a direct function of CAP-USAF, and while they are CAP Employees, the Volunteer Command cannot have any control over their positions – ever. This removes the ability of the Commanders, or anyone in CAP to have ANY influence over the Paid Employees who actually are the ones who take care of the General Membership.

This separation of potentially nutty volunteers and Paid Staff is non negotiable, it MUST be that way to protect the General Membership!

Now that we have that fixed, the other thing that must take place is that all – ALL – of the flagged, political, nonsense terminations – and National HQ DOES know who they all are, must be gone over. This is extra work, but it must be done.

ALL of the flagged accounts that are not for justifiable cause – and again, National HQ KNOWS who was a political victim and who was a child abuser or drug dealer (to clarify there are some folks who had been removed for good reasons along the way). MUST be reinstated.

Here is how the reinstatements must work:

1) All – and we do mean every single one – of the politically flagged, improperly processed, bullshit terminations, every one of them, must be reinstated at no cost to the members concerned. This is non negotiable.

2) All reinstated members must be given full time in service, and time in grade credit as if they had never been out of the CAP. If they would have advanced, they should be advanced. They should have zero detrimental effect due to the political hatchet job from Pineda and others!

3) All flags must be removed from their records.

This is a public demand to set things right.

There are still things going on in the CAP, retaliations and nonsense that could cause our color scheme to flash right back to the grey and black of our initial postings.

We are closely watching and waiting for one special MARP appeal to be released. We will not go into the finite detail of it, but it was a political, and wrongful, termination that starts with an attorney who originally came from the Washington Wing. Now in a different Wing of the CAP, this “special person” has a lot in skeletons in his public information on the Internet that he’d not want to go public, so we are not releasing his name. But this “special person” initiated the retaliation and political backstabbing against a perfectly innocent member – and we will not stand for that, nor should you.

We have another member, a member who works a civilian job and a military job. Their work, their livelihood, depends on their keeping their Security Clearance, needed for the military and the civilian employment. This member got railroaded into actually having to let their membership go. That membership got flagged by Pineda’s Posse, and this member was not allowed to renew their membership, even though a Wing Commander would be more than happy to accept the membership!

This person has been working more for the CAP to set things right than may people we know of in CAP, and they work hard at it. To not renew this member is damn near criminal!

These are two examples of people who got screwed over hard, one during the time frame in which Pineda was shown the door and tossed out on his ass, the other from during the time when Pineda was rising to God status in the organization.

There are more. For the most part, most people who got screwed over hard, without the enjoyable reach around that one might expect. Coming back into the CAP would not be something that they would consider. Some others would happily give the CAP another chance, with the changes that GOOD Leadership has been making since the Board of Governors stepped up to the plate and got the tough job done.

The Board of Governors should order this unique reinstatement to all politically removed CAP Members, and here is how it ought to work:

1) National HQ has the means to find these people, their records are flagged, so they are simple to locate. It takes nothing to discover who the politically motivated “Disgruntled Former Members” had been. Get the records and ID those members.

2) This is not in any way, shape, or form an amnesty – these people did nothing wrong to get terminated or flagged, it was political motivation. The reinstatements are to be simply given back to the members, brand new ID Cards should be mailed to them at not cost to the member. If the members choose to renew past that first year, then they can pay for it like everyone else, but this “renewal” is on CAP, no cost to the member, at all, no new fingerprint cards, no new application, just like they never left CAP!

3) This is the right thing to do, it is the right time to do it, the Board of Governors removed the problem, they ought to be the body to make the order to make this right. It should happen before 1 July 2008 so that any of those members, who would care to attend the National Convention and Board Meeting in August, can do so.

Folks, Pineda did not just happen, he came from a long line of corruption. Like a rodent, he multiplied and hijacked YOUR CAP.

The military members in charge at the United States Air Force had been drunk at the wheel, those idiots are gone now, and all indications of the CURRENT United States Air Force Officers and Staff, and those of the CAP-USAF appear to be of intelligent minds.

CAP Insights suggests that the times have changed, and it is now time to right the wrongs of the past.

Fix the past, reinstate politically flagged or terminated members. It is not an amnesty, it is the right thing to do, and now is the right time to do it!