By AuxBeacon News Staff

At Civil Air Patrol’s National Conference in Orlando, Maj Gen Joe Vazquez and Brig Gen Larry Myrick delivered a  presentation to a cadets-only audience.   Vazquez opened the talk by mocking elderly senior members in CAP for lacking the professionalism and appearance of military trained officers. He referred to them as “brown-shoes” for their improbable choice of footwear with blue uniforms.  He went on to explain that civilian CAP members, who could be attorneys, doctors, engineers, pilots and business-leaders, lack the professional leadership development of a military trained officer.  While disparaging the program’s volunteer civilians to elevate himself with the cadet audience, Vazquez conveniently failed to mention U.S. Air Force officer pedophiles such as Lt Col Stephen Governale or the USAF Academy and Lackland Air Force Base rape scandals.   Vazquez also failed to advise the cadets that many professional civilian volunteers have left the program as a result of commanders using the chain of commander and networking connections to conceal their fraud, waste and abuse of authority.

The cadets were kind enough to provide both a video and an abridged transcript of the Vazquez and Myrick Presentation so that you can evaluate the two independently of our understanding.

Transcript: Maj Gen Vazquez and Brig Gen Myrick Presentation to Cadets at the 2015 National Conference in Orlando, FL.

Vazquez: Wow! Look at this gathering.

Vazquez: I, um, of course I love the corp of cadets because I was one.

Vazquez: If you can see that, that’s my diamond. I was a cadet major once upon a time.

Vazquez: And, uh, in a style that some of us senior members now have adopted we keep our cadet ranking just below our collar. That’s, that’s sort of a new tradition that we picked up.

Vazquez: I was very much, ummm as a cadet, impressed about the leadership training I got and the development that was afforded to me. And then I went to the Senior Member Program and went “Oh, my God! Look at these senior members!”

Vazquez: We used to have a term called the “brown-shoe senior member” those are the ones that wear a blue uniform with brown shoes on.

Vazquez: See, the sad fact of the matter is the adult program we’ve got former military but we also have civilians. And sometimes their leadership development is not to the same standard that I would say an officer’s leadership development is to.

Vazquez: So, you really as cadets bring an element to our program that’s valuable. And let me explain why I said what I just said and why I said it the way I said it.

Vazquez: What just happened recently? Total Force and that we can start calling ourselves airmen. Volunteers airmen, but we are still airmen. What that means is that we are going to have to step up our game throughout Civil Air Patrol. And you’ve received the training that’s gonna help make a lot of that possible because we need to have a more professional appeal in our adult program.

Vazquez: You’ve got the training and the background to help lend some of that training to our adult senior members, the one’s that were not former military, and get them some background on how they need to comport themselves as airmen. And that’s something we are going to be working at at the national level.

Vazquez: We’re gonna start increasing the drum ceremonies and the military customs and courtesies that our adult members are exposed to.

Vazquez: But you’re gonna be important to that and I just wanted to give you that heads up and it’s going to be an evolution.

Vazquez: And I’m really glad to see you here today. So, I guess what are we gonna do, questions and answers?

Myrick: We might.

Vazquez: This is my vice commander by the way. He was Pacific Region commander and I figured I needed somebody from the left coast to keep me sane.

Vazquez: Cuz, I’m the right coast and I might have a bias. He’s one of the most effective Region Commanders I’ve ever seen, so that is why I was so thrilled for him to become Vice Commander.

Larry Myrick continues on with Cherry Pie and becoming Queen for the day.