Civil Air Patrol and Hurricane Mathew

My wife and kids are heavily involved in the Civil Air Patrol (Air force Auxiliary or CAP for short). They have been for only about a year, but have really advanced and performed very well, and have taken advantage of lots it has to offer. Both kids advanced again this month and are pretty set to be able to advance in another two months which is the time required to wait between advancements, but their other requirements are almost finished for the next rank. My Daughter is currently a Cadet Staff Sergeant, and my son a Cadet Senior Master Sergeant.

Daughter receiving Rocketry Badge

They have both been able to take Orientation rides in the CAP planes and have been trained in several aspects of search and rescue operations. They also both participated in the Honor Guard, marching and performing in parades and learning rifle drills that include spinning and flipping the rifles in coordination with other cadets.

My kids are the ones in back up on the stage.

Daughter performing post ride inspection of the airplane.

Older picture of them in their Honor Guard uniform. (Rank insignias are not right anymore).

My son made a big enough impression that he was awarded Non-Commissioned Officer of the year for 2016.

Son receiving NCO of Year award.

This group is probably the biggest thing we are going to miss about Virginia Beach as they have been a big part of our lives for the past year and many friends have been made.

Small CAP going away party for us.

Today, part of the CAP squadron is down in North Carolina. They have spent the weekend helping in shelters and at distribution centers for those affected by hurricane Mathew. My son and daughter were able to go with them. The timing is bad as we are finishing up the last things to leave, and they even got out of some of putting things away from after the empty weight fiasco, but I couldn't be more proud of them. This was their first big opportunity to give back to the community. They've done several flag ceremonies and demonstrations and helped with crowd control and parking lot directions at several events and airshows but I'm thankful for their opportunity to be able to help those affected by this disaster near us.

We rode out the storm in our campground by pulling in the slides to ease up on the wind resistance, but the RV was rocking most of the time. The campground lost power for 3 days and had some minor flooding, but nothing like what the news is showing for some of those south of us.

Campground after the storm