On July 1st, 1946, President Harry Truman established the Civil Air Patrol. It was charged with three primary missions: Aerospace education, cadet programs and emergency services. Over the past weekend, members of Indiana’s Wing of the Civil Air Patrol were in Knox conducting exercises to prepare themselves for whatever disasters they might be called to in the state.
The Indiana Wing of the Civil Air Patrol conducted a search and rescue exercise this past weekend at the Starke County Airport. Ted Hayes visited the site, and talks with Col. Mark Reeves who was directing the cadets through their exercise.
“We’re running an Air Force training mission,” said Col. Reeves. “The Air Force has authorized us to practice our skills in search and rescue. The cadets are from the age of 12 to 21. They can qualify in all sorts of things. Most of the time they are ground team members. They qualify by doing ground team type stuff, first aid, search and rescue, and line searches.”
The Indiana Wing of the Indiana Civil Air Patrol will be conducting a weekend search and rescue exercise at the Starke County Airport. Approximately 130 Senior, Junior and Auxiliary cadets will bivouac from Friday night until Sunday.
Eight Civil Air Patrol aircraft will be used in the exercise, which will be a staged plane crash. Col. Mark Reeves will be in charge of the training session.
