What is the Civil Air Patrol?

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and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, and we're flying high for this for this episode of Stuff you Should Know. Civil Air Patrol, I've got a different version of it. Okay, well, air PU, civil air Patrol, Civil air about air Patrol. Oh, do you remember when I used to put that in your head? Yeah? It's like the good old days when used to earworm me. I think that's the greatest er worm of all. It's pretty good.

It's in my head now, good hair. I like that Patrol. So we're talking about the Civil Air Patrol and we're gonna just say what it is right out of the gate. Okay, go ahead. Now, let's talk first about what I ate for breakfast? Okay, you have Did you have bacon? No? I didn't eat breakfast. Civil Air Patrol is a nonprofit group that's a civilian group of um, well of playing enthusiasts, but the much more than that they are. They have

sort of a quasi military hierarchy. They are under the control of the U. S. Air Force, and what they do a lot these days is things like search and rescue. We talked a little bit about them in in our Star episodes. Um but they have a very cool, kind of rich and colorful, colorful history. And I'm trying to get John Roderick of the indie rock band The Long

Winters my pal and from the podcast. While he does a lot of podcasts, which one should we say, friendly Fire sure his war movie podcast, he was a member of the Civil Air Patrol and I texted him and said, you know, I'd love to get a quote from you on your experience, and he says, heck, yeah, uh and then he never said anything. So if it comes in, we'll read it. If not, just know that John was a teenage member of the Civil Air Patrol, which you still can be. Yeah, you definitely still can be. It's

still around. There's there's From what I saw, it's something like sixty strong today. No, not bad at all. Um. And I get the impression it's a little bit like the Eagle Scouts of the Air for like under eighteen people. Yeah, the Cadet program. It sounded very much like sort of boy Scouts meets r OTC. Yeah, because there's a lot of emphasis on like public service and being like an upstanding person and um, you know just just um not stealing things. I think there's a big emphasis on that. Yeah.

But also you get the feeling there's a little bit of like you want to go on the Air Force, right son? Right, Well, I think that is kind of either if it's not a stated part of it, um. If it's um, it's still like a definite function of the Civil Air Patrols, it's it feeds into the actual Air Force cadet program, and you can actually benefit from being in the Civil Air Patrol if you do plan

to go into the Air Force. Apparently you can enter the Air Force at a higher pay grade if you have worked up to a certain rank in the civil Air Patrols. So if you're interested in being a good citizen, if you like to fly, if you want to be in the Air Force, um, you could do a lot worse than joining the Civil Air Patrol. I'll tell you that.

If you want to be a part of what they say is about a hundred saves a year out in the wilderness, or if you just want to be a part of an organization that had a very cool origin, which we'll talk about right now. Okay, let's early on in aviation history and like the nineteen twenties and thirties, still in its infancy, but it was big enough to where people could like own a plane and they could

buy their own personal plane and get their pilots license. Yeah, which is that's really fast if you think about I mean, Brothers flew at Kittie Hawk in Yeah, I mean a couple of decades later, people are like, I want to own a plane and fly it. That's how everybody talk

that mid Atlantic accent. That's right, hey, Chuck. By the way, I want to shout out what I have come to think is one of the top three facts of stuff you should know of all time, that the Brits originally sounded like Americans and that the Brits lost their American accent rather than the other way around. Is that true? Yeah? Don't you remember in our accent when podcast? When did

they sound like Americans? It started up to about the twenties or thirties, and then the BBC came along on the radio and they made a conscious decision to sound like Oxford types who had basically affected an accent um in order to separate themselves and sound classier. So you're saying, with the BBC adopted, if there was audio recording from nineteen then a guy from central London would sound like

me right now, basically. Yeah, So they're getting it wrong in all those movies too, then yes, but these are also the same movies where like Nazis sound like British people on the BBC. So it's all kinds of messed up, all right. I love that you just bring out a random effect from an old show is the fact of stuff you should know all time history. But let's go

back in time. Let's hop in the way back machine and go back to the Great War, the Second World War, when there were people in this country that love their flying civilians, and they saw the beginning of the war in the late nineteen thirties when europe European fascist basically said nine no more civilian flying, it's all shut down. And so the aviators over here, civilian aviators were like, WHOA,

that's not cool. We like flying our planes. Maybe we should get organized and see if we can actually add value to the military as civilians. Because that was back when all Americans wanted to pitch in a little bit to help out the war effort. Right. There was um one guy in particular, guy named gil Rob Wilson, but

he was not the only one. There's another dude named Milton Knight, and both are credited with founding basically civilian Air Force auxiliary programs to say, hey, military, we're not military. It's cool, but there's other stuff we can do to

help you guys out. And let's also not forget that if we can use our collective clout to popularize flying and aviation and just get more Americans interested in it and showing that that, hey, you can actually learn to fly, come hang out with us and will show you how. We'll we'll be generating a pool of pre trained uh UM pilots who can transfer over to the military if the US ends up going into World War two. Yeah.

Almost like a reserve unit, even though it is not that. No, it's an auxiliary union, which means it it's it's an auxiliary. It's on the side. It's in addition to it's not it's not like a reserve unit that can be called up to active duty military like the reserves. It's a

civilian volunteer force. Right. So gil Rob Wilson was working on this and kind of concurrently there were some some state based aviation groups for civilian civil uh civil defense units that were kind of cropping up here and there on the East coast uh and so he kind of saw the writing on the wall and wanted to make things official. So he developed a plan for the Civil Air Patrol, got support very importantly, got support from a

gentleman named Fiorello LaGuardia. You don't put any mustard on LaGuardia. It's just a cruddy airport. Okay. Actually, like LaGuardia. It's six coming along, but it's still kind of creutzy. It's fine, not None of the New York airports are great. Have you have you ever seen the uh the pictures of the abandoned t W A terminal at LaGuardia from like the jet age of the sixties. It's amazing. It's like a time capsule, frozen in time. And I think they

converted it into a hotel recently. But like goes, somebody did a really good photo spread, like back in two dozen, twelve or whatever. Um, just look up t W A terminal. Maybe it's JFK and not Laguire. I think it is JFK. Um. Either way, it's still worth checking out. I'll check it out. Okay. So LaGuardia. He was a director of the Office of Civilian Defense at the time. Uh he. Of course the airport was named after him. He was mayor of New

York City at one point. He was an aviator in World War One, so it was really a big deal to get him on board. UM. And they designed their little logo, which is a blue circle with a propeller, three propellers in a white triangle, and initially they were handled by is. This was pre Air Force, before the Air Force was officially established after World War Two. It was part of the U. S. Army Air Corps What was the U. S. Army Air Corps, which I think

we made the distinction in the Tuskegee Airman. So everyone kind of gets on board and LaGuardia signs the Civil Air Corps as it was known, originally into existence on December one, ninety one. And as you will note that date, Uh, it was very relevant because just six days later is when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened, and all of a sudden, we could use this help. Yeah, and I mean remember this is like a surprise attack by the

Japanese on Pearl Harbor. So it was pretty prescient of Gil Rob Wilson and Fiorello LaGuardia to to get this thing organized and together, because yeah, within a week they were like, okay, we probably can use you guys. The problem is that the Air Corps initially was like, what are we gonna do with these like these civilians? You know, super gun? How civilians do I imagine? Right? Exactly which which is like even worse to have to deal with in like just regular old civilians who don't know what

they're doing. Um. In some cases it turned out that it was actually the Civil Air Patrol was really helpful, um because one of the really overlooked things about World War Two is that German U boats, you know, like a variation of a submarine, but they just couldn't stay under quite as long. They wreaked absolute havoc on um

the United States coasts um during World War Two. Basically within a month of Pearl Harbor, four to six weeks after Pearl Harbor, the first US freight or the city of Atlanta was sunk by a U boat off the coast of North Carolina. And that was the first of I think three hundred and nineties seven ships that were either um sunk damaged by U boats in six months off the coast of America. Yeah. So at this point, the Civil Air Patrol has one wing is what they called it, per state. Uh. I have no idea how

many states there were. I think it was forty eight, just kidding, uh. And each one of those wings was divided into squadrons and they were operating out of civilian airports mostly, but then in nineteen forty two they were, um they started opening up some dedicated civil air patrol

bases in certain states around the country. So all of a sudden, there are uh in ninety people enrolled in the civil Air Patrol, and these German U boats are doing damage off the coast, and all of a sudden they were like, well, listen, we weren't sure quite what to do with you guys. You've been helping us out.

You've been delivering some things and even some personnel at times and munitions, but we think, what, you know, we don't have the resources in our what will soon be called the Air Force to just patrol all up and down the East coast all the time. So that's where you're going to really uh be valuable to us. And that was really the first big, kind of important use

of the civil air Patrol in World War Two. Yeah, and it was effective too because with U boats, part of the doctrine of um of U boat warfare sub Commander Nous was that if you saw a plane overhead, you dove um to get away from that plane because

they were very vulnerable from an aerial attack. So um, just seeing a civil air patrol plane overhead meant that the sub had to break off from pursuit of whatever tanker, freighter, troop transport it was about to sink, um and and dive in and evade that plane, just even an unarmed civil air patrol plane because they didn't know they're unarmed at the time. I don't think exactly exactly. Um, So

this actually started working out pretty well. But there was one incident in particular off the coast of right at

Cape Canaveral. From what I understand, a U boat got caught on a sandbar and was just laying there exposed, trying to get free for about thirty minutes, and a civil air patrol plane was circling it had spotted it had called in for reinforcements I think, for an aerial strike from the Air Corps UM for the sitting duck of a U boat, and before the air strike could get there to blow the U boat up, it got itself free and made its escape got away. Um. And

this was enough. It was a frustrating enough if the pilot was just like, I want a bomb so bad. Well, in very short order, the air UM, the Air Corps commander hap what was his name, Henry hap Arnold. Hap Arnold said give him those bombs, and the Civil Air Patrol, not in any way a military organization, a civilian auxiliary group was given depth charges and bombs to drop on U boats from that point none for the rest of World War two. Yeah, so here's the deal with that.

They they had to bomb from very very high up. Um. They had to use improvised bomb sites because you know this, they didn't just have this stuff lying around, and they needed this stuff for the real I was about to say, the real planes for the military. So they weren't like, here's the best bomb sites we have. So there's really

no like um. I think the Civil Air Patrol probably likes to claim that they actually bombed you boats, but there aren't any official on record bombings that were carried out by Civil Air Patrol that like sank you boats at you talked to. Germany was like that never happened, didn't affect us. Civil Air Patrol was like, no, it's

more like yah, right. So it is in dispute. In particular, one sub that some uh Civil Air Patrol guys dropped depth charges over in New Jersey and they said a geyser of oil and water erupted from the water, which would indicate that they had sunk this this U boat. But like you're saying, the Germans don't have any record of anything like that, so they probably they probably didn't at the very least, though they did harass the German U boats. And whether it was directly because of civil

Air patrol UM patrols over the coastline or not. By July, about six months after the first attack, German U boats like pulled off of American coastal waters and stopped attacking. So it probably wasn't entirely coincidence. It probably wasn't entirely because of the civil air patrol, but they almost certainly played a prominent role in in Germany's discontinuation of their sub attacks in American waters. Yeah, so here's what we'll do.

We'll do a stat cliffhanger. Okay, we'll take a little break and come back with a little bit of statistical evidence to support your claims are right for this? All right, So you said they made a difference, and the numbers kind of back it up. First of all, they were only supposed to do this for ninety days, while they kind of got the real plan together for the military.

They ended up doing this coastal patrol for eighteen months, so that alone kind of says it was working, or at the very least, they weren't quick enough to get there the real plan going. But here's the stats. A hundred and seventy three subs spotted and ostensibly brady out in You know, they weren't just spotted and then forgotten about right there, Like I don't feel like calling it in this time. Eighty two depth charge bomb attacks against

those subs impressive, pretty impressive. And again, let's say they're not actually bombing them out of the water. It's got to be disconcerting to have civilians up there dropping bombs on you. Sure, it's like the North Avenue irregulars put in the air. Uh they you know, there were mines out there. They found seventeen floating mines and rescued three hundred and sixty three people and ships. Uh that had

trouble reported, which I don't think we mentioned. Like America likes to think that, like, oh well, yeah, the fighting didn't happen over here in the United States. But if you looked on the East coast, uh, like on the water. Chances are you might have pulled a service person out of the water from one of these bombings. Yeah, like it happened. There were people in the water that needed rescue, and the civil Air Patrol was there. I read an account of a family that lived on the coast off

of Hatteras. Apparently Cape Hatteras the waters off had were called torpedo junction. This happened so frequently. Um, but they like they're the windows would rattle in your house when uh a torpedo struck like a tanker something, you know, eight miles away off the coast like it was. You just do not get raised with that in history. It's just not talked about. But it was a pretty big for six months. It was a big problem for the United States. Yeah, and this was, um. There was a

lot of bravery involved because these little planes. They were stretching, these pilots and their experience and these planes and their mechanical capabilities to the utmost degree to fly these things that far off shore to do these patrols. And they still did it. Um. They flew five hundred about five hundred thousand hours during the war combined. And they were not getting rich doing it. Uh. They were reimbursed for fuel, but they were paid eight dollars a day, which even

back then was not a lot of money. Now I calculate it's about a hundred dollars today. It's not bad. Actually, yeah, come nothing of it if you're not doing anything else but take it dropping bombs on Nazis, that's kind of fun and getting a bucks for it, right. Uh. And in the end, thirty pilots of the civil and the Civil Air Patrol died flying in accidents. Um. And that's in addition to the ones in the Coastal Patrol. That's just total. I think there were twenty six on the

actual coastal Patrol that died. I thought it was like sixty five. This is twenty six deaths and they lost ninety planes. Got so um like this was a really big deal. I mean like it was. It was saying like you you and you you know you, you the guy who owns the TV rishpair shop, and um, you the guy who owns the barbershop next door getting these planes and start dropping bombs on these U boats. That was a big deal to to do to civilians and um.

In two thousand and fourteen, Obama posthumously in a lot of cases awarded the UM the Medal of Honor, the highest citizen honor. UH that anybody in the US can get to. Everyone who was in the Civil Air Patrol during World War Two, all two thousand people. And you know what fun fact that you're gonna love. That barber dropped his scissors and ran out of the barbershop to go get in his plane halfway through a haircut. And that's how the mullet was born. Nice was it? Floyd

was Griffith was the first one with the mullet. And I bet you didn't know that the mullet was born in the midnight. I suspected as much business in the Front war in the rear right exactly. Man William was the first mullet created. Do you know, I remember, very very distinctly the first time I heard that term. I was on set of a TV commercial. Um And this was many, many years after the mullet. But when I

was in high school, it wasn't called the mullet. It was just sort of kind of the cool hairstyle for a little while, called the burnout. But I remember when I heard them the mullet, I was on set and one of my friends said, I said, who is this guy who's Lee? And he said he. I don't know why this stuck with me. He said, he is that wedge of grossness over there with the mullet head. I can see this sticking with you. It's pretty good. Yeah, Lea's who he is. Poorly. What else did the Civil

Air Patrol do? Though? They did some other weird things. Yeah, the the thing during World War Two that they're definitely remembered for was the UM the bombing sorties and spotting U boats, but they did plenty of other stuff. Basically, UM. They did anything the Air Corps needed of them, which is things like we need to get this commander from you know St. Louis to uh Louisiana, can you give him a ride St. Louis de baton Rouge. They did

that like pretty much constantly. They ferried UM supplies around, they ferried people around. That was a huge part of the war for here at home by the c a P. Here's a cool thing that they did that also sounds frightening. They would tow what's called target gliders for anti aircraft guns. So you're a plane, you're in your little uh, single engine plane, your civilian you were pulling behind you a glider that big guns on the ground are taking target

practice at. Yeah, hopefully with a really long toe line. I wonder how long that could be though, I don't know, but it almost seems mean spirited that assignment. Who did that fall to? You know, the guy who drove the uh the driving range of golf ball pick up Volkswagen. Oh, they yeah, he'd be prepared for that kind That's exactly who did it. I'll bet you're right. So that was a huge one. Um. Apparently an equal amount to the

danger of being shot out of the sky accidentally. Um in that assignment was also accidentally looking into the searchlights that they used in these training exercises, because at least one pilot was blinded by them and crashed from being I guess disoriented afterwards. Here's one final mission. In Texas. The Civil Air Patrol was charged with culling the wolf population. So apparently it, you know, would reduce pressure on the cattle herds that these wolves were killing, and they needed

this this beef to feed soldiers and citizens. So they said, get up there in your planes and start shooting at wolves. Yeah, and At first when I was reading that, I thought they were saying they needed the wolf meat to feed the troops. I was like, then I understood what it was saying. Um, but yeah, they would shoot the wolves with handguns out of their planes. That's right. I think

it's said wolves instead of wolves wolves. So so World War two comes and goes, Civil Air Patrol proves its metal and the Army Air Corps is dissolved and basedically turned into the Air Force. Air Force came after World World War two. Um, and it was from what I understand, kind of a bit of like hot potato afterward to where, um, no one really wanted the Civil Air Patrol right because one of these a law that was basically passed HR forty four, which is really significant to you if you're

in the Civil Air Patrol. It basically said, no, the air the Civil Air Patrol isn't going anywhere. We're going to establish its its existence under law, but we are never ever going to arm them again. That's just not gonna happen. Let's just not speak of this anymore. Let's

pretend it never happened. But no one's ever gonna drop a bomb again with the Civil Air Patrol and so it doesn't seem like they were particularly sought after, but they ended up falling under the um the command of the Air Force after it was established, and bounced around a little way a few places within the Air Force and then finally landed in the Air Combat Division. Yeah. And you know, post war, they really really made their

name and continue to make their name with search and rescue. Uh, if you're lost in the woods, or if they're natural disasters or big weather events, um, then the Civil Air Patrol is likely to be involved. There was a big earthquake in Alaska, n where um, the the Alaskan Civil Air Patrol and this was where Roderick was in the Civil Air Patrol in Alaska. Yeah, that's where he's from.

But this was sixty four, so he would have been just a little kid then, um, if not even alive yet actually, so I don't think he was in that one. He may have just been a glean. But their Civil Air patrols, hangar and planes were all destroyed. So volunteers, you know, got it together, got eleven private planes started flying supplies in there, and um, these were good you know, these are good pilots and these aircraft did things that

military aircraft couldn't do a lot of times. Well that's where that's where they're The role of the civil air patrol and search and rescue really kind of came became obvious, like almost out of the gate because they were doing searching air rescues during World War Two as well. Um, the just the fact that their planes weren't fighter jets was a huge advantage for them in search and rescue because you want to fly lower and you want to

fly slower when you're looking for somebody. So the fact that you have these this group of you know, tens of thousands of civilians who are either flying, flying instructors learning to fly, have their own planes um partially funded by by taxpayers for even more planes. UM, that's a

really great resource to be able to tap into. When something happens in disaster strikes and you want to look for people, you just say, hey, can you guys go search for you know, these people, or go fly around this floodplane see if there's anybody on um any rooftops and then radio it in. That was a huge role and probably the most prominent role that civil air patrol still holds today is in search and rescue. Yeah, and they didn't. You know, they don't just fly around and

radio it down all. They certainly do that. They are very active and in all manner and all parts of the search. Um they are you know, many of them cross train and like horseback riding and cross country skiing, across fit across fit of course. Uh so they you know,

they can kind of they can kind of do it all. Um. Now they have these what's called cell phone forensic teams and they can analyze cell phone tower pings and topo maps and it's it's become a much more sophisticated, um sort of search and rescue, largely because of the Civil Air Patrol. Right, But ironically, some of the stuff that some of the talents and expertise they've developed in this search and rescue area, like have nothing to do with planes, and so they might assist in a search and rescue

without ever taking the air in some cases. But they still had their cool uniform, sure, and they still march when they're told to. Should we take a break? Sure, all right, We're gonna take another break and talk about a little bit more about the evolution of the c a P. So, like I said, Chuck. They were shuffled around after World War Two and then um, they're still under and and you know, kind of linked to the Air Force. Um, but they are definitely civilian, like all civilian. Um,

you can't get into the Air Force. And they do have this kind of quasi military structure. They have ranks and things like that, but the ranks that they have are strictly limited to the civil Air Patrol. Like if you become I think the highest you can become in the civil Air Patrol is a major general, that would not translate over to the Air Force. Like you wouldn't be able to move to the Air Force and be like I'm a major general. They'd be like, let's uh,

let's reset things show right. Um. But like I said, if you start to work your way up in the civil Air Patrol, you can transfer over to the Air Force with some credit. Like it's not like it's just a complete waste of time if you want to go into the Air Force. But um, and I think five they got their first non military commander, first civilian commander, and that really kind of set the tone from what I understand for this kind of division between the military

Air Force and the civilian volunteer civil air Patrol. They that really kind of forever divided that line saying you got can have your ranks and your you guys march all you want and call each other's sir and salute, but your civilian and an auxiliary. Yeah. And like you said, they're under the Air Force still and ironically, um, the specific division of the Air Force there under the direction of now is the Air Combat Command, even though they cannot be used in combat. Uh, you're not gonna get

paid even eight dollars a day anymore. It is full volunteer at this point. Um. In fact, you have to pay dues, membership dues every year, and you have to pay for your own uniform. Uh. And if you really want to go at large, you can just buy fake epaulets and medals. And you really, I mean, I'm sure you can. You probably get made fun of her, yell

at whatever. It sounds like I'm making fun of civil Air Patrollers, and I'm certainly not, because well, they definitely are great, and the idea and the whole purposes is pretty great. But I definitely from reading about, like you know, people who had been in it and some of their when they were asked online like what did you what was your experience? I get the impression that there is a uh an element of blow hardness among some people

in the Civil Air Patrol. Whereas some are there to like learn to fly and for the love of flying and or because they do want to go into the Air Force, there are people there who might abuse their rank or status in the Civil Air Patrol that you schmucks. There are schmucks there for from what I understand here there although it doesn't seem to be systemat sucks everywhere. Um So, like I said at the beginning, there are a nonprofit and there are a few people to get

paid a salary. Obviously, when you get to the administration, the national level, you're gonna have to pay some people to run this thing. Um. The Air Force does pay expenses if they are asked to performed mission so well. Plus also, if you're on a mission and something happens to you, you are at that moment covered by the military's life insurance, so your family is well cared for after that. Yeah, it's a very good point. Actually, Um, the member dues do pay for some planes, for some equipment,

some fuel, hangar, space, maintenance, stuff like that. Right now, there are about five hundred and thirty single engine planes and the Civil Air Patrol in the United States. A lot of these are those. Uh, And I'm getting more and more into planes lately. The more we've talked about these planes, You're getting so old, dude. I must be because I looked at Assessina one seventy two and I was like, I mean, does that seat how much does that cost? Really? Like, wow, well, no, I can't afford

it buy a plane. That's That's what I'm saying. Like having that thought, you've threshold, like there's you know, planes are cool, Let's go to a museum to see a plane. How much would it cost for me to buy this plane and fly at myself. That's the transition, and the transition to is the thoughts of like, you know, when when Emily and I are retired and Ruby lives somewhere, it sure would be nice to just hop in the Cessna and fly out and see her. Sure that is

like the oldest of old man talk. But then I saw there like two d dollars. I was like, okay, maybe you're like, maybe I can buy one of them houses with the fly up driveways. Like John Travolta. Yeah, I mean, dude, he has his own passenger airliner. Yeah it's crazy. Well he's also rather wealthy, that's true. Uh So there are more than uh four thousand planes though used in any given year. Um so, I guess that's

the official fleet that the Civil Air Patrol runs. Right, But if you are a member of the Civil Air Patrol and you have your own plane, they'll be like, can you bring your plane along? We need to use it for the search and rescue. Right. And they don't just do sour stuff. They work, um also with the Forestry Service and the d e A. They look out for forest fires, they conducts land surveys. They started to do more and more um flies over farms in Kentucky,

if you know what I'm saying, to see what they're growing. Yeah. Yeah, they started in I think the Customs and Border Patrol said hey, um, how would you guys like to look for marijuana plants to prevent marijuana cigarettes from being smoked by me? And yeah, they jumped on it. I read an article this is this is so Civil Air Patrol the idea of like getting to to prevent drugs from

hitting the streets. Um, they they I guess the whoever was interviewed, I didn't catch you it was, but an official at the Civil Air Patrol, like in the higher up in the national organization probably said something like they they helped get a billion dollars worth of drugs, which is, of course, like the manufacturers suggests a retail product um of drugs off of the street in two thousand and seventeen, and that they were on track to hit about the

same number in two thousand and eighteen. That's it's a lot of marijuana cigarettes. Yeah, I can't help I probably shouldn't even just say this. I gotta hear it. We can edit it out later. Who the standard ground guy in Florida? Oh um, oh man, George Zimmerman. Yeah, some of this sounds a little bit like that, like, Hey, I'm not a copper in the military, but I'm gonna play like I am. I want to bust drug dealers. Well, that actually made me wonder do they do they patrol

the southern border? I think they looking for I couldn't see anything that said they did. Well, it said they did. They patrolled the southern border in World War Two looking for seven tours entering that's that's what triggered out, Like, well wait a minute, that plus you know busting you know pot growers do they do? They look for UM people crossing the border illegally, and I didn't see anything about them being used for that that might use it

could be. Yeah, they don't report that. But it was hilarious the the guy interviewed maybe the major general who was talking about how they got a billion dollars they helped with getting a billion dollars of drugs off the streets. UM. They were saying, we don't talk about that very much. We don't release press releases because we don't want UM to basically step on the d e A S operations or anything like that. But trust us, that's how much we get off of the streets. It was pretty cute.

They also work in just general UM aerospace and flying education and advocacy. They do lectures and seminars, They put together training manuals online, just trying to advance aviation and the knowledge and love of aviation and Chuck. I also saw in another article some other stuff that they do is just pretty interesting. UM that is much more tied to the military. So you remember there under like the

Combat Division. Um, well, the Combat Division puts them to pretty good use sometimes, like if you are flying a drone under f A regulations, that drone has to be escorted by human in a plane over um over regular airspace, nonmilitary airs base and so to get out of the United States, a drone usually has to fly over non military airspace. And so one of the things that the Civilian Air Patrol does is they escort drones, which means that that's something that the military doesn't have to do.

And for just one base with the drone escorts they provided, this commander figured that they saved the military something like four grand a year by doing this. Grottis basically they also survey military training routes, so they basically fly over the routes that test pilots are going to fly to make sure that somebody hasn't put up power lines since

the last time they used them. Um. They they simulate flyers that have accidentally entered restricted airspace for intercept training, which has got to be kind of neat um and that they're they're actually learning to fly drones themselves now too, which is probably a pretty in demand skill if you're somebody going into the Air Force these days. I think it's adorable that they saved the military food dollars a year.

But well that was just one base too. But yeah, he even he had enough self awareness that he was saying like, yeah, I think he called it budget dust, but he said, you know, it's it's still counts budget dust. I love that half a million bucks is budget dust. Uh. Then they have their cadet program. We mentioned earlier about cadets. This is if you are under the age of eighteen, you can still be in their cadet program. Once you're

over eighteen. Um, you know, you don't have to do this until you're twenty one, but you can at eighteen, uh, turn into a what's called a senior, which I thought it was interesting that a seer could be like nineteen, right, I can actually I found out why because that seems kind of weird, doesn't it. What that they're called seniors. Well that so if you enter in your over eighteen, you have to be a you're have to be considered

a senior. But if you enter the Civilian Air Patrol before you're eighteen, you can wait to become a senior till your twenty one. And the reason why is because you can get hammered when you get that rank you get right, you just keep putting it off. It's called delayed gratification. UM. You can get your training to get your pilots license through the Civilian Air Patrol for basically like half price of what you would pay a flight school.

And it was it's such a great deal that flight schools complained to the government and so this is unfair competition. So there's a rule with the Civilian Air Patrol that if you enter the Civilian Air Patrol over the age of eighteen, you are automatically considered a senior and you do not qualify for instruction to get your pilot's license.

If you start before then and you start getting your pilots license, you can delay being considered a senior till your twenty one, so you have an extra couple of years to complete your training to get your pilots license at half price. That's the reason why you can delay being a senior until your twenty one. Sounds like quite a deal. Yeah, it is half price. Everybody loves half price. Uh. And you know, like we mentioned earlier, just to kind of put a cap on it, the UM, the cadets.

It is a bit like boy Scouts meets r otc um. They get to actually get in planes. Like if you know, if you're a kid, if you've gotta be twelve years old, but if you are interested in flying and getting your license or going into the air force, um, you can you can train, and you can uh get yourself up in the ranking system through the years, and you can get seat time and planes and get flying experience, learn

to fly drones. It's a big one. Yeah. So uh, I think it's like a pretty cool program for kids to get into. Yeah. And if drug dealers just make you so mad you can't even see straight, it's another thing you can do, that's right, get rid of that. Uh, you got anything else? Got nothing else? John Roddey and never responded, So I'm just gonna go with his one statement, which was, I'm a proud veteran. This is al Air Patrol. Well,

thank for almost nothing, John Rodders. Great story. Uh. If you want to know more about the Civil Air Patrol, well, then go join the Civil Air Patrol. Uh. And since I said that, everybody, it's time for listener, ma'am. This is from a fellow Toledo in josh. Oh. Yes, hey guys, I'm a Spanish teacher and a second language acquisition NERD. In a recent episode, you guys mentioned that you're not fluent in the second language until you dream in that language. Uh, chuck,

I remember I said I had heard that before. Um. As romantic and poetic as this sounds, it's totally made up, which is what I figured. UM. Also, later in the episode, you mentioned that someone who learns the second language as an adult will never reach the fluency of a native speaker. This is true sort of. It depends on your definition

of fluency. Though. Speakers of English is the second language who have been in an English speaking country for years or even decades will still have an accent, make mistakes in word order, or have trouble with the vocabulary. Uh. In the end, I argue that fluency is overrated and what we should focus on is proficiency. Being hyper focused on becoming quote fluent end quote leads people to be paralyzed when speaking, and they'll spend years studying a language

but never be confident in their abilities to ever use it. Uh. Side note, even though this dream thing is a myth, I totally still celebrate with my students when they come in and tell me about having dreams in Spanish, even if it's not true. Uh, it's still fun when kids feel confident, and I'd lead them to believe it is true. Looking forward to future podcast guys Lisa and Toledo, Ohio. Hi Josh, Go Rockets, Hi Lisa, Go Rockets and go mud Hens and go Falcons. What are the Rockets? Toledo

Rockets the University of Toledo. Okay, Yeah, because you know Taleda is so well known for its space program. Yeah, I don't know why they're called the Rockets. Now that they think about it, I'm ashamed. Who knows. Well, Thanks a lot, Lisa, And if you want to be cool like Lisa or like me and say you're from Toledo, whether you are or not, it's fine. We probably won't

check bonnet. You can get in touch with us myriad ways. Um. You can go onto our website stuff you Should Know dot com and check out our social links, or you can send us an email to stuff podcast at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios. How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio viasitt the iHeart radio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.