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Civil Air Patrol Gold Medal hinges on U.S. House support

By Capt. Morgan Montalvo, CAP

Texas Wing Public Affairs Officer

Thanks to aviation-minded volunteers and informed citizens across America, support is growing for Congressional recognition of a select group of volunteers whose World War Two exploits have, to date, gone largely unnoticed -- and unrecognized.

 

Known as the Civil Air Patrol Congressional Gold Medal Initiative, lawmakers nationwide have signed on to proposed legislation that would bestow upon the now-70-year-old aviation volunteer organization’s wartime membership the same honors as the Women's Air Service Pilots, the Tuskegee Airmen and other notable groups that contributed to U.S. victory in the Second World War.

The Civil Air Patrol was created in late 1941 to organize America’s civilian pilots, aircraft mechanics and other aviation-minded specialists into a Home Front service corps to support the country’s war effort. 

 

"These are the only World War Two participants left who have never been honored by the Congress." said Bob Beeley, a Civil Air Patrol lieutenant colonel who commands squadrons in the Houston area. "While all of the armed services have been recognized for their participation, these volunteers have never been so honored."

 

Surviving CAP members, like their wartime military compatriots, are now well into their 80s or beyond, which adds urgency to the Gold Medal Initiative, said Beeley, who also serves as a Congressional liaison at the state level. Wartime CAP membership consisted largely of older men and women ineligible for military service, along with draft-age men passed over because of health considerations or employment in war industry-connected "reserved occupations."  

 

"We expect our bill will be successful in the Senate," said John Swain, a CAP colonel and Beeley’s national-level counterpart in Washington, D.C. Swain said as of early April, 83 U.S. Senators have agreed to sponsor the legislation, designated S.418, which could clear committee in time for a Mid-April vote by the full Senate. 

 

Swain, who commands CAP’s Congressional Squadron, said 164 members of the U.S. House of Representatives have endorsed their version of the measure, known as H.R. 719, leaving CAP far short of the two-thirds majority of 290 members needed to bring the bill up for a House vote.

Given adequate support from U.S. lawmakers, the measure could clear House and Senate committees, survive votes in each chamber, and undergo final revision and approval before being sent to President Barack Obama for his signature. Should the House version not gain the requisite number of co-sponsors, the measure will expire or “die”  when the 112th Congressional session ends in early January 2013. 

 

With its large population and 32 Representatives, Swain said, Texas will play a pivotal role in bringing the legislation to the House floor.  

 

We're going to be pushing in the House," said Swain. "Texas is a big state for us; same thing for California and New York." 

 

Should the legislation pass Congressional muster, said Swain, "things will go pretty quickly. There would be a Presidential signing at the White House and, a few months after that, a ceremony presenting the honorees" with their awards. 

 

Swain said the Congressional Gold Medal program is a near-self-sustaining program funded by ongoing appropriations and the sale of individual awards. If the CAP measure becomes law, the U.S. Mint would strike a single original CAP Congressional Gold Medal for safekeeping at the Smithsonian Institution, with copies paid for by donations and presented to survivors or, if deceased, their families.

“It really doesn’t cost the government anything,” he said, “since the medal is paid out of a revolving fund that is replenished by the sale of replica medals and coins.” 

 

As support for the gold Medal Initiative grows in Congress, attention turns to locating surviving wartime CAP members, among them 89-year-old Jayne Pace of Houston. 

 

Pace, 89, served as a CAP pilot in 1944-45 flying internal security missions over New Orleans and the surrounding area. 

 

"My surveillance missions were eventful and important, but not particularly newsworthy," said Pace. "I was proud to do my part." 

 

CAP served as America's "Eyes of the Home Skies," conducting not only surveillance flights over population centers, but Coastal Patrol missions in search of German submarines that menaced Allied shipping, courier flights in support of factories and military bases, forest fire spotting, a Southern Liaison Patrol along the U.S.-Mexico border,  a nationwide airborne messenger service, target towing for gunnery trainees, and missing aircraft searches -- the latter, a mission CAP still performs. 

 

Non-aircrew CAP members performed a wide range of non-combatant duties, including driving ambulances, guarding airfields, and teaching radio communications and first aid. In Nevada, one unit organized horse patrols that rescued civilian hikers and downed flyers.

Throughout the war, most CAP air and ground missions were conducted by members during their free time and at their own expense. 

 

Later in the war CAP established a Cadet Corps for teenagers awaiting call-up to the armed forces. However, Swain says, only wartime adult "senior" members are eligible for the proposed Congressional Gold Medal.

Swain said CAP has located 78 living members of its wartime ranks. He said with the country’s World War Two veterans dying at the rate of 1,700 each day, honoring CAP’s comparatively miniscule number of survivors becomes an especially urgent task.

“I think we can do it in a couple of months if we get people engaged (in supporting the Congressional Gold Medal Initiative),” Swain said.

“This is our last chance to do it -- before everybody’s gone.” 

Both U.S. Senators from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, endorse CAP's Congressional Gold Medal Initiative. 

 

Below is a complete list of U.S. Representatives from Texas; those with names in bold also have agreed to co-sponsor CAP's efforts to recognize its WW2 volunteers:

 

To contact your member of the Texas delegation of the U.S. House of Representatives in support of Civil Air Patrol’s Congressional Gold Medal Initiative to honor its wartime volunteers, use the link below: 

 

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

To recommend a wartime member of the Civil Air Patrol as a candidate for the proposed Congressional Gold medal, email Col. John Swain at: dcoffice.cap@verizon.net or contact Civil Air Patrol’s National Headquarters at 1-877-227-9142.

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Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, is a nonprofit organization with more than 61,000 members nationwide, operating a fleet of 550 aircraft. CAP, in its Air Force auxiliary role, performs 90 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and was credited by the AFRCC with saving 54 lives in fiscal year 2011. Its volunteers also perform homeland security, disaster relief and drug interdiction missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. The members play a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to nearly 27,000 young people currently participating in the CAP cadet program. CAP received the World Peace Prize in 2011 and has been performing missions for America for 70 years. CAP also participates in Wreaths Across America, an initiative to remember, honor and teach about the sacrifices of U.S. military veterans. Visit www.gocivilairpatrol.com or www.capvolunteernow.com for more information.