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Howard marches in Independence Day Parade

Parade route crowded with people as CAP formation marches in middle.
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Howard Composite Squadron cadets march along the parade route as officers pass out miniature airplane kits on the far side of the street. (Photo credit: 2d Lt Jacob Gerstein, CAP)

By 2d Lt Jacob Gerstein, CAP
Public Affairs Officer, Howard Composite Squadron

7/21/2008–Clarksville, MD–Maryland Wing's Howard Composite Squadron participated in the River Hill Association Independence Day Parade earlier this month in Clarksville, Md.

Eighteen cadets from the squadron proudly marched along the parade route between two Civil Air Patrol vehicles to the applause of the crowd. The nine offiers operated the vehicles and passed out model airplane kits to children who had come to watch the parade.

The Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U. S. Air Force, was founded on December 1, 1941, less than a week before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the U. S. into World War II. CAP is a nonprofit organization with more than 56,000 members nationwide. The organization’s members perform 95 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, and were credited by the AFRCC with saving 103 lives in fiscal year 2007. Its volunteers also perform homeland security, disaster relief and counterdrug missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies.

Members take a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to the almost 25,000 young people currently participating in the CAP Cadet Program. CAP’s cadet programs provide young men and women with a safe and motivating environment in which to grow and explore opportunities in the military and aviation industries. CAP has been performing mission for American for more than 63 years.

There are approximately 1,300 members of CAP in Maryland. Last fiscal year wing members flew 42 search and rescue missions and were credited with 31 finds. For more information, visit www.mdcap.org.

The Howard Composite Squadron meetings weekly on Thursday evenings at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Md. For additional information, contact the squadron commander, Maj. Elza Redman, at credman@tristartech.net.