Civil Air Patrol's National Commander Facing Investigation

The national commander of the Civil Air Patrol is reportedly being investigated for violations of several rules and regulations of the organization.

"The actual investigation has not begun, the complaints have just been getting to the Board of Governors. That I know of, there are at least three complaints, one is large," says Ray Hayden of CAP Insights.

The current national commander, CAP Maj. Gen. Amy Courter, of South Lyon, Mich., had been the replacement for the previous commander, Tony Pineda, who himself had been removed from that position, stripped of his rank and had his CAP membership terminated over claims of corruption issues first reported by News of the Force.

"Reports are that she is being investigated for violations of Civil Air Patrol Regulation 35-10, Ethics Policy, a new regulation that she had been in strong support of," Hayden says.

She is also reportedly being investigated for over-spending a budget for travel allowance by some $29,000 without proper authorization, and of that, overspending a "Commander's Directed Travel" budget [requests for people to go somewhere on her behalf] by more than $10,000. That is part of the $29,000. It is reported that of the $10,000 plus over spending, that she used more than 75% of that for "buddy travel" expenses," Hayden says.

A highly-placed CAP source confirmed to News of the Force that the CAP does have a "Commander's Directed Travel" account.

"That account was set up because there are many functions nationwide that require the attendance of a CAP general officer, and since the national commander obviously can't be everywhere, the account is used to pay for the travel of another CAP general officer to such events.

I believe there's usually about $100,000 in that account to be used for such purposes," the source, who requested anonymity, said. "But with her strong business sense, I doubt that she would have deliberately over-spent the budget," the source said.

"On the ethics issue, she is also reportedly being asked to explain why she granted credit for the National Staff College, the capstone course for the CAP's Gill Robb Wilson Award, the highest education and experience award a member of the Civil Air Patrol can obtain, by using the Region/Wing Commander's Course (RWCC) to meet that requirement. Note that the RWCC is not an authorized equivalent for the National Staff College," Hayden said.

In an e-mail inquiry sent by News of the Force to Gen. Courter, she replied: "Hadn't seen it. I don't read [Hayden's] stuff. I'm too busy volunteering for CAP!" She neither confirmed or denied that an investigation was underway.

If there really is any type of investigation going on, the CAP isn't talking. Hayden told us that CAP's national headquarters at Maxwell AFB, Ala., could verify all of this, but NOTF has been unable to find anyone there that will. And an e-mail inquiry sent to the CAP's national public affairs office by us on Friday has gone unanswered. That's not unusual, however, because the CAP always remains tight-lipped about any investigations they are conducting.

"Like much of politics, the Civil Air Patrol has suffered over the past eight years from corruption, The U.S. Air Force had set up the Board of Governors to oversee and take action when needed to correct such actions. When the Board of Governors took the step up and removed the previous national commander, they had been acting in precisely the way that the U.S. Air Force and Congress would have expected them to do. It is apparent that the Board of Governors, who is reportedly the body of the organization demanding answers to several official complaints, may be on the edge of replacing yet another
national commander," Hayden said.

An investigation by the CAP can be started based upon any complaint, however, and an investigation is just that. "If the CAP gets a complaint, they have to investigate it. It doesn't mean that the subject of the investigation has actually done anything wrong," another CAP source told us.

The Civil Air Patrol is the uniformed, volunteer civilian Auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force.

Related sites: _www.cap.gov_ (http://www.cap.gov/) ; (http://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/) ; (http://rayhayden.us/CAPI_CAP_Insights) .

Source: newsoftheforce.org.

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