MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. -- Marines are encouraged to be active in their local community, but an instructor with the Combat Center’s Marine Corps Communication-Electronics School took that challenge to new heights – literally.
Staff Sgt. Robert Hofmann, who also serves as an assistant deputy commander with the Palm Springs, Calif., Civil Air Patrol’s Composite Squadron 11, was awarded the Gen. Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager Aerospace Education Achievement Award after completing CAP’s Aerospace Education Program for Senior Members Sept. 26. Hofmann, who joined CAP in 2008, said the best part about receiving the award is now he can use what he learned to contribute to CAP’s mentoring program for children and young adults ages 12-20.
“I took a 100-question exam,” Hofmann said. “It took me about two hours to complete and was an elective part of completing the next level of my professional development in the CAP.
“It felt good, as it is the first step in my education in aerospace knowledge, which is a very important part of CAP and CAP's Cadet Program,” continued Hofmann, a native of London, Ontario, Canada. “Teaching the cadets about leadership, drill and physical fitness is a skill set that the Marine Corps has given me, but there is still the aerospace education aspect of CAP, which I also need to learn to be able to fully teach and mentor the cadets.”
The CAP is a nonprofit organization with 59,000 members nationwide. The patrol, 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 72 lives in fiscal year 2009. Its volunteers also perform homeland security, disaster relief and counter-drug missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. The members play a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to the more than 24,000 young people currently participating in CAP cadet programs, according to its website, http: //www.gocivilairpatrol .com.
“Many of these people, both young Marines and cadets, come from backgrounds where they have had little or no guidance in their lives, and these young people have taken the first step to bettering themselves,” Hofmann said. “By having enlisted in the Marines, or by having joined the cadet program with CAP, they have shown that they want to do something more. It is at that point where I can help them with becoming better people and citizens and mentor them for success.” Hofmann also challenged more Marines and sailors to step up and reach out to their communities.
“There are so many organizations that need help, and it is very gratifying to give that help,” he said. “I have met some of the hardest working people I have ever known in the CAP, and they aren’t doing it for anything more than the simple feeling of a job well done.
“A lot of people think they don’t have time to volunteer, but any effort to lend a hand is appreciated.”
The organization’s Palm Springs Composite Squadron 11, meets Wednesday nights from 6:30-9 p.m. in the south hangar of the Palm Springs Air Museum. For more information about CAP in the Coachella Valley, call 666-9343 or visit http://www.go civilairpatrol.com.