Six Hundred Students Take Advantage Of Week-Long Summer Sessions

Civil Air Patrol’s National Emergency Services Academy (NESA) is expected to support training for as many as 600 students for a pair of week-long summer sessions in southern Indiana.

“NESA will be Civil Air Patrol’s largest event at the national level again this year. It is a great opportunity for CAP members from across the country to come together to learn how to help their communities respond to emergencies,” said Lt. Col. John Desmarais, NESA’s founder and deputy director of operations at CAP National Headquarters.

To date, Desmarais said 573 CAP students are registered to attend NESA’s two sessions – 311 during the first week and 262 during the second week. Both sessions will be supported by more than 150 volunteer staff. Training for these citizen volunteers from across the country begins on Saturday at the Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center, an Indiana National Guard facility in Edinburgh, Ind. The training ends on Aug. 7.

NESA combines task-based training with practical application that has become the standard for CAP wings nationwide. NESA is made up of three schools – the Ground Search and Rescue School, the Incident Command System School and the Mission Aircrew School, each providing courses focusing on specific skills:

• Ground Search and Rescue School provides members with the skills they need to expertly perform ground searches for missing people and aircraft.
• Incident Command System School covers the skills needed for members to manage missions and support federal, state and local agencies. The attendees not only participate in academic courses as outlined by the Department of Homeland Security, but also learn how to use tactical systems.
• Mission Aircrew School teaches critical skills needed for pilots, observers, airborne photographers and other crew members. Crew members learn how to take damage assessment photos from the air, which are critical after disasters like tornadoes or floods.  They’ll also learn how to search for missing aircraft visually as well as with electronic search tools.

“NESA has become the premier emergency services training program for Civil Air Patrol,” said Maj. Gary Brockman, NESA director. “It showcases the capabilities of our dedicated volunteers to support their communities.”

In their role as members of the U.S. Air Force auxiliary, CAP volunteers perform 90 percent of all inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla. In fiscal year 2010, CAP was credited with saving 113 lives. To date in fiscal year 2011, CAP has been credited with an additional 48 lives saved.

FMI: www.gocivilairpatrol.com