The American Cadet Alliance's annual Executive Leadership Conference was held April 20-23 at the Wisconsin Military Academy located at historic Fort McCoy, WI. This disjointed tale follows the exploits of CadetStuff's Shawn Stanford & Darin Ninness as they get up-close and personal with the ACA, the Badger State, and some fried cheese curds.

"I'm extremely pleased with the calibre of the ACA National Headquarters staff. These are professionals who are accustomed to accomplishing a mission. Despite being 'non-paid professionals', and on a very limited budget, we are making our mark on Cadetting, and serving young people. That's what's important to us." - CDR Joseph M. Land Sr., ACA National Chief of Staff

Sunday, April 23: An extremely thorough search...

Sunday dawned sunny and warm in central Wisconsin; an absolutely beautiful day. Darin and I loaded our stuff into our borrowed Jeep Rubicon and said our goodbyes and we were on our way. The two hour drive back to Minneapolis turned into THREE hours (did we cross a timezone there? It sure felt that way!), and we had to hustle to make our coffee date with Al Pabon, Minnesota Wing PAO and friend of CadetStuff.

Darin discovered that his original 4:30 flight was cancelled, replaced with a 3:30 flight on a different airline. Good thing we were there early. I checked in, checked a bag and went down to meet Al while Darin continued to squawk at the Continental CSR like one of those people on the TV show "Airline." His afternoon was looking up. NOT!

Al and I chit-chatted until Darin showed up a few minutes later with only about twenty minutes to spare before he had to take off through security. Al bought us coffee and in the next twenty minutes (and during the subsequent forty-five after Darin left) he proved to be a terrific guy as well as an accomplished girl-watcher (the airport was crawling with beautiful women, must be the dairy products in that part of the country!).

Apparently changing airlines at the last minute sets off alarms for the TSA; since Darin was treated to an extremely thorough search, if you get my meaning.

A little later, I glanced at may watch and noticed that it was 3:55. My bag was already checked and my ticket and boarding pass were in my pocket. I should be able to get through security and make my 4:20 flight easily. The connection through Philly would put me into my home airport (Wilkes-Barre Scranton) pretty late, but the sleep I'd get on the plane should make up for what I'd miss and make work the next day at least tolerable.

I said goodbye to Al and thanked him for the coffee and biscotti (thanks again, Al!) and took a peek at my ticket to check which gate I was at. My eyes slid around on the print as I searched for the gate number and I noticed the flight time was 3:50.

My eyes locked onto those numbers with what had to be an audible 'click'.

My flight time was 3:50.

It was 3:55!

I suddenly felt like someone had dumped a cup of icewater into my pants (which wouldn't have been unpleasant, if I'd had time to reflect on it). I jumped up and said, "My flight was five minutes ago!"

"Oh no!" Al said. "Go!"

I took off at a run. Up the stairs and to security. I asked the guy at the head of the line of about twenty people if I could jump ahead of him to have my shoes X-rayed and he very politely stepped aside.

I threw down a plastic bin, dug deep and started emptying my pockets: keys, change, cellphone, challenge coin, notebook, underwear - woops! A little too deep! I yanked off my shoes and threw them on the conveyor belt and shoved the whole mess toward the box. I showed the TSA lady my ticket and stepped through the metal detector and got lights and buzzers.

"Anything metal?"

Dog tags! I stepped back, dropped them in the bin with everything else and stepped through again to blessed silence. A few seconds later my stuff came through and I almost ran over some poor guy to get to it, stuffing everything into the main compartment of my helmet bag and jamming my feet into my shoes without even untying them. I glanced at my watch and it was 4:00. Time to make like OJ in a Hertz commercial as I dashed thru the concourses, eyes on the arrows, helmet bag full of stuff over my shoulder. [Editor's Note: Many of our readers may not know that OJ Simpson had a long and storied career as a football player and spokesman for Hertz Rent-a-Car, so I included the pic here for your edification. -Editor] The Six Million Dollar Man would have been proud. I combat sprinted down the concourse. Why do departing flights always have to be at the very end? As I walked-ran-walked-ran, I watched the minute hand on my watch zoom around. By the time I huffed up to the gate it was 4:10.

The door was still open.

There was still a woman with a stroller waiting to get on!

I showed my boarding pass to the agent and making a sound like a tired Model T, I wheezed to my seat. Where had I gone wrong? How had I managed to mistake the departure time? As I concentrated on not sweating onto the cute girl in the seat next to me, I checked my notebook and saw that I had 4:20 written down - copied straight from the itinerary I printed off the internet. I pulled out the ticket again and studied it a little more closely...

FLIGHT	GATE	BOARDING TIME	DEPARTURE TIME
4135	31C	350PM	420PM

Son of a..!

Spring 2003. The American Cadet who..?

Lets back up to the beginning of this sordid tale…

A couple of years ago - literally, a couple of years ago - during a search through a military gear web site, in and amongst the various Civil Air Patrol, Sea Cadet and Young Marine items, we came across merchandise for an organization called 'The American Cadet Alliance'.

"The American Cadet who..?" we said, nearly in unison. We figured this for some single-unit wannabee militia cadet organization from a part of the country where folks think that a family reunion is a good place to pick up chicks. After all, we were members of the largest and best Cadet organization in the U.S. of A., right?

A quick Google search turned up the web presence for the ACA and we had a great time poking fun at their site. Oddly, that would come back to haunt us later. Much later. And especially Darin.

But, between the snickers and rolled eyes, we started to realize that there just might be something there. After all, being the oldest nationwide Cadet corps had to count for something, right?

I dropped a line to the Chief of Staff, one Commander Joseph Land, United States Naval Cadet Corps and asked him if CadetStuff could work up a feature on the ACA, never realizing that - in more ways than one - I'd just opened an industrial-sized can of worms with a chainsaw...

There's a scene in the movie "Shrek" where Shrek, Fiona and Donkey are running from the dragon. Donkey greets Fiona and she exclaims, "He can talk!"

"Aye," Shrek replies. "It's getting him to shut up that's the trick."

With all props to CDR Land, when he gets going about the ACA, it's best to pull up a chair and sit for a spell. My first phone interview with the ACA Chief of Staff lasted the better part of three hours and filled six pages with notes on pretty much every aspect of the ACA. He also recommended I talk to 1LT Rob Frankson, who was running a unit at Camp Fogarty, Rhode Island. I did, and there went another three hours and six pages of notes.

For my efforts, I had page after page of more-or-less random notes that had to be turned into a cohesive article. I plugged at it over the summer of that year and into the fall. In October I got word that I'd be going out of town for a while - way out of town and for quite a while. The article and the ACA would have to wait while I deployed to Iraq for a year with my Guard unit.

After returning from Iraq, I came across my ACA notes and determined to finish the article on the organization. I recontacted CDR Land and apologized that it had taken so long and he seemed to understand the war zone thing and all, so we picked up where we left off and CadetStuff's well-received article on the ACA ran in July of 2005.

CDR Land thanked us for a good article and we figured he'd shuffle off and that would be it. But, no, the guy kept hanging around. He was in the forums, he kept sending us press releases and once in a while he'd call. And he always had interesting news on what was going on in the ACA. Stuff about presentations to this general or that sergeant major, stuff about how the ACA was different - and in some ways better - than other cadet corps out there.

Obviously, he kept our interest level high and when we got a special invitation, we couldn't pass it up for long. Especially since CadetStuff was created with the goal of serving every middle and high school cadet corps, regardless of flavor.

So, I finally gave in and accepted the commander's kind offer and dragged Darin in with me and before we knew it, we were heading off to the land of cheese for the ACA's Executive Leadership conference at Ft. McCoy, Wisconsin.

Wednesday, April 19: "the good land"

For the uninitiated - which is pretty much everyone outside of Wisconsin, Ft. McCoy is a large post located in the west-center of the Badger State between the towns of Sparta and Tomah. The nearest city of respectable size is Rochester, Minnesota (Ufdah!), which is 90 minutes to the west. Minneapolis-St. Paul is two-plus hours to the northwest. Let's not even talk about Green Bay or Milwaukee (originally an Algonquin term meaning "the good land." - Ed).

We flew into Minneapolis-St. Paul and picked up a borrowed Jeep from airport parking where an acquaintance of Darin's had parked before he flew out. (in a stunning bit of good luck, Darin's buddy from Minneapolis had to fly out on Tuesday, we came in on Wednesday; we were leaving on Sunday, and he would be back Sunday night. By borrowing his Jeep from the parking garage, he'd save money on parking, we'd save money on a rental car. A win-win for everyone! I love it when a plan comes together, Faceman!)

We got to Ft. McCoy in the gathering darkness and after a spate of lumbering around the post, trying to discern one featureless WWII-era barracks from the next (there are over 1000 of them), we ended up in the club while we waited for a call back from the ACA duty officer. At the club Darin spotted the extremely tall Colonel Tornow and we introduced ourselves. He welcomed us and invited us to share his table and we started to get a feel for his very impressive history of cadetting, which goes back thirty years.

The colonel provided better directions (better as in: not including phrases like 'over yonder' or 'down the road a piece') and we finally found the very impressive Wisconsin Military Academy, checked in, picked up our conference materials and started to meet a few of the folks. The ELC would start the next morning with an opening brief and a series of presentations by the department heads. We could hardly wait to see the inner workings of the ACA National Headquarters Staff! It was history-making stuff and we had wriggled our way right into the middle of it.

Thursday, April 20: Oh yeah, we were invited.

Thursday was the official kick off of the ELC and it started on time at 0800.

It was in pretty short order on Thursday morning that I realized there were some very experienced cadet-types in the room. These guys were serious about what they were doing and a quick count on the fingers (and toes) showed there was over two hundred years of cadetting experience among them.

What the heck were we doing here?

Oh yeah, we were invited. (The fools!)

The assembled staff began the day by reciting the ACA's Mission Statement:

"To instill in young Americans, through a multi-faceted cadet program which is physically and mentally challenging and rewarding, the importance of national pride, service to others, and maintaining a drug-free and gang-free lifestyle."

Properly reminded of why they were there, the staff launched into what turned out to be a very full day.

The Commandant, Colonel Tornow, described how pleased he was by the performance of the staff and his expectation of great things in the future, especially with the new staff members that had recently come onboard.

He introduced CDR Ed Wasserman, USNCC, as his Special Assistant. CDR Wasserman is a former Civil Air Patrol officer from Florida and will be serving as the eyes, ears and right hand of the Commandant. I spent a fair amount of time with CDR Wasserman over the next several days and, frankly, he's Good People.

CDR Land then discussed the ongoing initiatives with the Army, Army Reserve and National Guard. Suffice to say: Good Things happening, Good Things coming.

CDR Jan Ferguson, the National Inspector General described his efforts with the CADTRAK online cadet administration system as well as his extensive work essentially creating the IG office from scratch. These are the things that netted him the well-deserved 'Officer of the Year' award during Saturday's banquet. Like CDR Wasserman, CDR Ferguson is also a former Civil Air Patrol officer from Florida.

The Commandant introduced the National Chaplain, LTC J. Delano Ellis III, USACC, from Ohio and pointed out that among his other duties he was serving as the Commandant's conscience. Chaplain Ellis is as good a guy - and as good a chaplain - as you'll ever want to meet. Also a CAP member, the Padre began his career as a CAP cadet in Philadelphia too many years ago. In addition to his ACA and CAP activity, he is a bishop in his church (and circulated a very smart photo of himself in bishop's robes to prove it!).

Maj Joseph Gorman, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Administration and Personnel briefly discussed the 'paper chase', which was going smoothly. Far more of his time was spent discussing the information technology initiatives, as the Director of Information Technology falls under his department.

The IT boys have their work cut out for them and they know it. In the works is a complete redesign and relaunching of the ACA's many, many URLs into a set of cohesive and sensible websites, featuring pages with a consistent look. This is a weak point for the organization and they know it, and the new IT director has his marching orders (and his work cut out for him).

The Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans and Policy is LTC Brian Blahnik, USACC. LTC Blahnik is the founder of the Military Cadets of the Fox Valley. He and Maj Dave Grimm created that organization from scratch fourteen years ago and built it into a large organization with dozens of units closely tied to the Wisconsin National Guard. The 2006 ELC's location at Ft. McCoy was no accident: The ACA was welcoming its newest members into the fold.

1LT J. Shultis, USACC is the head of the Individual Training Company. The ITC is composed of Cadets who are geographically unable to drill with an ACA unit. These Cadets attend AT and work as much as possible with local recruiters during the school year. The ITC program has been very successful and they're expecting a record number of ITC Cadets at AT this year.

The Assistant Chief of Staff for Education and Training, CPT George Berghorn, USACC, also has a big piece to chew. CPT Berghorn is another former CAP Cadet - Spaatz #1279 (as well as having been booted from Army ROTC after busting himself up doing hooah stuff under a Blackhawk). His department will, over the next year or two, completely redesign and formalize the ACA's Cadet Program. One of the key pieces of this redesign will be an effort to keep recruit training rigorous while weaning the Troop Handlers away from unproductive techniques.

Annual Training was one of the big topics, as it is the one big event in the ACA's annual calendar. One of Col Tornow's views is that "everyone comes to the mountain". As a result, a great deal of emphasis is placed on a successful AT each year.

This year's ACA Annual Training is at the NCO Academy on Ft. Bragg and the ACA has been provided with use of facilities at the nearby North Carolina Military Academy as well. There was a comprehensive review of the site through a photo presentation, since this is a new site (last year's AT was held at at Fort Stewart, Georgia, and previous ATs hae been held as such far reaching sites as Ft. Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania and the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center in Michigan).

Annual Training this year runs between 21 JUN and 19 JUL, with the core training taking place between 24 JUN and 15 JUL. The three Training Weeks include a first week dedicated to the Troop Handlers Academy, the NCO Leadership Development Academy, the Officer Candidates School and the Recognized Cadet Corps Indoctrination Course. The second and third weeks are spent in a Recruit Training cycle, with the leadership applying the lessons they learned in the first week.

Friday, April 21: I almost peed myself and Darin was visibly weeping...

Friday morning was spent completing some of the work remaining from Thursday's staff sessions. Captain Berghorn, Darin and I were a little strung out after an evening session with Col Tornow that ran into the wee hours. But, we sucked it up and drove on, helped by copious amounts of coffee. Did we say copious? Yeah.

A key part of the day was the presentations made by the various departments based on the discussions from the day before. The IT folks, for example, proved to be worthy of the time-honored PowerPoint Ranger tab by fashioning a great presentation out of 100ft of 550 cords, a couple strips of duct tape and a 9v battery. MacGuyver would have been proud. Troubled, but proud...

Lieutenant Colonel Brian Blahnik, Assistant Chief of Staff for Plans, Policies and Operations, made a presentation about the 'Black Beret' program the Military Cadets of Fox Valley ran prior to their merge with the ACA. This very-impressive ten day program included extensive field training, physical fitness training and culminated in a thirty-six hour field exercise that involved running patrols and a tactical approach on an 'enemy position' while receiving simulated incoming mortar and small arms fire. Hearing the strings of blanks and the artillery simulators on the DVD while watching the footage of M-16-equipped Cadets advancing tactically through the night-vision equipped camera was very exciting. I almost peed myself and Darin was visibly weeping - and it wasn't even in HiDef!

LTC Blahnik runs a very 'hooah' program, indeed!

In the afternoon the group boarded a bus for a base tour, which was surprisingly interesting, considering that Ft. McCoy is a WWII-era base used for pre-deployment training for Guard & Reserve units west of the Mississippi. Ft. McCoy boasts a very complete set of training facilities, including a large impact and maneuver area..

We finished our tour in a set of WWII buildings actually refurbished to look as they did in WWII, right down to the beds and latrines. There was also a large static display of vehicles and helicopters covering the Army inventory for the previous sixty years. This was all part of Ft. McCoy's efforts to preserve the heritage of the post and to honor the service members who had trained there for deployments over the previous eighty years. They are also working on an Operation Iraqi Freedom display to honor the units that have trained there in the last couple of years for deployments to the sand box.

Even though the tour was done before evening chow, Friday night wasn't an early night, as some of the work sessions continued until midnight.

Saturday, April 22: "These are exciting days for the ACA."

The third day of the ELC was the Commander's Call. In addition to the unit commanders, all of the members of the Military Cadets of the Fox Valley were invited. Nearly two dozen officers and Cadets from Fox Valley showed up to receive a recap from each of the department heads, as well as a more in-depth brief on the status of the ACA's relationship with the Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard from the Chief of Staff.

An MOU with the National Guard is in final legal review, with expectation that the relationship will be formalized soon. Former Army Chief of Staff General Weyand is supporting the expansion of the program and LTG Rochelle, former commanding general of Army Recruiting Command and current director of the Installation Management Agency, is a friend of the program and has been recently selected as the Army G-1.

In short: good things happening and on the horizon.

A highlight of the day was the official chartering of the Military Cadets of the Fox Valley.

The day's work ended early so that everyone could get spiffed up for the the capstone event of the ELC: the 97th Anniversary Ball.

Nin and I put on our Sunday best, but when we arrived at McCoy's, the all-ranks club at Ft. McCoy, we found that LTC Ellis, was wearing Army blue mess dress. He was out blinging some of the serious blingsters! Wow. Somehow, he'd also arranged for a driver. Nice work, Padre! His new nickname: Chaplain Mack Daddy.

Despite the official reason for this military ball (the 97th anniversary of the founding of the ACA), the real reason became clear fighteningly soon. In a stunning mixup, someone had the unconscionable bad judgement to appoint CPT George Berghorn as Mr. Vice. We were about to veer precaiously into the "Mess Rules Zone.". The punishment for infractions wasn't a bowl of grog, instead offenders were invited to serenade the mess with karaoke. Be afraid, be very afraid...

Really, there's not much more that needs to be said about that.

Okay, one more thing: Seeing a middle-aged white guy knowing all the lyrics to 'Ice, Ice Baby', and singing them without accompaniment, is even more disturbing than watching Vanilla Ice himself! My eyes!

But it is maybe slightly less disturbing than watching four grown men perform an acapela version of 'YMCA'...

The official evening wrapped up with the recognition of the Cadet and Officer of the Year and a final thought or two from the Commandant.

C/SSgt Jesse Urban, USMCC, was selected as Cadet of the Year for his outstanding contributions to his home unit and at 2005's Annual Training at Ft. Stewart, Georgia.

The Officer of the Year was CDR Jan Ferguson, who was recognized for his accomplishments both with the ACA's CADTRAK data system and as Inspector General.

The official evening ended with a short speach by the Commandant thanking everyone for their efforts over the past year and predicting good things for the upcoming year: "The American Cadet Alliance has been serving young people for 97 years. ... These are exciting days for the ACA. We're looking forward to continued growth, especially within the Army Cadet Corps, and are proud to carry on the heritage of the program's forefathers."

After the official evening ended, the adults hung out on the other side of the club where I kept everyone in stitches with my classic and much-in-demand 'MacGregor' and 'Shetland Island' jokes. A few hours and an early breakfast later and we were all tucked safely in back at the Wisconsin Military Institute.

And that, in a large nutshell (suitable for large nuts), was my take on the ACA's Executive Leadership Council for 2006.

But, the fun isn't quite over, kids!

The first order of business on Thursday morning was a series of promotions and a couple of commissionings. You see, that ACA takes advancement and responsibility very seriously. Every officer serves at the pleasure of the National Commandant and every commission and promotion bears his signature.

Col Tornow took great pleasure in promoting Maj Gorman and CDR Ferguson and commissioning CPT Theresa Hatten, as well as adding a couple of other jokers to the deck:

CPT Darin Ninness, USACC Director of Information Technology

CPT Shawn Stanford, USACC Training Officer, Leadership Development Institute

And with a final word from the Skipper, we are outta here!

"Consistency, quality and professionalism...that's my mandate. We will maintain a professional officers' corps, with consistency high standards, which will rival any program in America. I have no tolerance for the "volunteer" mentality. We wear the uniform, we have a mission and we will do it right, everytime and all of the time." - Col C.R.Tornow, ACA National Commandant

See you at Annual Training!