In the two millennia or so since the first Roman centurion boxed the ears of a recruit legionnaire, armies throughout the world have employed a military training model to train their soldiers.

Without exception, this model has included plentiful amounts of externally-imposed discipline and stress applied generously by non-commissioned officers. The traditional goal has been to create a cohesive group of obedient soldiers who could fight and win their nation's wars under life-threatening conditions.

The military training model has been remarkably consistent across both time and culture. An observer watching our imaginary Roman Centurion training a cohort, the Marquis de Lafayette or Baron Von Stueben training Gen. Washington's troops, or a modern Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force NCO exercising her troops would instantly recognize and understand that military training was occurring.

The CAP Cadet Program has embraced a military model since it was founded in 1942. Even the earliest CAP cadets wore military-style uniforms, practiced a form of military discipline, and engaged in military-style drill and ceremonies.

And yet, beyond setting the broadest possible limit by defining and prohibiting hazing (CAPR 52-10), CAP doctrinal publications do not reliably define or specify the level of military discipline during training for CAP cadet units and activities.

However this is not surprising, given the lack of uniformity in military psychological terms and nomenclature in either the US armed forces or academia. There are no commonly accepted terms or concepts that help us easily describe the continuum of military discipline that ranges from a very low to intolerably high stress levels in a training situation.

(Think of it as the 10-point Universal Military Discipline Scale ("UMDS") that places Girl Scout Llama Camp at a "0" and Gunny Hartman screaming and spitting into your ear while you are braced by your rack at a "10.")

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The 10-point Universal Military Discipline Scale

Given the lack of guidance in our doctrinal publications, it is predictable that CAP military discipline levels vary significantly throughout the organization.

This is particularly evident at cadet summer encampments. Some wings hold encampments with extremely high military discipline/stress levels for basic cadets; other wings much less so. It appears that individual wings have strong oral and shared memory customs and traditions that serve to set a given military "pitch" for their respective encampments. Comparatively few members have attended encampments in other wings.

Uniquely, California Wing appears to have given great thought to this subject and discusses it at some length in Chapter 4 (Training) of their Encampment Training Manual. (The material was also substantially adopted and discussed in New York Wing's draft of the National Encampment Training Manual.)

One of the pillars of California's encampment training model is the pioneering work of psychologist Robert Malmo on task performance and anxiety or "arousal" levels which suggested that basic military skills such as marching or learning to make a military-style bed ("encampment skills") can be most efficiently learned at a relatively high arousal/anxiety level. Accordingly, CAWG encampments reflect their theoretical model and are characterized by a highly-structured environment for basic cadets with a setting and taskings designed to induce a moderate amount of stress.

As remarkable as Malmo's work was in the mid-twentieth century, a literature survey suggests that his venerable work is no longer in the forefront of psychological thought and research. Modern military leadership theory is focused on Emotional Intelligence and Affective Events Theory, but no published research has yet explored these constructs in a primary military training situation like the USAF Basic Military Training.

(Military medical specialists have certainly concentrated on the prevention of stress casualties during initial entry training (see e.g., the infamous US Navy "stress cards"), but while necessary, this research does not address how much stress/arousal is necessary and appropriate during military training.)

While discussing appropriate military discipline levels for CAP encampments, comparison to the military discipline levels and models in use by the US armed forces is inevitable. However, while both CAP and the armed forces use a version of the military training model, crucial differences exist between CAP and the other organizations:

1. Most CAP Cadets at encampment will be adolescents from 12 -- 16 years of age, while most basic trainees in the armed forces are young adults from 18-22 years of age. There is little question that the younger CAP cadets have substantially different cognitive abilities and emotional development that armed forces recruits that would affect the nature and quality of military training.

2. The professional development/training time for the cadet and senior staff members who implement military training at encampment is limited, often consisting merely of OJT and possibly augmented by one or two weekend workshops. In contrast, courses for Army Drill Instructors/AF Military Training Instructors are 9-14 weeks of intensive full-time instruction, followed by comprehensive OJT/mentoring before these NCOs interact with trainees.

3. The mission of the CAP Cadet Program is to enhance the leadership skills of the cadets (CAPR 52-16, para 1-1) and encampment is designed to (among other things) "present an introduction to the military." (CAPR 52-16, para 5-1). The mission of the armed forces is to fight and win our nation's wars (FM 1). Differences in these goals would suggest differences in the level and quality of military training.

Each of these considerable differences inexorably creates disparities in the quality and level of military discipline in CAP as compared to the armed forces. Therefore, simply adopting, for example, the "USAF way" is unlikely to be successful. We need to consciously seek and implement our own model.

As an organization, we must develop consensus on appropriate military discipline levels at our encampments so that we can standardize the experience among the wings, develop doctrinal materials to train cadets and staff members, and validate our model for our stakeholders. (Stakeholders for the encampment process include the Air Force, members, parents, and our nation.)

As part of the consensus-building process, I invite discussion and debate on the following questions:

1. What is the appropriate military discipline level for a CAP cadet summer encampment?

2. How is such a military discipline level described and implemented?

I encourage everyone with an interest in the topic to enter the discussion in the CadetStuff Forums area, under the Encampment Forum look for the Appropriate Military Discipline Level at Encampment topic or just by clicking the links above to the forums (will open in a new window). I have listed a few recent resources below for those who are interested.

Resources:

Research Papers Online:
Emotional Processes in Military Leadership, Ashakanasy & Dasborough, 2003.

Ethics, Character, and Authentic Transformational Leadership, Bass & Steidlmeier, 1998.

Government Publications available online:
Army Field Manual 22-51 (Leaders Manual for Combat Stress Control) (see Chap 2, Terminology and Concepts)

Army Regulation 350-6 (Enlisted Entry Training Policies and Administration)

Off-Line Papers and Books:
Barsade, S.G. The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion in Groups. Adminstrative Science Quarterly

Bass, B.M. (1998) Transformational Leadership: Industrial, Military, and Educational Impact. Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum. (Available in Amazon.com)

Conger, J. A. (1990) The dark side of leadership. Organizational Dynamics, 19, 44-45

Lewis, K. M. (2000) When leaders display emotion: how followers respond to negative emotional expression of male and female leaders. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 21, 221-234.

Popper, M. (1996) Leadership in military combat units and business organizations: a comparative psychological analysis. Journal of Management Psychology, 11, 15-23.

Weiss, H. & Cropanzano, R (1996) Affective events theory: A theoretical discussion of the structure, causes, and consequences of affective experiences at work. Research in Organizational Behavior, 18, 1-79.