WHITE COUNTY -- Come this weekend, the Upper Cumberland Regional Airport will be transformed into the Mission Base for the local squadron of the Civil Air Patrol and others across the state as CAP resources from all over the state converge on the airport.
They'll be participating in the first statewide exercise meant to gauge their knowledge of emergency services by completing activities such as a mock recovery search.
"We can actually perform missions in this area," CAP Lt. Colonel Hugh Cameron, squadron commander for the Cumberland TN-393 squad, said. "And that's one reason why we're having this mission to bring other parts of our CAP wing ... to see what our issues are, here in this area."
Cameron has been with the CAP organization for 9 years and also works closely with the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. He knows first-hand, how important the CAP is to the community and the nation.
In the 1930s, more than 150,000 volunteers worked to establish an organization that would put their planes and flying experience to use in defense of their country.
One week prior to the attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941 the CAP was born.
The organization was assigned to the war department under the jurisdiction of the Army Air Corps where they logged one half-million flying hours, sank two enemy submarines and saved hundreds of crash victims.
Soon after, the organization was incorporated as a nonprofit organization and was permanently established as the auxiliary of the new U.S. Air Force.
Three primary mission areas for the CAP were set forth at that time -- aerospace education, cadet programs and emergency services.
Today, the emergency services branch of the CAP conducts approximately 90 percent of inland search and rescue missions in the
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