MISSIONS for AMERICA

A letter from Brig General Richard L. Anderson, past National Commander of the Civil Air Patrol.

Many of you who have been a part of CAP for a while may have heard the tagline “Civil Air Patrol- performing Missions for America.” This was a great tagline that had replaced the “Civil Air Patrol- Americans’ Best Kept Secret,” the later of which was seen a a bit negative.

As it turns out, the origin of the “Missions for America” has a neat back story. This week I received an e-mail from Brig Gen Richard L. Anderson, former CAP National Commander. He writes…

“I saw on an old CAP-Talk blog from 2007 in which you mentioned my coining the phrase 'Missions for America.' I thought that you'd be interested in having a scan of the note I wrote to Gen Barry that CAP flies "Missions for America." It was at an NEC, and one of the AF guys at the table said that CAP flies missions for the Air Force. That struck me as being an imprecise statement, and I slid the attached note (written on a soiled paper napkin) to Gen Barry (he was National Commander and I was National Vice Commander). For some reason, I stuck the note in my NEC agenda notebook, where it remained for probably 15 years before I rediscovered it several years ago still tucked away in the agenda.”


In the subsequent years, other taglines have been tried and all have generated some controversy or have not fully had the impact deemed necessary by the consensus. This has not been the case for the concise message conveyed by Brig General Anderson. Thank you, Sir, for this insight into that tagline and for your service to our nation in CAP as well as in the US Air Force.