Winter Bivouac 2008
March 14th - 16th 2008 Maj Robert Frost managed to pull off another successful winter Bivouac at Camp Cutlar Boy Scout Camp Naples NY.
Starting Friday afternoon till about 2100 hours we transferred cadets and senior members to the bivouac areas. Sixteen female cadets were staying in the Amy Jenkins building along with twelve male cadets. Girls were on the west side of building while the boys stayed in a separate room on the east side of the building. The neat thing is this building has separate restrooms for both male and female accommodations, making our job very easy. The rest of the male cadets and senior went to the Light House and had there own building for there weekend stay. We had a total of forty members participate in the bivouac along with one cadets’ mother.
Mess was set up in the Amy Jenkins as well as the Command post for the bivouac weekend. At about 2130 all members joined in with a camp walk to give them the layout of the camp area and to give Maj Frost and Maj Bradley a chance to attend the Camp meeting held at the main office to discuss or weekend plans.
Saturday morning started at 0600 with a morning formation 0700 hours. Breakfast was prepared for campers by one of our mothers (Mrs. Watkins) and Maj Bradley. All campers were served breakfast after formation. At 0800 hours training began with some of the four teams working with air to ground signals for the planes that were to come. While other teams worked on line search and compass courses. The ground branch director (Maj. Bradley) got some training with his direction from the main base to ground teams in the area. With the help of our communications run by C/TSgt Frost most of the directions were handled quite well. Lunch was served from 1200 to 1300 hours, Hotdogs plain and barbequed, baked beans, chili, or turkey soup was on the menu. After lunch teams went out for some training with the DF equipment looking for a (simulated) lost pilot and his wrecked plane with the training ELT going off. The victim was found and teams got together to work the scene. Team one took charge of the victim while teams two and four gave assistance. Meanwhile team three returned to the light House to retrieve stokes’ and litter to move the injured pilot to a safe airlift point. One of our boy scout leaders volunteered to be our victim and a big thanks goes out to John ???. That finished our days’ worth of training. Supper was served at 1800 to 1900 and the menu contained goulash, green beans, left over chili, and hotdogs.
Later that night at about 1930 hours we were sent out for our night training to see just what had been learned through out the day. Teams were all sent out from different part of the camp to locate an ELT that had been reported in the area. The first team to report a find was told to leave the area and return to base at about 2145 hours. The rest of the teams continued their search of the area. The last team to report the find was told to retrieve the ELT and report to base. The last team returned to base at about 2230 hours. Mission debrief followed with the teams enjoying a fresh piece of pie and hot chocolate. Most teams were soon to turn in and get a good nights sleep. Believe me there was no one stirring that night. One thing to add is that during the day mid morning breaks were giving and mid afternoon breaks, both included hot chocolate, donuts, or munchies items of some sort.
Sunday started much the same with wake-up at 0600 hours, formation at 0700 hours followed by breakfast (scrambled eggs, bacon & toast). After breakfast we were entertained by the Ontario County Sheriff with his new bloodhound. Officer John Peck and his son showed the cadets and seniors how the dog was used in a search for a victim by having one of the senior member leave the area to get himself lost. We then took a piece of the victims clothing sharing it with the bloodhound. The bloodhound was then left to track the victim as the cadets and senior members followed in amazement as the bloodhound took them right to the lost victim in a very timely manner. At the conclusion of this event we had time left over for the squad leaders to drill the cadets on pace counting this drill concluded our bivouac. It was now time to break down and clean up the two building. The building were both cleaned and cleared by the Boy Scout leaders and we were all on our way home by 1230 hours with the last cadet and senior leaving due to late ride at 1330 that afternoon.
Bivouac conditions for the weekend were very harsh with snow, rain, ice and very touch surface condition to deal with. Through the help of ground team leaders; Maj Frost (also Camp Commander), Capt. J Gleason, Capt. J McClure, Capt B. Holland and Safety Officer Capt. J Herrmann our weekend was a complete success with no injuries reported. Our ground branch director Maj. J Bradley also kept safety on the top of every briefing issued that weekend.
John Bradley Maj CAP
Commander NY-212
