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Reef Jahangiri is spending his summer planning out his senior year in high school and beyond.

Jahangiri, 17, of Gaithersburg, a rising senior at Washington Christian Academy in Olney, is thinking about what colleges can best prepare him to become a physician and what branch of the military he wants to join.

For five years, Jahangiri has been a member of the Civil Air Patrol's Bethesda-Chevy Chase Composite Squadron.

Jahangiri was one of about 30 cadets in formation Thursday night, at Forest Oak Middle School in Gaithersburg, where the group meets once a week.

"I'm definitely thinking about joining the Air Force after coming through this program," said Jahangiri who has earned the rank of master sergeant. "I've learned a lot about how the Air Force operates in this program and I've always had an interest in aviation."

The Civil Air Patrol, an auxiliary of the U. S. Air Force, started in 1941. The patrol offers cadets ages 12 to 20 training in aerospace education, cadet programs and emergency services which includes air and ground search and rescue missions, said Col. John Knowles, of Olney, commander of all CAP programs in Maryland.

CAP has more than 56,000 members with a presence in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. Since Jan. 1, CAP has responded to 578 search and rescue calls nationally.

Women and girls have served in CAP since the program began, Knowles said.

Montgomery County has CAP programs, called flights, in Germantown, Bethesda and Gaithersburg, Knowles said. A Bethesda-Chevy Chase group operates out of Gaithersburg and an afterschool program is staged at Parkland Middle School in Rockville.

Dressed in a neatly starched camouflage uniform, with shiny silver stripes affixed to the collar, Jahangiri walked about the large room, occasionally stopping to speak with other ranking cadets and senior staff members.

When he puts on his uniform, Jahangiri said, he cannot help feel a sense of patriotism. He is not yet old enough to enlist in the military, but with CAP he feels like he already is doing something to help his country.

"When we put on our uniforms, we're not just saying we're in this program," he said. "We're saying we're here to serve our community the best way we can."

That service comes in the form of air and ground search and rescue missions.

The group is trained to track down people and lost planes in the wilderness.

Maj. Michael Crockett, commander of the Bethesda-Chevy Chase flight, said his unit conducted a search and rescue mission on June 30 near Annapolis. Several emergency beacons triggered emergency systems onboard airplanes flying over the area. Five groups, two in the air and three on the ground, went in search of what they thought were downed aircraft. They found that the signals were sent by beacons that were dislodged from other planes.

Cadet Staff Sgt. Jaison Pajaro, 18, of Silver Spring, hopes to be in the cockpit of an Air Force jet one day, providing support for search and rescue missions.

Pajaro, a member of the Bethesda-Chevy Chase flight for four years, said in his native Columbia, two of his uncles are military pilots and that has rubbed off on him. Pajaro hopes to earn a commercial pilot's license from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, he said, before enlisting in the Air Force. Embry-Riddle is an aerospace university that teaches piloting.

"When I first joined the Civil Air Patrol, I was only interested in flying," Pajaro said. "I was able to fly seven times through the program and now I am taking private lessons to get my pilot's license."

Crockett, 27, of North Potomac, has been a CAP member for 14 years, he said. He never has served in the military but prides himself in helping serve his country through the patrol.

"The Air Force is responsible for search and rescue missions and if we weren't performing some of the missions for them, they would have to dedicate extra personnel to them," he said.