A special birthday and remembrance

[marauder307]

August 4, 1790---Alexander Hamilton signs the legislature that created the Revenue Marine Cutter Service. In 1915, this service, combined with the National Lighthouse Service and the National Life-Saving Service, would become the United States Coast Guard.


Greetings all! I thought I would offer this anniversary tribute to my old service: the U.S.C.G.

I'd like to take a bit here to offer a few ruminations/remembrances/sea stories. My own time "before the mast" ended last year; my honorable discharge was granted June 2, 2005, 13 years to the day that I stepped off the bus at the Cape May (NJ) receiving station into the dark...and an all-to-ready pack of company commanders. Oh boy...makes what just happened to Leadfoot281 seem like an invite to the prom. I spent the next ten weeks getting slammed, educated, trained, slammed some more...and seeing an awful lot of the grass on the Cape May parade ground. Maybe not as bad as Richard Gere in "Officer and a Gentleman", but not the star pupil either...what the he11, I still graduated anyway.

Fast forward a bit to the summer of '93; I'm at the base at Yorktown for training at Boatswain's Mate school. We spend the vast bulk of our time on the 41-foot Utility Boat (UTB); you can still see a lot of them around but they're about to be phased out. I spend 8 weeks that summer getting fine-tuned on the art of marine navigation, line-handling, and learning a lot about terms like "bank suction" (ok, quit laughing folks...it's not what you think:D ), "asymmetric thrust", "squat", and how to keep from knocking the pier into the water while trying to moor up to it. Also learned a lot about shipboard firefighting, rescue and survival tactics in a maritime environment, and where to get the best beer/booze/etc in the Poquoson/Newport News/VA Beach area. Hey, these things are important, ya know....!

Fast forward again. Summer of 1995; I'm stationed at the small boat SAR station in Point Judith, Rhode Island. (I think we got a guy here from the Misquamicut area...Paul somebody...) It's a relatively quiet evening and the reservists are on board; I'm the only AD crewmember, and I've just passed my Crewman quals within the last week. We're on the CG 41441 heading south from Narragansett Beach and we get the call to head south to Block Island; we got a medevac call. The coxswain leans on the throttles and away we go. We plow south at about 22 knots, give or take, running through a fog bank on the way, no slowing down because there's somebody in trouble down there. We get there...and the island's doctor tells us that they've called a helo, so we have to wait.

About 5 minutes before the helo arrives, the fog rolls in. That helo makes 5 passes at the runway (Block Island is an uncontrolled bare field) and misses every one. By now it's been 4 hours since we got the call; the patient is suffering from major head trauma and bleeding into his brain fast. We finally get the guy on board and charge out into the fog. The whole way I'm outside the cabin on lookout; it's pitch-black-dark and the fog's so bad I can barely see the bow. Every few minutes I'm asked if I can "see that contact?" The answer is always no.

The guy died 10 minutes from the dock.

We got a nice writeup in the local paper; made us sound good. But I still wonder how much differently things woulda played out had we just gone ahead and taken the guy to the mainland as soon as we could.

In January of 1996, a crew from that station would nearly lose one of its own rescuing crewmembers off the burning tugboat SCANDIA.

It's getting late here in Hawaii; the missus is tired and I'm tired with her. I'll add some to this tomorrow.

[marauder307]

Story continues...

Late February, 1996. Back at Yorktown again, this time for Quartermaster "A" School. For those of you who might be confused...the rating of "Quartermaster"---in the Navy/Coast Guard---has a markedly different meaning from those of you in the land-based services. Rather than being a supply type, quartermasters are master navigators. In the Guard, I was expected to stand a nav watch on the bridge, participate as part of the nav team for special navigation evolutions (i.e. swept-channel navigation, precision anchoring, and so on), and also pull double-duty as visual signals watch supervisor. (not actually anything special---we were all qualified to that level.)

So, I'm standing out in the biting cold on the signal light field at Y-town...was that a dot-dash, or a dash-dot, or two dots? He11 I dunno...my eyes are watering from the cold wind, I can barely tell...

Aside from a pass through REFTRA, I'd never use any of this stuff again anyway.

Later on that year, I'd find myself on nav watch on the bridge of CGC VALIANT, off the coast of Port Isabel (TX). We got underway the day after Thanksgiving from Miami Beach (FL), and didn't return home until a week after New Year's 1997. It would be a long trip...we spent Christmas out to sea, but made it in to Corpus Christi for New Year's...the "body count" from shore leave was pretty bad. Still not as bad as the port-call at Tortola (BVI) the next year though...

Ultimately I would make 12 patrols aboard VALIANT from 1996-1999. The last patrol, I would be part of a boarding team that went aboard a tramp freighter and helped shepherd 10,500 pounds of Colombian White into Galveston. Talk about an international boarding: The ship was originally a something-Maru, built in Hokkaido; she'd been renamed CANNES, after the French town with the snooty film festival every year; she had a Greek captain, first officer, and chief engineer; her crew was a pack of Ukrainian conscripts, dredged up from various Black Sea ports, with 2 Colombians thrown in; she'd made a port call in Port-of-Spain in Trinidad; and was being boarded by Americans. Woo-haa.

The Colombians disappeared as soon as the ship made port in Galveston. They didn't get away, mind you...there were a couple of black-suit-and-sunglasses-clad types with a couple of blacked-out vans waiting to take them into custody.

The Ukrainians were simply deported.

The Greeks were left to, well....take it like Greeks.

And the CANNES...I dunno what happened to her. That ship was so rusty I felt like I needed a tetanus shot just from looking at it. I imagine the owners pled stupidity and ignorance, and that bucket's probably still plying the sea somewhere...

[marauder307]

My active-duty career with the Guard ended March 6, 1999...at least, I thought it did.

September 11, 2001. The past few years, I've settled back into being a college student, this time as a Master's candidate at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach. I've gone back to being a reservist; I'm assigned to Port Security Unit 307, out of St. Petersburg (FL).

My master's career is drawing to a close; that December I would graduate with my Master's degree....but I wouldn't make it to the ceremony.

This particular day I've been on duty at the unit; the end of the fiscal year was coming up, I had some extra drills left over and I'd volunteered to come in and do 'em. I'm working on navigation problems as part of my coxswain quals when the BM1 (Boatswain's Mate First Class---E-6, for those of you not in the know) comes in with his cell phone in his ear and says, "Somebody go turn on the TV...got my wife on the phone, she says an airplane just hit the Twin Towers in New York."

We all shuffle into the office thinking great, somebody really screwed up their approach to LaGuardia. The TV is this decrepit old RCA tube-driven unit, and it takes a while to warm up. When it does, and we start to get a picture...here comes airliner #2. Boom.

We look at each other, all kinda stunned. The yeoman says, "I'll start the recall roster." I vaguely remember mumbling something about "gee, I don't think that was an accident" and the kid next to me saying "yup".

The rest of the day was pure bedlam. First we were told to get all the unit's boats inside and out of sight. Then we had to turn around and pull them all back out again that afternoon. Then we were told to launch and conduct force-protection patrols around the turning basin at St. Pete, and to mount the guns (in our case, M-60s. The "Ma Deuces" were still broken down for maintenance). I spent the next 2 hours underway...and after being relieved on watch, drove very quietly and somberly back to the barracks. Didn't really sleep so much that night.

Within 24 hours we were spun up and sent first to NYC, then on to Boston where we mounted an exhausting month-and-1/2 long deployment guarding the harbor. Spent an LOT of time out in the rain and snow...we Florida folks weren't ready for Boston in September and October. I finally got back from that just in time to finish up my thesis at ERAU; actually had to fight the profs for it, because they were trying to tell me that I was too far behind and that they weren't going to give out a diploma "just because I was a patriot". My sharp reply was "evidently not---but you DO seem capable of giving them out for the ability to crash airplanes into skyscrapers."

I got my diploma. I've never contributed one thin dime to ERAU since and don't ever plan on doing so.

A year passed...October 2002. I'm standing in a puddle of my own sweat in the middle of Guantanamo Bay, left hand on the wheel of CG 25360, right hand on the throttles. We've been here since June...the situation is a mess. We're reporting to the Navy, who has no idea how to operate a Coast Guard unit and even has the nerve to tell us that we're being "too aggressive". This as their own harbor security unit has blundered its way around the bay, hitting buoys and creating Class A mishaps for us to investigate. (We later find out that the security personnel for GTMO have been dredged out of other units and sent here because they weren't cutting it anywhere else.) We're just muddling through as best we can.

As a coxswain, I get to read the daily reports from Camp Delta...it ain't pretty. The inmates usually start out as a puddle of scared tears and pi$$ when they arrive; when they realize that we can't actually beat them (which we'd ALL like to do), they get ridiculously bold. The female guards are getting various bodily fluids thrown at them; the male guards are constantly in danger of getting shanked through the bars. I thought the terrorists were the prisoners, not our people...evidently the media doesn't agree.

I spend my days on duty, my nights on duty, and a whole lot of other times on duty. I see way too many sunsets and sunrises. Once in a while though...I do manage to catch a break. The most notable of these times is a free concert given by Jimmy Buffett himself in the first few weeks of December. We got to escort his seaplane into the old ramp there at GTMO, and we even took him underway on one of our gunboats...he thought the idea of fishing with a .50-cal was cool.:lol:

Allow me to state, for the record, that mixing a bunch of weary sailors and Marines---who've been cooped up in a mere 17.4 square miles of navy base---with Jimmy Buffett and a bunch of songs about booze and loose women---is one he11 of a humorously volatile mix.

We would end up coming to the Navy's rescue that December, when one of their BM3's drove a security boat into the old "battleship buoy" in the middle of the harbor---in the dark---at 20+ knots. That kid gave himself a concussion, put his other 3 crewmembers in the hospital, and compacted the aluminum bow of the boat by about 3 feet. Good job.

[marauder307]

Last part.

I came back from GTMO Dec 16, 2002, and retreated home to Montgomery (AL). A few weeks later, I got the call from the DoD that my security clearances had finally gone through, and I was to start work in St. Louis as quickly as I could get there.

I figured that would be a good way to close out my career; I liked the symmetry of it. I started in a river unit (Reserve Unit Birmingham), and I would finish in one too.

I got there and got signed in with Marine Safety Office STL...and quickly discovered that I'd gone from the super-pros in St. Pete to the Keystone Koasties. Oh boy...I did my best; they got aggravated; I pretty much gave up.

Then they sent me to Port Arthur (TX). There wasn't any particular reason to send me (they came up with some convenient BS about needing extra bodies; I pointed to my DoD job; they said "screw the DoD, the Coast Guard takes priority"), but I ended up going anyway. Port Arthur and Beaumont are some of the last old-style small towns that I've ever seen; Sabine Pass is---was, before Hurricane Rita---a nice quiet little 4-way stop in the road. Wouldn't have minded staying; I'm not a fan of big cities, and STL is a classic example of such. But my real job was back there.

I spent 7 months in Port Arthur; the pace was not too hectic but it was rather aggravating, because the unit had become a personnel "black hole" and was sucking in Coasties from everywhere. My roommate was from Oregon; one of my chiefs was from Pittsburgh. Rather than build the unit's personnel structure, the Guard had simply decided to burn through as many reservists as it could. There were guys there who'd been there since 9/11.

The Port of Beaumont is kinda spooky at 0200 hours...very dark except for the city lights behind the port buildings. At one point we saw movement in the water and went at it with the spotlights blazing and guns drawn, thinking we'd just found a sabotage swimmer...we'd found a swimmer alright; a misguided deer was attempting to swim across the turning basin. We herded it back to shore. I've got pictures somewhere...

I finally got home April 30, 2005. My enlistment was over a month later; I shipped my gear home from Pt. Arthur and told the Guard it could mail me my discharge certificate. This was done, and my certificate sits on my desk at work today.

Now for some retrospective thoughts:

I think Dickens said it best: It was the worst of times, it was the best of times. I had some unique, wonderful, and awful experiences...same as anybody else...and I'll never get that again. I've seen hurricanes (two, to be exact) and a flat-calm sea. I've seen the worst inhumanity that one can ever experience (Port-Au-Prince) and I've watched a Cuban mother on a rickety raft try to shield her child from the sun, even after starving for 4 days in the Florida Straits. I've watched a seasoned old Bos'un turn and dodge a weary old CG small boat around in a tossing sea like it was nothing, and I've seen an equally old Bos'un make himself look like an a$$ while being obstinate after being wrong. I've almost gotten decapitated---once---by a falling radar array after the Chief Quartermaster screwed up a mooring in Antigua, and almost knocked myself out buoy-jumping south of Block Island.

I've also enjoyed cheeseburgers in pretty much every corner of paradise from Jacksonville, Miami Beach, and Key West all the way to Oranjestad, Aruba and everywhere in between. I've stood on the bridgewing out to sea and seen the "green flash" at sunset...and been glad to see the sun come up again the next morning. I've been at Spring Break in Key West, and...well, the statute of limitations hasn't run out on that yet...yah, it was a good time. :lol:

I couldn't go back now, even if they did want me back; I've got a wife and a child on the way, and my responsibilities with the Dept. of Defense have become so manifold that I can't afford to leave that job in favor of yet another deployment.

I want to invite all of you who've been reading along to share your own stories of interaction with this nation's "fifth service".

Thank you. :bows:

[Mad4Macs]

I remember my Navy days in Pearl. Yeah, the CG took a lot of good natured flak from the Navy (Puddle Pirates leaps to mind), but there weren't a lot of us who'd have wanted your jobs!
Congratulations on a job well done!

[seans]

Semper Paratus!!!!!! Happy B-Day Coast Guard!

I'm a Coastie as well. I've been out since 1993.

I was a Port Securityman at Station New Haven which was assigned to Group Long Island Sound.

[marauder307]

Semper Paratus!!!!!! Happy B-Day Coast Guard!

I'm a Coastie as well. I've been out since 1993.

I was a Port Securityman at Station New Haven which was assigned to Group Long Island Sound.

Good to hear from ya! You woulda been right at home with the PSU...

[marauder307]

Forgot to mention...seems the Guard's becoming more photogenic these
days...

http://theguardian.movies.go.com/

Seen the trailer in the theaters...I dunno if this is going to be any good. I think Ashton Kutcher's probably a lousy choice, and the whole plotline seems contrived and forced...the writers don't even know what an "A" School actually is...

But I might go see it anyway...