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U. S. COAST GUARD
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■ °3sties must master a wide array of skills Jnd balance military and civilian savoir- When crew members cast off to Vk out a vessel that appears in danger 0f just suspicious, they follow one rule: Vet anything.
The Coast Guard has long been eager to be recognized for its true value. Small and politically weak, 1( it has been threatened several times throughout its s'st°ry by integration schemes, budget cuts, radical mis- 0°n shifts, and political maneuvering. On top of all that, the past few years the Coast Guard has undergone an °anizational identity crisis.
Traditional and deeply cherished missions have been diminished through advances in technology and privatization, and the Coast Guard’s historical dominance in maritime interdiction has been severely encroached upon by the congressional demand for Navy and Customs involvement. Perhaps of greatest concern, an increasingly austere budget climate has forced the Coast Guard into annual crises.
In 1980, the Reagan administration committed itself to rebuilding our national defense; for the Coast Guard this represented an opportunity to redefine and reaffirm itself. There has since been a great deal of discussion about integrating the Coast Guard into the national defense—in effect, making it a more integral part of the Navy. Such talk has focused on the Navy’s long-term neglect of coastal warfare operations, and on the Coast Guard’s need for a defensible identity that can withstand budget battles
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The historical precedents for a more military-oriented Coast Guard are sound. The service has a war record that dates back to 1798 and includes distinguished service in every major conflict involving the United States. The Coast Guard itself is enthusiastic about a more visible and defined role in military readiness. The Maritime Defense Zone (MDZ) concept has outlined what the Coast Guard’s missions will be in the event of a national emergency, and the service has exercised those missions, analyzed shortfalls, and prepared extensive planning documents. The participation of Coast Guard units in refresher training (RefTra) and military exercises has been greatly expanded. The service has also taken strides toward greater resource compatibility with the Navy: major cutters carry modem sensors and weaponry; the Coast Guard has decided to replace its aging HH-3F helicopters with the LAMPS helo; and even the new fleet of 110-foot Island- class patrol boats has space and weight reservations for missile systems.
But is this progress? Or is it merely an expensive and misguided political ploy to ensure the viability of a beloved service? If the goal is a Coast Guard that is fully compatible and integrated with the Navy, what is the point of having a separate organization at all? If the only justification for maintaining a separate seagoing military organization is to comply with the ancient and arguably moot concerns of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from enforcing laws against civilians, then the Coast Guard identity is an expensive bit of political subterfuge. And if the point is to maintain a separate coastal warfare service, distinguished from the Navy in the way the Marine Corps is distinguished from the Army, then we have fallen far short of the equipment, personnel, organization, and training requirements.
If the true purpose of the Coast Guard is to maintain a seagoing federal police or rescue service, then arguably it is a duplication of other agencies, and the expense and effort directed toward military readiness diverts much- needed manpower, capital, and operating funds from the Navy, where these things could serve some bona fide purpose.
But the Coast Guard is in fact a unique organization that bridges a significant gap in the panoply of federal services and national power. It combines military and civilian aspects. The Coast Guard is neither a minor-league navy nor a group of civil servants taking advantage of military benefits. Because of their unique position—one foot in the military community and one in the civilian world— “Coasties” are different in outlook, skills, and temperament from their counterparts in the Navy.
The Coast Guard must be prepared to deal with everything from questionable fishing catches to armed resistance. A strong law-enforcement capability is a must; most civilian or commercial situations, though, are less perilous and require skills involving diplomacy and Finesse.
Coasties are adaptable and flexible. They have to ^ their missions can include customs collection, lighthouse maintenance, surfboat stations, international ice patr°; marine science projects, smuggling interdiction, buoy ai^ Loran tower maintenance, ship registration, licensing 1 mariners, drafting of legislation, inspection of fishnets, coordination of responses to oil spills, and even aU thorization of bridge construction. .
Despite such diversity, the Coast Guard remains a h tary organization that comprises specialized “commi"1^ ties.” All Coast Guardsmen, however, are considered*1 be “general duty.” A boatswain’s mate on the deck f°|’ of a large cutter could well be reassigned to a man safety office where he would carry out inspections of P° facilities; an officer could go from boarding suspic'0.^ boats off of South America to keeping a Loran station Japan.
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11 and carrying it out. Even when a number of Coast ar(l cutters operate as a task force, the result may seem
4 nre like a league of pirates working together loosely than eet movement. Missions at the station level usually 0|pOlve a single boat under the charge of a young petty
^ude law enforcement, search and rescue (SAR), ice eaking, navigation aids, military readiness, marine sci- Ce’ and boating safety. In one day, a Coastie on board a .er may participate in a military readiness exercise, l^e a drug boat and arrest the smuggler, save a sinking P> inspect life preservers, check the position of a buoy, asure fishing catches by species, and help process ille- ' 'mmigrants. Coasties take great pride in being jacks- '^il-trades.
^ 'ms attitude is mirrored in the organization as a whole. °| only are new missions not opposed, they are generally komed—missions such as the MDZ, space-shuttle se- . | yi deep Caribbean interdiction operations, clear chan- sj Attorn surveys, and possible deployment to the Per- aa Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War.
'-oast Guardsmen tend to be highly independent. There JPiy is not sufficient time or staff available to coordi- !^e extensively, nor would this be desirable. Even within same mission area, such as law enforcement, local onions vary so much that problems often can be solved y at the local level.
iy-0ast Guard stations have complements ranging from frto 40 members, scattered around the globe, often hours their neighboring station or group commander. The ■^t cutters carry crews of only 200. Medium-endur- ■ Ce cutters have crews of fewer than 100. Coast Guard are typically home to fewer than ten cutters, and are rned by fewer than 200 military members. Command ^Ponsibility is distributed at relatively low-grade levels. ^ are more than 150 Coast Guard stations, com- j: n<4ed by personnel ranging from E-6 petty officers to ^"tenants. There are almost 100 patrol boats, com- a.nded by chief petty officers, junior grade lieutenants, lieutenants.
i^Pe rations are predominantly conducted indepen- with one or two units devising their own patrol
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ae on-scene commander makes the final decision, as i^ae other services. But in the Coast Guard that com- 41 ^*er may be 20 years old and 50 miles offshore in a . °°t boat. A 23-year-old lieutenant (junior grade) could ^ be in command of an 82-foot patrol boat that is 300 Cq offshore in a severe gale. That young lieutenant t0 4 have to decide whether to go beyond his fuel range fa^escue a ship in distress, or leave the mariners to their
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cj . ,e Coast Guard is unique in its deep involvement with carr'ans 'n almost every mission. As Coast Guardsmen y out law-enforcement boardings, they must con- agum,y balance military efficiency in the war on drugs lj()lrist legal concerns for the boating public’s constitu- l^al rights, and against the constraints of international 1 Marine safety units function as a civil agency; they ^Pect merchant ships and port facilities, license maris> and investigate marine casualties. Yet at the same time they have the primary military responsibility for port control and defense. At the headquarters level the Coast Guard promulgates a wide range of regulations on marine matters. The service even has a number of administrative hearing officers who serve as judges in imposing penalties upon offending boaters. This extensive involvement with the civilian sector tempers the military aspects of the Coast Guard and creates a fundamental difference in outlook. The instincts essential to the survival of a sailor in a wartime situation are often antithetical to proper action in a civilian or law-enforcement context.
Over the past few years the Coast Guard has undergone a shift, from primarily a SAR orientation to one of law enforcement. Recruiting slogans have accordingly changed as well, from the “Lifesavers” to the “Smokies of the Seas,” but the service and its people are nonetheless driven by humanitarian goals.
And the Coast Guard has always functioned well in the military environment—on an organizational level as well as unit by unit. In RefTra, in service schools, and in joint exercises, the Coast Guard has been able to merge with its Navy counterparts and contribute quickly. Some aspects have, of course, proven difficult to deal with; for example it often takes a long time for a Coastie just to translate a Navy tasking message, let alone respond to it. In addition, Coasties, if they are honest about it, must confess to an entrepreneur’s slight disdain for the highly structured aspects of Navy life—formatted messages, forms, and “proper procedure.” Yet overall the Coast Guard is comfortable and effective working with the Navy and other military services.
Coasties tend to be very resourceful and pragmatic. That may be partly due to a service tradition of coaxing “just one more year” out of ancient and hard-run ships and aircraft. While recent years have seen most of the older hand-me-down ships decommissioned, tight budgets have kept the scrounger’s skills intact. Dealing with heavy work loads and relatively minuscule budgets has led Coast Guard units to become masters of the “excess property system” and other innovative supply methods.
Coast Guardsmen’s strong sense of pragmatism comes no doubt from the realities they face every day. The chief Coast Guard effort is aimed toward meeting current and pressing problems: drug interdiction, marine environmental protection, and SAR. In essence, the Coast Guard’s “war” is not a remote event to train for constantly; it is here and now. There can be no better preparation for a possible real war, because when the stakes are success or failure, all things are measured by what they contribute. Coast Guard daily operations are similar in kind, although certainly not in degree, to the Navy’s ongoing operation in the Persian Gulf and in submarine operations.
The Coast Guard is unique as well in the emphasis it places on seamanship and airmanship. Valued also in the Navy, these skills are only a part of what a surface warfare officer must master. For a Navy officer, being able to dock a ship is not as important as the instinctive grasp of tactical warfare skills, particularly considering the few times that an officer will actually get to handle the ship alongside during his tour.
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In its Coast Guard, the United States has an extra
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To be sure, the characteristics of the Coast Guard are
In the surface Coast Guard, though, shiphandling ability is the sine qua non of professional esteem. In addition to the far greater frequency with which Coast Guard ships moor and get under way, most operations involve close shiphandling under potentially dangerous conditions. On a law-enforcement mission, for instance, a cutter may need to maneuver into the middle of fishing fleets, dodging trawlers and nets while launching small boats in bad weather. Routine SAR involves primarily towing— passing close aboard, hooking up, towing through an inlet, and mooring the disabled craft. Missions of all types include inshore work, close to reefs and shoals. Cutters are called on to perform in all but the worst of conditions, and Coasties find a sort of perverse pride in crashing out into heavy weather on a mission, passing other ships heading in to seek shelter. Coast Guard aviators are also noted for their all-weather ability and rescue heroics. The old motto “You have to go out but you don’t have to come back” has been modified: “Don’t go out unless you’ll be able to come back.” This reflects an increase in safety measures rather than a decrease in heroic actions. There has been an ever-increasing emphasis on preparation, safety, and informed judgment, without a noticeable reduction in dramatic rescues. Coast Guard aircraft still pluck mariners from the decks of sinking ships in 60-knot winds, and they still water-taxi in eight-foot seas to scoop up people from the water.
Certainly the idea of making the Coast Guard a branch of the Navy has a certain functional appeal to it. It would allow greater operational integration and hardware compatibility, and it would create a single national seagoing military service. Such neat integration, though, ignores _ the fact that the true value of the Coast Guard to this country is not in the numbers of its personnel or its ships and aircraft, but rather in its unique qualities. The Coast Guard’s civilian-military nature makes it particularly well suited to a range of vital .services that encompasses both areas.
The traditional virtues of a military organization— discipline, coordination, responsiveness—help to make
the Coast Guard a highly capable agency for civilian trus sions that require dedicated, less politicized, service- Tasks such as SAR, law enforcement, terrorism response, port control, and offshore-resources protection are all be served by an organization that can apply a profession military approach to the complexities of problems that are essentially civilian. It is worth noting that although • Coast Guard and the Customs Service perform virtu;.J identical drug-interdiction missions in the South Fl°rl area, by any measure the Coast Guard has signified ; outperformed Customs in operating hours, seizures, c°n sistency, and cost-effectiveness.
And the civilian characteristics of the Coast Guard ca be tremendously valuable in naval warfare settings- A though it is essential, particularly in this era of supers011 threats, that the bulk of the fleet be coordinated to with a killer instinct, an organization that is well trainee military operations and able to interact effectively W1 civilians is also vital. The Coast Guard is particularly w suited to defense jobs such as independent special opeja tions, interdiction, SAR, training of Third World nav>£ and coast guards, and military control of shipping- ability of Coast Guard units in military situations has be£ demonstrated in readiness exercises; Coasties have repea^ edly successfully defended and attacked objectives aga,n great odds.
tary coastal operations elite. The service bridges the gaP between federal agencies and the other military service ■ exclusive to the service, but the extent to which the C°a Guard has been able to combine them to become suC(?eSan ful in both the military and civilian arenas makes d exceptional organization.
Lieutenant Black, a 1979 graduate of the Coast Guard Academy, pg served on board the USCGC Unimak (WHEC 379), Cape Starr (” 95320), and Aquidneck (WPB 1309). He was commanding officer ° ^ latter two ships, served as senior controller of the Fifth Coast District Operations Center, and is currently studying law at the Co of William and Mary.
_________________________________________ Baited and Indoctrinated_________________________________
As a newly commissioned ensign and engineering school graduate, I received orders to report on board the USS Camden (AOE-2) based out of Long Beach. I wanted to be as “salty” as possible when 1 reported on board and not get caught with one of those indoctrination jokes such as the “mail buoy watch.” I talked to as many people as I could and was aware of the “relative bearing” grease ploy as well as the “propwash,” “golden rivet,” and “sea bat.” However, during my second indoctrination watch in the after engine room, I came up against a venerable master chief.
During work on one of the boilers, I made a nuisance of myself by standing over the master chief and clucking my approval or disapproval at his actions. Finally he looked up and informed me that I would really be doing him a favor by getting a special tool he needed to finish his work. I readily agreed. From main control through every storeroom on the ship 1 was met with smiles and that look of collusion as I asked for that special tool. It was not until I was seated in the supply office going through catalogs to find it that a sympathetic lieutenant (junior grade) pulled me aside to explain that a “fallopian tube bender” was not in the supply system. He proceeded to give me a brief lesson on “human engineering.”
Lieutenant Commander H. E. Thomas, Civil Engineering Corps, U. S. Navy