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s coast guard
For years, the Coast Guard has made a ''irtue of necessity by emphasizing its mission of rescue at sea as part of its recruiting campaign. Therefore, many in the service Mieve that unless they are riding a motor bfeboat in wild seas that they are not in lhe real Coast Guard. Not so!
little more than three years ago, 1 walked into a O U.S. Coast Guard recruiting office on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska. When I walked out s hours later, I firmly believed that the service I had joined was equipped only with small motor lifeboats and s^ek helicopters and was devoted solely to plucking peo- Me from the jaws of death. This is not to say that my reCruiter tried to fool me, but the pictures in his office— e §-, a surf-rescue boat crashing through foamy seas over !he caption “Be A Part Of The Action!’’—gave me the , ‘Vession that this type of action represented the real COast Guard, and was what I could expect during my four- •ear enlistment.
The Coast Guard Training Center at Cape May. New Tsey, was my next stop in my search for the real Coast
Guard. At least my recruiter had been up front with me about what to expect at Boot Camp. One of my fellow recruits brought his golf clubs and tennis racket with him. I wondered what kind of pictures were in his recruiter’s office. Not surprisingly, he went home very soon after learning that the base's tennis courts were off limits to recruits.
It was during Coast Guard indoctrination classes that I discovered that, in its inventory, the real Coast Guard had other, larger ships than the surf-rescue boats pictured in the recruiting posters. I came to know them all—the patrol boats, the high- and medium-endurance cutters, and, of course, the icebreakers—as the classes continued.
One day as I swabbed out a head during gym cleanups, a seaman told me to take it easy. He said, "Man, this ain't the real Guard. It’s just a game and you don't have to win, only finish. Got if?" 1 replied. "Sir, yes, sir, finish it." But, later that night. 1 thought about what he had said and meant. I was both relieved and disappointed. On the one hand. I could do without all the seemingly endless hours of marching and the fiascoes involving the manual-of-arms. However, I took pride in the way my uniform looked and understood that everyone in the Coast Guard expected me to maintain the high standards that my company was struggling to uphold. So, why wasn t this the real Coast Guard?
feedings / December 1993
the way; my instructors were intelligent, meticulous, and
L
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Three weeks after graduating from Boot Camp, I reported aboard the USCGC Chilula (WMEC-153).
As I stood at the foot of the gangway, checking to see if I had the right ship—and standing out like a sore thumb in my Service Dress Blues—I could hear members of the crew shouting such things as “New Meat!” and “Rig up the bos’un’s chair! We got a new boot camper!” Then I saw the officer of the deck coming down the brow to check me in. Wanting to make a good first impression, I saluted him smartly. Unfortunately, he was a Chief Boatswain’s Mate. He must have thought I was saluting someone behind him because he turned around quickly. Seeing no one, he turned back to me and wondered at the top of his lungs, “Didn’t they teach you anything at Cape May?!” After calming down, he endorsed my orders; then he told me to go below, find a rack, and stow my gear. All this I accomplished—after a hairy trip down two incredibly steep ladders that led to the berthing spaces. My rack was on top of two others with a large pipe running about 6 inches above my head. Someone told me it was a reduction gear—which sounded about right, considering how much headroom it had reduced. Little did I know what that pipe had in store for me, especially with the three main diesels on line, as we moved through moderate seas.
Life on board the cutter made quick work of my immaculate uniforms. In less than a week, my dark blues became flecked with white, my boots shined with green primer, and a needle gun had left its distinctive mark across the top of one boot. After chow one night in port, I decided to try to remove some of the paint and grime from my boots. As I broke out the polish and a brush, a couple of seamen came over and told me not to bother. The boots would just get trashed tomorrow, they claimed; so don’t waste the energy. I explained that I knew that, but with nothing else to do, it seemed like a decent way to kill time until my next watch.
They shook their heads and left me. But about an hour later, one of them came back and sat down beside me. He then asked to use some polish, stating that he didn’t want to be showed up by some boot camper. The next morning, our chief noticed our boots at muster and told us to keep up the good work. By the next week, four of us at muster had gleaming boots. It never went farther than that but I still wear those boots because they remind me of where I’ve been and how far I’ve come.
Six months and two six-week patrols later, I made seaman and shortly thereafter received orders to Health Services Technician A-School. The five months I spent at Coast Guard Training Center Petaluma did little to solve the riddle of where the real Coast Guard was. Marching to and from class every morning, students were greeted with the eye-opening aroma of cow dung decaying in the warm California sun. The training I received was first-class all determined to get the subject matter out of the text and into out heads. However, I could not escape the idea that, among the cov' pastures and rolling green hills, this place wasn’t the real Coast Guard. There were no cutters of helicopters; there weren’t even any small boats. What had I beefli doing for the past two years? JustH|| going through the motions? This is a training command, I told myself; wait until you graduate and get to your next unit, then you’ll finally see what it’s like to be a Part of the Action!
I graduated in May and received orders to the Coast Guard Support Center on Kodiak Island, Alaska. Kodiak is the second largest island in the United States and the base there is the Coast Guard’s largest. If I could not find something that resembled the real Coast Guard here, I figured, then it just didn’t exist. I became qualified and began standing duty as an aviation medevac specialist. I flew on several cases, picking up and treating patients with ailments ranging from abdominal bleeding to strangulated testicles.
One case involved a small pickup truck that had goflf over a 200-foot cliff and landed on a rocky beach. The driver and passenger survived the crash but had lain on the beach for three hours before someone on the road aboVe noticed them. We arrived about 20 minutes after receiving the call, I was hoisted down to the beach from a HH-3f helicopter. We managed to save the driver but the passenger—who had suffered massive pelvic injuries and had losl nearly all of his blood—died en route to the hospital.
Later on that night as I was typing up the report I reflected on my search for the real Coast Guard and my quest to be part of the action. I did not feel any differed there in Alaska than I had while on the Chilula in the North Atlantic. Would I ever find what I was searchmS for and how would I know it if I did?
Six months later, I was promoted to HS Second Class- Now my day is taken up with more paperwork and supervision and, therefore, less direct patient contact. I have concluded since that the real Coast Guard is wherever are stationed. The job you do—whatever rate you are-^ is just as important as any other—from the seaman ap' prentice standing watch as a lookout on a high-enduran^ cutter on Alaska Patrol to the yeoman in Topeka making sure that people she has never met get their paychecks every month. The Coast Guard is as good or bad as y011 want to make it. So don’t be concerned with who haS got it better elsewhere. Instead, take advantage of d*6 opportunities that literally are right in front of you to stud)' apply for special programs, and show people that yo11 are the one they have been looking for. And if you eyer start to wonder when you’ll get to the real Coast Guard^ take a quick look around. You’re already there.
Petty Officer Stanley presently is stationed at the Coast Guard SupP' Center on Kodiak Island, Alaska.