"Coach, I got into the Coast Guard Academy!” Johnny Ly told me during a high school track practice in 2016. “It’s now one of my top choices.” I paused. I expected Johnny, a team captain, to accept a prestigious scholarship that covered his tuition and all expenses to study engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
Johnny was one of the runners I had the privilege to coach at a small 6th- through 12th-grade public charter school in Oakland, California. Since 2013, I have coached close to 150 young men and women with help from more than 15 Coast Guard members, an Army officer, and a Navy officer. Our track team mirrors the rich diversity of the Bay Area. Runners from a wide range of cultural and athletic backgrounds come together to support each other.
This team models the diverse and inclusive workforce the Sea Services are striving for but struggle to attract. Volunteering to coach and tutor in the communities outside our bases is a potential solution. Done at scale, the services could showcase who we are and the values we represent. In addition, service member volunteers could improve their understanding of and appreciation for the power of diversity.
Partnership in Education
I began volunteering at the charter school through the Coast Guard’s Partnership in Education program, which encourages units to volunteer at local K–12 schools. The caliber of the students impressed me. Their resourcefulness, drive, and compassion reminded me of my parents, who had to navigate public education as first-generation Mexican Americans. I started the high school cross-country and track team to offer a low-cost program that honed teamwork and discipline. The team grew slowly at first, but after a close friend from the Coast Guard Academy joined me, we gained momentum each season, attracting more students to run and more friends to coach.
Throughout the program, the coaches embody the military’s values of leadership, professionalism, and technical know-how in a nontraditional realm. While we help students improve as athletes, we also visit roughly five colleges a year and provide juniors and seniors with college application and scholarship support. The majority of the students are first generation, and we support them in reaching their academic potential and professional dreams. The community is so strong we even maintained virtual practices and SAT and college application workshops during the pandemic.
When Johnny told me he planned to attend the Academy, I was excited for the Coast Guard to gain such a stellar leader. Still, I encouraged him to talk with a friend of mine who is a Berkeley alum to explore all his options. While the other coaches and I proudly share information about our careers, we never attempt to persuade people to join the services. Our hope is to empower these student-athletes to pursue their own professional goals. Johnny did talk with the Berkeley alum, but this did not sway him. In June 2016, he headed off to the Academy to study applied mathematics.
Exposure Aids Recruiting
Recruiting is difficult for all the services, and they are instituting programs in an attempt to meet the challenge. The Navy launched the Future Sailor Preparatory Course at Naval Station Great Lakes to help potential recruits meet Navy accession standards.1 The Coast Guard created the “Everyone is a Recruiter” program with incentives up to $1,000 for a successful referral.2
While a mixture of tactics is necessary, these might not solve the main problem: the apathy American youth have for the military. Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee on recruiting challenges in 2023, Air Force Brigadier General Christopher R. Amrhein, commander of the Air Force Recruiting Service, explained, “DoD’s Joint Advertising and Marketing Research Service characterizes the youth market as having transitioned from being disconnected with the military to mostly disinterested with it,” adding that “only 12 percent of American youths have a parent who served in the military, compared to 40 percent in 1995.”3
My father and other family members served in the military during World War II and the Korean War. I never questioned the value of service and what it offers the nation and the individual. Today, youth have limited interaction with service members and veterans. Through volunteering, we can show them who we are and what we represent.
Johnny grew up approximately two miles from a Coast Guard base in Alameda, but I doubt he would have learned about the Academy at a recruiting fair or by searching online. Our program, though, exposed him to the service and its members. After Johnny, another team captain passed on a full ride to UC Berkeley to attend the Coast Guard Academy and graduated this past summer. He is now stationed on a cutter in Florida. Another team captain enlisted in the Navy and served on an aircraft carrier. In addition, two runners who graduated in 2024 explored the Academy and enlisting, and two current runners are considering the Coast Guard post–high school.
Of the around 150 runners I have coached, 7 have joined the Coast Guard or showed strong interest in joining, which is about 5 percent. But I am confident that close to 100 percent of these young men and women, who will one day be voting citizens directing the course of our nation, understand and appreciate the armed services. If the services scaled volunteering nationwide, we could attract more recruits with a strong connection to the military. More important is that we could give young people invaluable positive exposure to the military, replacing disconnection and disinterest with connection and understanding.
Benefits For Service Members
Besides changing young people’s perceptions of the military, volunteering provides service members an opportunity for rich, authentic experiences with a level of diversity not always found in our services. Volunteers could see firsthand how inspirational these students are. Any short-sighted notions would be replaced with the knowledge that everyone can thrive if we invest in them. Volunteering in our communities is positive, free, and develops us as inclusive leaders.
During my time at the Coast Guard Academy and in my follow-on tours, I held leadership positions in Latino affinity groups and supported cultural awareness and women’s leadership events whenever I could. These experiences developed me, but they do not compare to the growth I have experienced leading approximately 25 young men and women from a range of backgrounds each season. I believe all the service members who have coached with me would agree.
Rolling out a nationwide volunteering program would be straightforward. The services could collaborate to share best practices. Senior leaders could champion the initiative. They could even require the academies and basic training centers to develop partnerships with local schools to engage service members at the start of their leadership journeys.
Of course, a unit or member should feel empowered to start their own program in their community. We created a running program to support the fitness and academic development of local youth, but this is not the only option. It could be an after-school STEM club, a flag football team, or a tutoring program, to name a few ideas. What matters is that service members volunteer and enter the partnership with humility and patience. Authentic relationships form over time as we provide a clear benefit to the youth and learn from them in return.
At the 2023 Armed Services Committee hearing, Navy Rear Admiral Alexis T. Walker asked each senator to “consider personally engaging with their constituents and the media in a national call to service.”4 While support from Congress is wonderful, we cannot wait for it or place our hope in it. Regardless of rank, all of us need to take action to solve our recruiting and inclusion challenges.
In 2020, the Coast Guard Academy held its graduation on Zoom because of the pandemic. Johnny reported to a cutter in Alaska. A year later, the cutter was decommissioned, and he reported to a national security cutter in Alameda. When he was in port, he would help coach. The first day he came to practice, I finally got to shake his hand and congratulate him in person, on the same field where I first met him. The pomp and circumstance were not there, but that did not matter. I was proud of him and grateful he had selected the Coast Guard. Johnny is now thriving as an inspections officer in Louisiana and made lieutenant this past summer. Whenever I hear about another one of his accomplishments, I am reminded of the power each of us has on a daily basis to make our service, our community, and our nation better.
1. Rebecca Kheel, “Navy Follows Army in Offering Prep Courses to Recruits Who Don’t Meet Fitness, Academic Standards,” Military.com, 22 March 2023.
2. Kathy Murray, “Now Earn $1,000 for Getting a Friend to Join the Coast Guard,” MyCG.uscg.mil, 21 December 2022.
3. Jim Garamone, “Chiefs Discuss Military Recruiting Challenges at Committee Hearing,” Defense.gov, 7 December 2023.
4. Garamone, “Chiefs Discuss Military Recruiting Challenges.”