The Coast Guard Is Not a Business
en boarding vessels, detaining crews, and seizing property from law offenders. To carry out its counter-drug, alien-migrant-interdiction mission, the service selects crews trained in tactics, techniques, and procedures to pursue smugglers. As a designated high-risk training instructor of these methods, I believe our current training quality and overall effectiveness to be inadequate. Coast Guard pursuit training does not prepare teams for the threats they face on the water today. This program, its training, and the curriculum must be enhanced.We Are a Military
In spite of pleas from instructors, pursuit performance and training gaps are not being addressed with the necessary sense of urgency. Even though changes involve disagreements and gridlock among the hierarchy, the Coast Guard needs to expedite new procedures when they are eminently warranted. This can be accomplished if the service will decide once and for all whether it is a corporate enterprise or a military undertaking.
The service’s training system was dismantled for improvement in mid-2000. It has now become a command that acts as a nexus for developing curricula; tactics, techniques, and procedures; program management; and policy alignments. This is an admirable concept, but progress is continually tested by the incorporation of a capital-generating-based matrix that models the fluidity of a corporate business rather than the protocol of a military chain of command.
Indeed, the contemporary geopolitical climate may demand the use of corporate ideology. Such notions can be applicable in certain situations, but they should be limited to number-crunching and other practical, routine matters. Anything beyond these basic applications runs the risk of depriving the Coast Guard of its guiding principles as a military service.
The problem with business models in the military is that they introduce corporate philosophies. When such ideologies become entrenched in a military chain of command, they can bring strategy formation, budget setting, and performance management to a grinding halt.
The Situation Is Pressing
In September 2010, a pursuit team in a small boat attached to a cutter faced gunfire off the coast of Nicaragua. The team retreated from the attackers to regain composure. This moment of reluctance and hesitation (characteristics of an undertrained team) resulted in the smugglers’ escape to safe harbor of a territorial sea. I was not present so cannot say with certainty, but based on my knowledge of performance and training gaps, it appears that the team was unprepared, both mentally and strategically. The event likely sent a clear message on the water: If you shoot at Coast Guardsmen, they will fall back and leave you alone.
Undisputed intelligence reports cite the increasingly violent nature of the Western Hemisphere’s smuggling routes. While Mexican cartels leverage paramilitary-type trained security forces, the Trinidadian government has learned that smugglers in their region use military training. Additionally, Colombian narco-terrorists are increasingly protective of their drug operations.
The environment that pursuit teams face today is unprecedented. It is only a matter of time before narco-terrorism’s land-based violence spreads to the sea.
Adjust the Model
The Coast Guard cannot “train to proficiency” without programs that offer proficient training. As things stand now in pursuit training, guidance on self-defense is scarce, and members graduate in the role of federal law enforcement without critical examination of the laws they enforce, nor of the laws established to support their mission. This is only one of many critical gaps in pursuit performance and training.
As noted, the Coast Guard is currently using a business model to help revive its training system. To steady its approach in this rocky transition, the service needs to acknowledge that several internal commands and their connecting chains have been radically streamlined, business-style. The lack of a clear and undisturbed chain of command has resulted in ambiguity, and individuals are finding it hard to recognize the point at which their efforts intersect and lead to action. The following concepts may help the Coast Guard training system regain its balance.
• Headship: The organization should continue to appoint and sanction extraordinary leaders in the training system. The focus needs to be on these leaders.
• Gravitational spotlight: Highly visible and recognizable accomplishments will lift the spirits of those in training centers and the overall system.
• Methodical improvements: Because the service’s training system is being modernized, so should the analyses that impel its strategy in training.
• Cooperative mergers: The system must foster stronger alliances among training centers.
Keep the Purpose Clear
Revitalizing the training system will make it an established process. With future needs in mind, the Coast Guard must determine precisely what it will and will not attempt to teach. For example, to lessen the negative consequences of high-risk training, success must be accomplished through self-conscious, deliberate choices of action. Building on the innovation of the Coast Guard’s original plan will achieve this.
Program managers must not fall into the trap of believing they ultimately know what students, instructors, and ultimately the training program needs. Combining methodical improvements with management’s sound judgment can help find the necessary balance between flexibility and solid foundational knowledge and performance.
To implement these ideas, training programs need to work more on “fine-tuning” students. In the final analysis, the aim is not to improve operational or individual commands, but rather the people who leave training centers and serve in those commands.
Bring Solutions, Not More Problems
One of my responsibilities as a high-risk training instructor is to bring solutions to my superiors. “Big Coast Guard” issues are beyond my jurisdiction, but within my realm of pursuit training and its curriculum I must address the following factors:
• Recognition: It is natural to desire praise and recognition. But stunting progress in favor of personal recognition is an explicit violation of Coast Guard core values. The reward is in knowing your operators are trained to the best of your ability, not a sparkling Enlisted Employee Review or Officer’s Evaluation Report.
• Leverage: If you are not familiar with a program’s intricate components and needs, do not make decisions on your own. Others are available who have the operational credentials to support you. It is imperative that the right people in the right roles with the key fundamental capabilities of producing the right strategies are being used.
• Expansion: The service needs to develop a curriculum that is applicable. Business methods may work well for developing a yeoman or gunner’s mate, but when it comes to pursuit and similar missions, it is time to put down the corporate handbooks. High-risk training demands analysis that applies both strategic and tactical solutions. A corporate approach does not apply.
Curriculum managers should allow designers to at least explore DOD defense-science-analysis types. Can a course on high-risk operations truly be its best with no empirical data, especially no consideration of subjective probability? Unlike the corporate approach of looking from the inside out to a marketplace, in high-risk training the problem needs to be considered from the inside out, from the outside in, and from the middle with reciprocal views.
Applying quantitative methods using expert-generated data would allow designers to apply specific knowledge about the subject matter to critical thinking. Numerous analytical methods are available to achieve this. They include the cross-impact matrix, morphological analysis, quadrant crunching, red hat analysis, red team analysis, pre-mortem analysis, and high impact/low probability.
If the Coast Guard is to subjectively honor the responsibilities involved in carrying its new tag of tactical missions, we must recognize that our counterparts have been using advanced analytical methods in this line of “business” for some time—with great success. As Alexander Hamilton, founder of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, noted: “Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.”
BM2 Thomas is stationed at the Special Missions Training Center at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He is a designated high-risk training instructor for the Non-Compliant Vessel Pursuit Course and is near completion of his Master Training Specialist Certification. He has been involved with expeditionary tactical small-boat operations since 2003.
Learning Leadership at Sea
Retired Coast Guard Vice Admiral James Pine aptly observed: “The sea has, through the ages, been of all schools, the best for bringing out the qualities of leadership.” The mission of the Coast Guard Academy, a four-year undergraduate institution and one of the nation’s five federal service academies, is to train leaders of character who graduate ready to serve as officers in the service. The Coastal Sail Training Program (CSTP), a crucial part of the Academy’s curriculum, seeks to develop specific competencies.
The Coastal Sail Training Program
A group of Coast Guard Academy cadets climb on board a 44-foot sailboat early on a summertime Monday morning. During the next few days, many of these college juniors will apply for the first time what they have learned about mooring lines, knots, fixes, tides, and currents. Yet these invaluable seamanship and navigational lessons are only a secondary outcome of the training program they are about to begin. Over the next two weeks, these future leaders of the Coast Guard will live and work together, learn to sail, and experience and reflect upon the responsibilities of a command position. They will participate in one of the most profoundly effective leadership classrooms available.
During the program, five or six cadets and one officer-in-charge (OIC) travel by sail to ports throughout New England and Long Island Sound. Every day brings new weather, tides, and transit routes, as well as new watch stations for each cadet. They not only experience their own leadership challenges, they also witness those of their classmates. Overall, cadets routinely describe the program as one of the most influential in their development. As Sam Galli (class of 2012) put it, “I can say without a doubt that CSTP was the best leadership training I have had.”
The first two days are spent at the Academy waterfront facility in New London, Connecticut, learning about the training vessel. Each student is given experience driving the boat and directing the crew during mooring and unmooring evolutions. A busy first two days are further burdened by preparations for the upcoming trip. Cadets are responsible for creating watch lists and scheduling job assignments. The boat must be cleaned, inventoried, and properly loaded.
The crew wrangles with questions of when and how to spend their boat’s funds, and who will shop for food. They experience what happens when teams initially come together. By observing conflicting personalities, students gain insight into their own leadership tendencies. “This trip put theories into action, and it showed me what leadership style fits me,” concluded James McCormack (class of 2011).
Getting Under Way
The boat leaves the Academy on day three of the program, when cadets begin to rotate through daily watch stations. A navigator, cook, deckhands, and helmsman are all led by the watch captain. This cadet is responsible for the boat, its crew, and all operations for that calendar day. The watch captain must decide when the crew will rise in the morning, what they will eat, and the route they will use to transit to their next destination. He or she also decides when and how to set sail, when to tack or jibe, and how to recover from mistakes.
By evening students are exhausted, as Christopher Martinez (class of 2012) elaborated: “Leadership is not something someone can be automatically good at; it takes time, practice, and an understanding of how people work.”
Although the watch captain is not hauling lines or wrestling the helm, that person must maintain constant vigilance. When the deckhands can lie back and get some sun, the attentive watch captain worries about the fishing vessel on the horizon, the shoal water off the beam, or whether the helmsman needs a relief. If a transit is getting long, the best watch captains introduce a game, swim call, or simply a good song list to keep the crew alert and in high spirits. While shipmates are out at night exploring a small seaside town, the next watch captain is busy planning tomorrow’s voyage.
The first few days under way rarely go as the watch captain plans. Inevitably someone is slow to prepare, fog rolls in, or the ice chest is neglected. A 0900 planned departure often turns into 1030. The calm environment of the Thames River is traded for the unpredictability of Long Island Sound or Buzzards Bay.
The boat encounters ferry traffic, strong currents, and perhaps a few feet of seas and gusty breezes. The basics of sailing learned on days one and two now seem anything but basic. Cadet watch captains discover that knowing where the next aid to navigation lies is not good enough. They are beginning to understand the scope of responsibility placed on a commanding officer, soon discovering that a leader is accountable for the performance of the team—and that it is very difficult to lead when you don’t know what you are doing.
People Skills Are Critical
While sailing, navigating, and traffic avoidance alone prove to be more than most new watch captains can handle, effective interpersonal leadership can be overwhelming. One of the unique aspects of the Coastal Sail Training Program is that cadets learn to lead—and be led by—their peers. Dan Burke (class of 2011) summed up the experience: “From this point forward, my leadership philosophy will be based on this program.”
Interactions teach the intricacies and nuances of communication and people skills. During underway exchanges, students find out just how assertive they can be without becoming bossy, and how to ask nicely while also expressing urgency. “It is easy to tell someone under you to do something,” pointed out Devin Quinn (class of 2012), “but much different to tell someone on the same level as you.”
Cadets learn how to communicate productively with overeager, overbearing, uninterested, or less-proficient classmates. As CSTP students come to realize, the task is only made more difficult when crews are tired, bored, seasick, or hungry. The watch captain is forced to choose solutions, and the crew feels the consequences. Cadets see firsthand that quiet leaders who instill confidence; louder, more aggressive leaders; laid-back, attentive, and tense, yet not-overbearing cadets all can be very successful as watch captains.
The entire experience is supervised by a mentoring OIC. Each evening the student watch captain debriefs with this officer. Along with reviewing the day’s evolutions, planning, and sailing, the OIC stresses followership, team building, effective communication, and technical expertise. More important, the watch captain assesses her or his performance as a leader. Urged to talk about complex decisions, frustrating conversations, crewmember performance, or tasking that went unheeded, the cadet is given the opportunity to reflect on the reasoning behind decisions and discuss different ways to handle similar situations.
During an individual end-of-program debrief, the OIC provides each cadet with leadership counsel and advice. This invaluable feedback comes from a junior officer who has seen the cadet challenged with stress, fatigue, and difficult interpersonal problems. Matt Zangle (class of 2011) singled this out as most helpful: “I really liked the close interaction we had with the junior officers. This trip allowed for asking questions and seeing firsthand their styles of leadership.”
Cadets with elevated potential can be encouraged to apply for leadership positions within the corps of cadets. The OIC can also alert students and their chain of command if there may be significant deficiencies in leadership development. All cadets are given clear direction about any changes that they must make to be ready for commissioning.
To prepare young men and women for service as officers, the Coast Guard Academy relies heavily on the extremely effective leadership-development CSTP. The program involves a combination of hands-on experience, reflection, and engaged mentoring. Leaders-in-training are given the opportunity to experience the challenges and triumphs of leadership positions in the same demanding professional environment where they will soon be serving. “We have found,” concluded former Coast Guard Academy Superintendent Rear Admiral J. Scott Burhoe, “that there is no better leadership classroom than a sailing vessel that offers the cadet the opportunity for small-unit command and control, in the maritime environment for which the future officer has been called.”
Lieutenant Commander Murphy is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. During summers he is assigned as an officer-in-charge in the sail-training program.
Plan Your Job Hunt Properly
As discussed in my July 2004 Professional Note, service personnel often need help with job hunting in the civilian world. I know this from personal experience, having suffered numerous setbacks in the past decade, most recently at age 59. Finding work may be difficult for everyone, but it is pure hell for people leaving the military. With so many now returning from Iraq and Afghanistan during this time of economic hardship and unusually high competition for jobs, advice from others who have endured the search and emerged with some success can be helpful.
Upon leaving the military, a job-search campaign is likely to seem fraught with more peril, heartache, and discomfort than were the hardships and uncertainties of military life. Finding the “right job” in today’s market is not only challenging, it is time-consuming.
Use the Five Ps and Stay Organized
Be courageous enough to admit that the military hasn’t prepared you to effectively look for a job, and that now you must become teachable. This is all the more reason why former military personnel must practice what I call the Five Ps: proper planning prevents poor performance.
Since the best positions go to those who are best equipped to find them, your search will require lots of homework and determination. When you feel like your search has become a full-time job, you’re probably doing things right.
If you’re a year away from leaving the service, start planning your transition now. While you can delay writing a résumé and mailing letters until closer to your departure date, it’s not too soon to begin investigating other aspects of your departure, such as relocation and the inevitable major lifestyle changes.
You need to plan also for the decreased pay and benefits, saving for the added expenses as well as those of the job search. This includes clothing and transportation, of course. Keep receipts, since the Internal Revenue Service allows for deductions. Consult a tax professional or obtain a current copy of IRS Publication 17.
Additionally, veterans called to active duty from reserve and National Guard units are protected under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. This federal law guarantees that veterans will be able to reclaim their jobs under most circumstances. It covers pay, status, pensions, retraining, health benefits, and the like. For further information, contact your local employment and/or Veterans Affairs offices.
Get Help, Be Positive, Persist
Most important, involve your family in your plans and search, something too many ex-military people fail to do. You’ll need all the support and assistance family members can offer. And remember that your attitude is the key to eventual success.
Maintain a positive outlook in your quest for a new career. This will be a stressful and demanding challenge, but you’re equal to it. I served in the Marine Corps from 1958 to 1988, retiring as a sergeant major at age 48. I thought I would never land on my feet. But I secured two successive grant positions with the city of Norfolk, Virginia: first as a youth and family advocate, then as employment and restitution coordinator for Norfolk Juvenile Courts. When my most recent funding expired three years ago, I had to search for a job all over again. But I kept at it until I landed a full-time, permanent position as a juvenile probation officer. Believe me, if I can do it, so can you.