Shore, Land, or Sea Going

[ronone]

I'm in LA visiting my son and the other day my wife and I ran into some guys from the San Pedro MSST.   I spoke with them for a few minutes and asked who had been to see.  They all claimed they were in the "land" Coast Guard and didn't want to go to sea.

My how things have changed.

[EX-CG-GM]

I'm in LA visiting my son and the other day my wife and I ran into some guys from the San Pedro MSST.   I spoke with them for a few minutes and asked who had been to see.  They all claimed they were in the "land" Coast Guard and didn't want to go to sea.

My how things have changed.

It's unfortunate but true, the shift in many of the CG missions has really changed the CG's identity in many ways.

I believe there are now far more GM's ashore then on cutters.

[Sea_Spook]

Bill and Stan, unfortunately that is true of todays "maritime" service.

What bothers me more (myself having only held one "beach" job at an MSO for 2 years) is the propensity for these wimps who have spent their entire careers avoiding sea duty have the hypocrisy to try and tell the sailors how to run cutter operations. We see this alot with the new "Sectors" which tend to be filled up with non-cutter people who need to get their "operational" ticket punched to keep moving up the food chain.

It's one thing to have someone who knows more than you do about your profession mentor you and teach you something, having someone who doesn't know jack **** about your profession condescend toward you and your crew about what you need to be doing as a Cutterman is an absolute disgrace.  

PS-We are getting a GM2 assigned as in Independent Duty Gunners Mate who has no sea time.

[EX-CG-GM]

PS-We are getting a GM2 assigned as in Independent Duty Gunners Mate who has no sea time.

(sigh).....and should he ever get sent to a ship he won't have a friggin clue what to do with that big thing on the bow that goes "Boom" once in awhile....

[Sea_Spook]

I know Stan. I'd have thought we'd be getting one from a '378. After all isn't that why they have 4 GM3's onboard to grow and learn their rate before making Second and going to an Independent Duty billet afloat, NESU or maybe an Armory or MSST?

Another big mistake HQ did was deleting the GM billets from the new '225 Buoy Tenders. Now the BM1 onboard serves as a collateral duty WEPO. This not only deprives one of the original seagoing rates of an u/w billet, but keeps it somewhat of a self-fullfilling prophecy that there isn't enough ships to go around.

R/
JJB

[Rebel]

Hey ronone, are you from Augusta, Ga.?

[Thor]

Hey RonOne, I'm glad to see you chose a screen name indicative of a GREAT Navy Combat SAR squadron, HELSUPPRON ONE!!!

BTW, you left out the great aviation components of the CG.  They're a little closer brethren than the rest of the CG folks to me.

[vftb]

 

[XShipRider]

It would seem we're shifting from a Maritime Service to a service with maritime traditions.  Sad.

[JACoastie]

21 years in, 10 ashore, 11 sea.

Overall I enjoyed my sea time more than shore.......except for SRFTC Southeast Regional Fisheries TRACEN......I really enjoyed that tour. 

[Sea_Spook]

Joe,

Was the Commandant's kid your CO there?

[MarkW51]

21 years in, 10 ashore, 11 sea.

Overall I enjoyed my sea time more than shore.......except for SRFTC Southeast Regional Fisheries TRACEN......I really enjoyed that tour. 

Out of 20, I did 8 at sea and 3 on isolated duty.  Not bad for a Radioman.

I think that we need to be a little more particular when picking out who the sand peeps are.  There are those with no experience on cutters but lots on boats or stuck out on the various rocks that the Coast Guard used to have within their domain.

What gets my goat are those who try to hop from one administrative billet to another. Example would be a person who goes from a training center to a district office to a MLC to a training center to an area office and so forth. Zero operational experience under their belt. The only hazard to duty that these persons might incurr are paper cuts or repetative strain injury from playing on their work station 8 hours per day. 

Trouble is that when these cubicle sailors become extremely proficient at shifting paperwork, they become "valuable" to the paperwork Officer corps and usually receive a favorable command recommendation when transfer time comes around - thus they are able to avoid the operational Coast Guard.
 

Mark

[JACoastie]

Nope, he was the CO at GRFTC (Gulf) I worked for Casey White then Mark Gordon.

[Sea_Spook]

I think that we need to be a little more particular when picking out who the sand peeps are.  There are those with no experience on cutters but lots on boats or stuck out on the various rocks that the Coast Guard used to have within their domain.

What gets my goat are those who try to hop from one administrative billet to another. Example would be a person who goes from a training center to a district office to a MLC to a training center to an area office and so forth. Zero operational experience under their belt. The only hazard to duty that these persons might incurr are paper cuts or repetative strain injury from playing on their work station 8 hours per day. 

Trouble is that when these cubicle sailors become extremely proficient at shifting paperwork, they become "valuable" to the paperwork Officer corps and usually receive a favorable command recommendation when transfer time comes around - thus they are able to avoid the operational Coast Guard.
 

Mark

Mark, unfortunately the CG has now provided a "career path" and even a "qualfication insignia" (that silly Boat Forces Pin) for some of these same cubicle warriors who don't want to go to sea, but "need" an "operational tour" to get promoted (largely refering to Officers here). In my District, the first person in our cutter's chain-of-command with a cutterman's insignia is the Chief of Staff. Totally UNSAT. 

And I bear no resentment against those who have not gone to sea due to the career path of their specialty. I do however have serious issues with those who accept "operational" billets that manage Cutter Forces and then arrogantly spout crap about things they have no first-hand knowledge of to those of us who aren't allergic to salt water. Examples of this include: trying to send patrol boats out into a 965MB low for non-SAR issues, micromanagement of/failure to trust the cutter Commanding Officers judgement regarding crew personnel/discipline issues, trying to assign "quotas" for # of boardings, etc.

[BuoyJumper]

Posted by: XShipRider  "It would seem we're shifting from a Maritime Service to a service with maritime traditions.  Sad."

Yeah, like Garret said, it is sad and I think it all started with Admiral Bender and his "Bender Blues" .  I am glad I got out before that change.  Nothing against today's Coasties, but I can't stand the CG uniforms now.  I think the late Admiral may have had some insight though.  I think he realized that the operational billet of the Coast Guard was changing from what had been our traditional responsibilites of AtoN, SAR, LORAN and lifeboat stations to a broader scope of responsibilities as an emergency response force, drug interdiction, treaty enforcement and law enforcement and felt that a uniform change was needed to reflect that.