Coast Guard - Good, Bad & Ugly?

[AtTheWall]

I have an advanced Telecommunications and Information Technology background. I sat and worked on a Unix computer in 1982 running a funny new INTEL CPU called the 8086 processor, during the beginning of the technology days

SATCOM
RF
HF
UHF
VHF

And radio teletype, sitor, amver, obs, marine broadcast radio, data streams via satcom - command and control plus all of the communications between all agencies military, state, federal and civilian

The US Coast Guard must be versant with DOD as well as all other facets of Communication because, we serve the PUBLIC here at home. So calling the PO PO, State, Governor, State Department, Customs, DEA, Navy, Air Force Army local NEWS TEAMS looking for maritime disaster news etc etc etc

I worked for the VICE PRESIDENTIAL COUNTER NARCOTICS TASK FORCE under President Reagan and VP Bush, 13 th floor Miami Federal building. I held a top secret for 14 years - all tied to the Medellin and Cali cartels

I worked cases with men in the witness protection program with FBI & DEA agents

I've moved cocaine by the tons some seized and others - setups and undercover sting operations in South Florida


I'm not your normal COAST GUARDSMAN

What I experienced, was a transitional period pre 9/11

EXAMPLE Since the US Coast Guard is so small, our advanced training then, was civilian not military based. The other military branches trained for war only and the missions of that only back then

We had a different role - Mother Nature and CARTELS = these were our two enemies and both, when you mix the world of living and working for weeks on end, at sea, with the challenges only that world can dishout


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They sent me to Modesto California, Swat and Police Academy training - take down - shoot for score - tactical shooting for score - all of the instructors cops, who survived getting shot and now are training us, in the way of tactical control of a ship, as we sweep and secure. I ate slept and trained all at a police academy, with Game Wardens and California cops and highway patrolmen all sharing barracks together.

I was selected as the first COMPUTER PERSON in 1991. They started a "proof of concept" which focused on a new world - a world of information technology, which was changing the world in the 1980s

So after my Miami Cartel drug enforcement stint, they asked me if I was interested in just working on computers and information technology systems. I had advanced training with years of experience working missions, that used these technologies and I became so good at what I did, word got out.

[MadHatter]

I sailed Alaska and the Bering Sea aboard USCGC Midgett - my first two years as a boot up to E3 / at sea sailor and Boatswains Mate watch captain.

I've sailed and steered ships thousand upon thousands of miles - Maine to South America - the entire Caribbean out to the West Indies and all the way west to Panama and Belize and the reefs of the western Caribbean. Alaska above the Arctic circle and down to South America and out the Aleutian Islands to Russia

I've pulled dead bodies out of the water

I've smelt rotting salt water soaked flesh, witnessed the pain of the families, felt the pain in my gut of hopelessness.....I've cried myself to sleep several times

I've watched people commit suicide jumping to their death off bridges as we waited

I've listened to ships sink, men cry, cuss and pray

I've pulled suicide bridge jumpers, off the Oakland Bay bridge with a California Highway patrolman taking order from me as I cover the jumper - he cuffed and hauled him in for eval - only to watch him jump a few weeks later, same spot and then 2 weeks later, recover the body on a mud flat miles away

I've talked to men, skippers and captains - as the last human voice ashore before the sea took them - GOD BLESS EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU

I've had my heart in my throat, held on for life for days in storms - storms that snapped 600ft ships in half with 26 Japanese fishermen/sailors/sons-fathers-brothers GONE = 180 NAUTICAL MILES NORTHWEST DUTCH HARBOR ALASKA

We rode that storm 5 days, set back 3 miles per hour backwards, as we held the ships bow into the 60-70ft seas with freak waves of 100 plus ever few hours.....we got shoved backwards for 3 days straight.

Port side Jet turbine engine - ripped out of it's engine mount and the starboard side main diesel engine supercharger destroyed

The Captain of this ship, ADMIRAL ROBERT E KRAMEK, went on to become the Commandant of the US Coast Guard. I worked for him on the Midget, in Miami chasing Pablo Escobar during the Miami Vice era and then as he served as the senior officer for the entire Guard.

I was at his retirement - he gave me a bear hug in front of a ton of politicians and brass - US Coast Guard Academy - He spotted me wearing my CWO uniform - he smiled and bum rushed thru the crowd on impulse

WE WILL NEVER FORGET THAT STORM

Before I ever knew any of this ^^, I figured you were a hell of a guy, based off your post.
I was right

[AtTheWall]

They asked me if I wanted to work in Corpus Christi (as I sat in the Federal building in Miami - Cartel with bounties on my head - ordered to not wear a uniform in public and to carry a gun for safety. In Florida, Active duty USCG members could in 1987 legally carry a concealed handgun - just like a Florida full time lawman off duty.

The reason - both Cartel clans (Pablo and the Rodriguez brothers) wanted us gone cause, we were on their *** around the clock offshore there, bahamas, pacific, atlantic and caribbean - we chased them around the clock for years

I agreed to do the REGIONAL SYSTEM MANAGER job - became the first dedicated billet slated to support Information Technology and Systems security in support of USCG Missions

I promoted to CWO - had 26 network engineers, computer contractors, GSA Employees and military personnel - my twilight tour, working with Microsoft engineers in Seattle. I got email with attachments running on Inmarsat servers from Navy ships at sea, email with attachments in 1987

I got Aids to Navigation tugs working the Mississippi river, up on email with attachments in 1991, using Motorola bag cell phones and unix servers

Everything I touched was gold because, this new IT World was at it's beginning, and we millions of dollars to budget with the open communication and IT plans, to talk to DOD as well as Local State Federal and Civil entities - all using all forms of communication which even then, included Morse Code and Semaphore

This opportunity blazed my career professionally putting me out on the street in January 2000

My first job, after retirement......a dot com. A job, that after I joined them, we got bought out by Charles Schwab for 600 million dollars.

[AtTheWall]

Out of an Officers uniform and into shorts, flip flops, and beer and pizza every Friday living and working in Austin with the freaks and hippies

Out of uniform and my new job title DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CHARLES SCHWAB CORPORATION

I'm not your normal military success story - my timing during my era - I knew what I had and I worked it out the door.

39 years old - 27 k coming in annually - time to find a new job


I'm still working - and manage a highly advanced business network, taking care of 6000 plus restaurants and food service entities - throughout the state of Texas

I have 39 years of advanced information and infosecurity experience

In the military - I worked Unix operating systems 14 years - system and security/network guru before we were forced to use Microsoft Windows NT in 1994

Washington DC has a new Coast Guard Museum under construction - I'm a supporting plank owner.

Being the first computer person in the Coast Guard, the old REGIONAL SYSTEM MANAGER program - the precursor to today's modern INTERNET CONNECTED agency.

It's not the same and the rates have changed. So having me provide a current view, of post 9/11 USCG = I am at a loss.

I've run into retired Coasties, who joined at my last few years and went on to retire under Obama or Trump. It's not even the same service to me anymore?

I'm still trying to figure out the changes

The missions are the same - more focus now on immigration, weapons and drug enforcement as related to here as well as intel and trade embargos, with US COAST GUARD PERSONNEL providing the embargo enforcement at sea, standing off these god forbidden reaches of the Indian Ocean and the **** sand box

[AtTheWall]

Here's an example of how different my time in the Guard was then, in comparison to now.

Both of these guys, are sitting with full auto M16s, there's a 30 cal machine gun somewhere behind them on the truck bed, with all the ammo.

We are sitting in a parking lot in front of our barracks. The guy in uniform, a Gunnersmate buddy of ours and we are helping him haul all these weapons to an armory, after we stopped at the State/Federal shooting range near Oakland California.

We piled up 3 wide in this government truck, we had M16s in the truck locked and loaded, with the rest of the automatic guns and ammo, in the bed of the truck.


We drove that setup from Yerba Buena Island, out of the freeways around San Francisco and Oakland, stop and go traffic, loaded with automatic weapons and ammo - open and exposed - on the truck bed

I shot so many years - out of boredom - You can spray full autos around like a garden hose - and you get real good out of SPRAY AND PRAY when ammo is no object

[AtTheWall]

Rolling around with military grade automatic weapons, in an open bed pickup truck with GSA PLATES

One in uniform and the other two, civilian clothes.

In today's military - OH HELLS NO


Back then, you have a key, you have custody, then it's your arse if you screw things up

And they turned us loose - the toys we had access to - UNREAL

I got free shotgun shells, issued each month, duck and goose loads, from my Coast Guard Command on the Eastern Shore. They did this for morale - winters up there are cold and brutal but the duck and goose hunting, off the chart. So shells kept us out chasing birds instead of sitting at some miserable bar, with the watermen who are land locked due to bad weather

[AtTheWall]

3,000 Lbs of Pablo Escobars finest, onboard USS SOUTH CAROLINA off the coast of Columbia 1980s era

This was a DEA/FBI & WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM the "buying SMUGGLER DUDE" operation. Ran 10,000 lbs after buy up to Puerto Rico and over to the US to target the buyer with the dough, to afford two tons of un-cut blow

A very wealthy American Businessman, who was there with us, fronted the money to buy the blow in this photo. Then we couldn't spend US Tax payer money to buy blow, to setup American sting operations in Miami but, this Jimmy Buffet kinda business guy told me, he was filthy rich, life was kinda boring and he was doing his part, patriot - funding the drug ops, and his agreement to funding was, he had to be part of the mission. So basically he's buying his excitement and helping his government out, at the same time.

In today's USCG, this would be literally unheard of now.

Then - this was a new game, the drug war. No one knew anything and everything was on the table.

And everything we did, was the first time the US Government ever fought drug cartels

So we blazed the new beginning - and the edges were all rough and protocol and procedures, tossed out the window once you cleared the beach and get deep into country down south

No one had been here before - we were blazing new trail and leveraging, the advanced technologies of that time - the war - DRUG WAR with the most vicious drug smuggler to date then - PABLO and his cocaine cowboys

1988-89 - Another day at the offshore office - deep in bad player country

Im standing left Petty Officer First Class and right, the Mayport Florida Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment Executive Petty Officer First class, of his L/E group homeported in Mayport FL.

After some Navy Officer snapped this photo from the ship, we hauled and stored it right next to the Ship's nuclear SM1 missiles in the missile storage and battery compartment.

I could not snap pictures of nuclear missiles and cocaine - both cozy together inside this compartment but if I could - no one on the planet can say they have a photo with 2 tons of Pablo Escobar's BEST COCAINE and the US NAVY - NUCLEAR WARHEAD all framed, in the same picture

THAT IMAGE - I STILL SEE THAT UNREAL SCENE - 27 YEARS OLD - JUST ANOTHER NORMAL DAY AT WORK

[AtTheWall]

This is me, running the 25ft motor surfboat into Dutch Harbor Alaska. My ship, USCGC Midgett, is riding the hook in the harbor.

This was the day, before we were directed to go at best speed to save the Japanese Factory fishing ship - which snapped in half in that Bering Sea storm.

I lived in arctic wetsuits working up there - boarding and running small boats around the clock, the old USSR fishing ships all in our waters, as well as killing baby seals on the ice flows near Nome and the Arctic Circle.

We chased some Russian seal hunters back into Siberia one week - this was during that period were the world outlawed killing baby seals and started to rope in the whale fisheries as well with quotas and control

1980s

[AtTheWall]

Running intercept on a Soviet spy ship - off Santa Cruz headed south to Los Angeles

We setup a passive listening array, scanning all frequencies radiating from them and recording all of it

This had us doing sort and filter work for the DOD and the war machine that world deals with

[AtTheWall]

This is a Polish Commercial Stern Trawler (USSR CONTROLLED POLAND)

The 25ft motor surfboat with us, about to board this Polish ship, is visible (white) center

The freezer spaces inside these ships, 20 below zero

And we would go inside these spaces and count and sort fish for hours and hours to points, the wetsuits would shatter ice periodically and our face and all hair white with icicles

The boat ride over got us wet, then inside these massive freezer spaces to have all of that ice up and shatter, as you moved around in a very expensive arctic wetsuit

We boarded ships around the clock. I've slept on a steel deck for hours, waiting for pickup and drop off.

FISHERIES LAW ENFORCEMENT - We had a National Marine Fisheries (Fish Cop) onboard, who knew the species of Alaska, and the laws there of, like the back of his hand.

The fisheries up there, lets just say any of us living in the lower 48 - literally zero experience with the sealife up there. So he was our guru and we worked together.

I saved his ARSE one afternoon, he panicked coming down the ladder in heavy seas, let go and fell about 15 ft down and I caught him, on the bow of the surfboat. He cracked my helmet but we both survived it and went on the board another ship a few hours later.

He swore up and down I saved his life - I swore up and down he tried to take my life

[AtTheWall]

Captain Robert E. Kramek Commanding Officer USCGC Midgett - Long Beach California here on the port bridge wing.



Commandant US Coast Guard here

[AtTheWall]

Good - It's a full mission service with enough mission diversity, to not do the same job and the MISSION, just like the fire department and or police department, they have jobs to do and training for war, around the clock, is not part of the main goal.

The Navy, if you aren't fighting an enemy, you are playing war with fellow Navy personnel and training with foreign Navy's

TRAINING - FOR WAR HMMMMMMMMM



I would prefer to have a real mission to a local community, wear a uniform to serve that community, and worry and engage war, if and when that time comes.

In the meantime, there's work on the water everyday

SAFETY SAFETY SAFETY - NUMBER ONE JOB

And getting up with a cup of coffee, hearing a marine diesel idle and smelling that fresh salt air - clutch the boat in, slip the lines and leave the dock, the station, the command and your boss back on the beach.

Out there - you are the ONSCENE COMMANDER - Fines up to 5 million bucks - need firepower - full auto firepower if it's needed non of that semi auto stuff - real military issue grade weapons.

If you hunt, fish, surf, hike, explore - OUTDOOR ANYTHING.........pick a place in the USA and go serve there. See it, live it, grow experiences beyond the scope of just here at home in the Lone Star State - have them pay you to see, live, experience and share with new friends and communities.


This is why I loved it. I don't sit well and love to be challenged. The USCG met those needs for me.

EMT, COP, FIREHOUSE, PARK RANGER, GAME WARDEN, MARINE ENGINEER, MARINE CONSTRUCTION, ADVANCED ELECTRONICS - COMMUNICATIONS AND NAVIGATION SYSTEMS

These are the hats, with dozens more........all missions, that meet any coastal communities needs, the US COAST GUARD has a Station there, with men/women and resources. Many rural coastal regions of the USA coastline, the Coast Guard Station is the communities center piece. Even some of these small town Police Departments have little clout in comparison because, the US Coast Guard is funded and outfitted with the right gear and tools to do these missions ,these other agencies have no money nor resources and or training to run and use maritime equipment - which is not cheap.

That's what the US Coast Guard provides - every 50 - 160 miles away, is another Coast Guard small boat station, along the coastline.

From Seattle Washington to Bangor Maine - we have eyes, ears and radio wave coverage of the coastal maritime zones, quietly sitting and serving in coastal communities.

They have been in these communities - some - since 1800

One of the longest standing sea going military service branches here in the USA yet - very little is known of them and their missions

THIS IS BY DESIGN - 25,000 people total (or there abouts) - the entire staff of the US Coast Guard

Lets just say, flying under the radar, has served the USCG Well

And I hope she stays small, very hard to join with a ton of expectations on each recruit, to achieve greatness.

Greatness to serve these communities, greatness to stand behind the others, below the radar, not needing service and or mission purpose and or justification, the missions are always defined and needed


SAVING LIVES AT ANY COST

NOT TAKING THEM - BUT SAVING THEM - FIGHTING THE STRONGEST ENTITY ON EARTH TO DO SO - MOTHER NATURE

Yeah - we ain't combat warriors - no - but we don't get seasick - and that in itself, is more than anything anyone could ever hope for, when crap has hit the fan, steel bends buckles and snaps, winds so strong - over 100 knots and seas so bad, helplessness for days or more, as SHE PUMMELS ALL WITH THEM CRYING FOR HELP AND US TRYING LIKE HELL TO GET TO THEM BEFORE GETTING OURSELVES KILLED


It's a different mindset - it's one of trust, hope and faith with the man above and the hell your are working in - TO SAVE SOMEONE ELSE AT ALL COST

To be a Coastie, you have to be sure of one's faith to work out there, when SHE'S ON and pray, you never get seasick

I don't get seasick, never gotten seasick, and for this, I worked to cover my shipmates who were so sick, they survived on IVs and fluids, too weak to even get out of bed and hit the toilet. We tied them into the bunk and put them on the watch rotation with someone keeping them alive while the rest of us fought the storm as the ship tried to tear herself apart

[AtTheWall]

And I do mean SEASICK

To points, you break arms, legs, and worst case, you get tossed over the side in seas so bad, turning the boat around will swamp the ship and kill everyone aboard.

Not all Coasties experience these things - only a handful today.

Back then, we seemed to be more into everything because then, anyone out of fuel and or broke down we had to tow them in. 12ft dingy all the way up to ships - we had to cover and tow

Folks started to take advantage of that, and the Coast Guard was using up all of it's operational monies towing in boats with zero life safety issues.

Now it's call a commercial salvage group like SEATOW

Back then, SEATOW was the US COAST GUARD

So I'm out of touch with today's guard but.........some of the things I mention here, with hours and hours of info left to share......

ALL GOOD, NO BAD since I honestly think, the US Coast Guard's missions alone, should be enough to motivate to keep those who serve others, as the forefront of your entire PURPOSE TO WEAR THAT UNIFORM IN THE FIRST PLACE

[AtTheWall]

60,000 shaft horsepower - pair of PRATT/WHITNEY turbine engines

Pair of FAIRBANKS/MORSE supercharged diesel engines as well

4 engines total

TURBINE - 38 MPH
DIESEL - 27 MPH

Diesel - 12 knots = 1.5 months before refuel
Turbine - 38 MPH = 1 week - bone dry fuel tank

JP5 diesel - fuel for turbine, diesel and the HH3 Helicopters (all used the same grade diesel)

378ft long
40ft wide
24ft draft
111ft forward main mast tallest point
70ft Pilot house bridge windows - above the ocean floor
150 men

A lot of folks hate living and working on a ship. These same folks, stand a watch then find other things to do to pass the time.

I would hook up with someone that had skills, electronics, telecommunications, weapons, weapons-fire control systems etc

I would go and hang out in their shops, after work hours, and we had equipment, tools, theory of how these systems worked etc etc etc

I would learn navigation, celestial navigation, engineering, deckmanship - everything I could absorb.

The crew, each and everyone has specific duties and responsibilities aboard. Keeping the ship running, gear going, and outfitted, even if it wasn't my job or duty, I learned by watching and asking others, the things they liked about their jobs and or the challenges within.

This gave me free reign to go to every department on the ship, to learn something different, and keep myself mentally preoccupied.

I'm a NON FICTION kinda person - so parking my butt and reading westerns and or watching VHS taped movie reruns, boring.

Down in sonar, up in combat or out on the bridge with the navigators, engineering watches and spaces, pumps, motors fuel systems and then firefighting and patching holes and saving a sinking ship.

Skills - I wanted to know as much as I could of everything - and I started to get there to points, they picked me to ride these darn Navy ships and chase drug smugglers. I knew a bunch about shipboard systems and once I got on the various Navy ships, I then mosied around with some of the crew, and studied how they did things

To this day, there are many in the US Navy who think I'm a CIA operative wearing a USCG Uniform as cover - THE OLD MIAMI DAYS

[AtTheWall]

My ex Brother In Law - was in the USCG with me - got out and worked for the CIA for about 15 years or so.

They tried to recruit me, thru him, in the late 80s and 90s

So glad I told them to PACK IT!