After the Revolutionary War, the Continental Navy was disbanded. From 1790 until 1798, when the United States Navy was established, the Treasury Department's Revenue Marine Division cutters were the nation's only maritime force. Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, had persuaded the new Congress to create a Revenue Marine to combat piracy and stop smuggling into the original thirteen states. It was urgent that the tariff laws be enforced. Duties on imports were then the principal revenue for the new country. The law that later established the navy also empowered the president to use the revenue cutters to supplement the naval fleet when needed in time of war. In 1863 the name of the organization was changed to Revenue Cutter Service and in 1915 to Coast Guard.
Since 1790 the Coast Guard has grown from the first tiny fleet often revenue cutters to a large force of helicopters, airplanes, and ships. Its members have fought in most of the wars and have rescued thousands of women, men, and children. They have saved billions of dollars worth of property from destruction by floods and shipwrecks. They began as a few hardy sailors who manned those first ten ships cruising along the Atlantic coastal waters.
Now the service has expanded its activities within the United States and around most of the world.
Its work is often dangerous and the risks are great. The women and men who join the Coast Guard make a serious commitment. This is evident by the motto: "You have to go out, but you don't have to come back."
This is the mission of recruit training:
The mission of the Coast Guard Recruit Training Center is to train young men and women to be always ready to serve in the sky and at sea, with courage, alertness, and devotion, eager to learn the skills and traditions of the United States Coast Guard in the service of their country and humanity.
COAST GUARD ACTIVITIES
As the principal organization for protecting life and property at sea as well as enforcing our maritime laws, the Coast Guard has a broad range of interesting responsibilities. Let's see what was going on in the service recently during a typical day in May.
A Canadian tightrope walker attempted to walk a 2,670-foot cable some 200 feet above the Mississippi River near New Orleans. High winds caused him to lose control. His seventy-pound balancing pole fell to the water and he clung to the cable until a Coast Guard boat came to his rescue.
Meanwhile, further up the river Captain Dobrin was steering his cutter Obion along a three-hundred-mile stretch between St. Louis and Davenport, Iowa. Four other Coast Guard vessels were sailing elsewhere on the river. They dropped anchor from time to time. Then their crews could change light bulbs in light towers, inspect bridges, retrieve missing buoys torn from their moorings, and clear brush from around navigation lights on the shore. The crews' workday starts at six in the morning and ends at dark unless there is a midnight oil spill or a predawn rescue to keep them from their bunks.
Up at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, 164 newly commissioned officers who had just finished their four-year college training were tossing their hats up in the air. This concluded their graduation ceremony, which featured an address by then Vice-President Bush. One of the graduates, Helen Louise Holtzman, had special reason for being proud. When she arrived at the ceremony, three members of her family were watching: her grandfather, George W. Holtzman, a retired Coast Guard captain, class of 1933; her father, Captain Edward B. Holtzman, class of 1957; and her sister, Lieutenant Virginia K. Holtzman, class of 1981. The ceremony was special for another reason: Angela Dennis and Daphne Reese became the first black women to graduate from the Academy, just three years after the first white woman received her commission.
As the new officers were flinging their hats up above them, a cutter was patrolling in the general region of the Newfoundland Grand Banks. It was looking for icebergs and ice fields. Ice observation starts in February and ends in July. From April until July the area, about the size of Pennsylvania, is blanketed by dangerous fog. It is created by the confluence of the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current. However, not a single ship has been lost to ice in this patrolled area since 1,500 persons perished when the Titanic was struck and sunk by an iceberg in 1912. Icebreaking is another responsibility of the Coast Guard. Its ships work the Arctic as well as the Great Lakes and adjacent rivers.
Far to the south outside Miami, another cutter hove to a ship that it had stopped. The captain suspected that this was another attempt to smuggle drugs into the country from South America. Back in New London Vice-President Bush was commenting on this very activity of the service, which he felt showed great "professionalism and courage." He told the graduates: "Drug smuggling is a multibillion dollar business. Some of these smugglers equip what amounts to private armies to protect their investments." Smugglers often decide to fight it out rather than surrender, he added, and many have equipped their ships with more guns than the Coast Guard cutters carry.
Elsewhere the Alaskan patrol was on duty, helping protect the fisheries by enforcing provisions of the 200-mile offshore fish conservation act. In several large harbors other members of the service were working to keep the waterfront safe by controlling pollution, dangerous cargoes, and traffic.
Later in this chapter, we shall see the Coast Guard in action in Newport, Oregon. This "search and rescue" responsibility dates back to 1831, when the secretary of the treasury directed the revenue cutter Gallatin to cruise the coast in search of persons in distress. This was the first time a government agency was specifically charged with searching for those who might be in danger. The records of the lifesaving crews are crowded with remarkable rescues. The following are examples.
The schooners Robert Wallace and David Wallace were wrecked at Marquette, Michigan, on November 18, 1886. The Ship Canal Station crew traveled 110 miles by special train and rescued the ships' crews.
In three days' work on the Delaware coast, September 10-12, 1889, the lifesaving crews at Lewes, Henlopen, and Rehoboth Beach stations assisted 22 vessels and rescued 39 persons by boat and 155 by breeches buoy without losing a single life.
The British schooner H.R Kirkham was wrecked on Rose and Crown Shoal on January 2, 1892. The crew of seven was rescued after fifteen hours of exposure, but the lifesaving crew was at sea in an open boat without food for twenty-three hours.
More recently, in October 1980, the Dutch cruise ship Prinsendam was jarred by explosions after a fire started in the engine room. In spite of rough seas and strong winds, four Coast Guard, one air force, and two Canadian helicopters plucked more than 500 shipwrecked survivors from crowded lifeboats in the cold Alaskan Gulf. Many of the survivors, mostly senior citizens, were lifted in rescue blankets to the awaiting Coast Guard cutter Boutwell and a nearby commercial tanker. Not one life was lost; the Prinsendam sank seven days later.
The surfboat was the primary rescue vehicle from 1848 until the development of the helicopter following World War II. Today it is possible to save many more lives. This is thanks to the ability of the helicopter to reach vessels in distress quickly and perform rescue work. Thus this aircraft has emerged as a primary rescue tool.
Returning to our accounting of what was happening on that May day, in various ports safety officers were boarding and inspecting United States flag merchant vessels and some foreign vessels. They checked cargo stowage, the seaworthiness of the ships, their pollution abatement, material safety, and whether safety standards were being observed. Other personnel were investigating violations, marine accidents, and cases of misconduct or negligence on the part of sailors or ships' officers. Some were testing, licensing, and certifying merchant marine personnel and other vessel operating personnel. Lack of space prevents mentioning all the other Coast Guard activities. Read on and see where you might fit into this organization. In an enlisted career? As a commissioned officer?
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENLISTEES
You can sign up for the Coast Guard now and wait up to six months to join. You may wait for a year if you are in school. The advantage of doing this is that the time between the day you sign up and the day you report for duty counts toward your seniority for pay.
Recruit Training
An unusual feature of this service is its buddy plan. This is for you and a friend (of the same sex). It guarantees that you can go through boot camp (basic training) together. This entails eight tough weeks at Cape May, New Jersey, or Alameda, California (women attend only Cape May). It consists of rigorous physical training and practical classroom work. It also includes orientation about Coast Guard history, its mission, and the basics of seaman-ship. Boot camp exposes you to discipline to help you better handle responsibility. It teaches what you have to do and then makes sure you're able to do it efficiently as part of a team. Lives and property are going to depend on how well you learn the necessary and basic skills during these two months.
Boot camp is not all classes and calisthenics, however. There is still enough free time to make new friends, write letters, enjoy three meals a day, and get plenty of sleep. There are recreational facilities, gymnasiums for basketball and volleyball, and, naturally, swimming pools. Once those eight weeks are over, you can expect about ten days of leave so you can go home.
Seaman recruits receive pay according to the E-l classification; those recruits with dependents receive an additional allowance for housing and may send money home at regular intervals. After graduation, pay jumps to the next level in the pay scale.
Boot camp is over. When you report back for duty, you have two choices. You can request either an on-the-job assignment or admission to Coast Guard school for specialized training.
If you choose the former, the work route, you could find yourself stationed in New Orleans, New York, Seattle, or one of many other locations. You might be providing navigational aids to ore carriers, grain barges, or oceangoing container ships. You might be enforcing boating safety regulations off the Florida coast. Then you could be part of a search and rescue team on the Pacific coast. There you would soon be answering calls for help from capsized sailboats or stricken large merchant ships. You might be a crewman on an ice breaker in the Great Lakes or you may be enforcing the 200-mile offshore fish conservation act. You might even end up fighting pollution and protecting the environment from chemical, oil, or sewage spills. You may designate your choice while in boot camp. While the Coast Guard will do its best to honor your wishes, it cannot guarantee to do so.
One advantage of choosing a work-and-learn program is that it gives you a chance to obtain a more general knowledge of what the Coast Guard does. Then you may decide which would be the right course of study for you. Alternatively, if you prefer, you can "strike" or study and work toward achieving a petty officer status by performing your on-the-job duties, completing correspondence courses in your chosen specialty, and passing a written examination. Once you achieve petty officer status, advancement is based on a service-wide system of competition where each officer competes with her or his peers for available positions. Promotions depend on your initiative and skill, so it is really up to you.
COAST GUARD PROMOTION REQUIREMENTS
To seaman recruit (E-2) upon completion of basic training.
To seaman or firearm (E-3) based on adequate time in grade (six months), demonstration of military and professional qualifications, recommendation by commanding officer and completion of correspondence courses.
To petty officer ratings (E-4 through E-9) must pass the coast guard-wide competitive examination for the rating, complete service schooling, or progress through on-the-job training.
