With 22 days to go until my Coast Guard Retirement, today, my 20 Years a Coastie post hits on how Miami was the quintessential Coast Guard unit, namely because it conducted nearly all the Missions equally. For those of you not in the Guard, or for those who are, but need to brush up on your Servicewide Studying, the 11 Missions of the Coast Guard are: * Ports, waterways, and coastal security * Drug interdiction * Aids to navigation * Search and rescue * Living marine resources * Marine safety * Defense readiness * Migrant interdiction * Marine environmental protection * Ice operations * Other law enforcement Every unit out there, to an extent, conducts operations towards almost all of these. But during the past 20 years, in my time at units from Seattle to New Jersey to along the Gulf Coast, I found most specialize in some Missions more than the others. My first unit, the CGC Polar Sea, spent alot more time on Ice Operations than we did on Defense Readiness, and in New Jersey, it was more about Marine Safety. Air Station New Orleans is Search and Rescue central. Houston, with its oil industry, had a huge Ports and Waterways mission, as well as Other LE (due in part to post 9-11, and part due to Present Bush spending time in nearby Crawford, TX). Aviation Training Center Mobile is special, as our mission is to produce mission ready aircrews and develop aviation capabilities, so we filter into several of those above. But Air Station Miami, where I was stationed from 2005-2009, had everything pretty well spread across the board. We even conducted Ice Operations, although they were limited to the mojitos on South Beach. We did plenty of Marine Safety, Port Security, ATON, and all the others. It really was the best unit to give an all around experience of the variety of the Coast Guards jobs. But that said, there is one mission that, while I did to the best of my ability, I never enjoyed like the other ones. Migrant Interdiction. While saving lives on a SAR Case or running down a Drug Boat is an awesome experience, being the person who spots the Haitian yola or Cuban raft making a run for the Florida coast is not nearly as enjoyable. I always had, and still have, mixed feelings about every time I was on a Helo that was the Line in the Sand and was part of the team who stopped people looking to escape whatever life they were leaving behind. And I know that it is an essential mission, one that has to be done for the safety of our nation so we know just WHO is coming across our boarders, and ensuring they are doing it legally. But at the end of the day, when you watch the heartbreak and despair come over families as they are turned back and repatriated to their homeland, the Line in the Sand can look a little blurry. And anyone who has flown the Haitian coastline along the Northern Claw will tell you, what they have to go back to is something that you can understand the drive to escape. Like every job out there, some parts just suck. So you do it, and you move on with something good, particularly when you have a bad case. For me, one of the things I used to do was spend part of the flight home from an Interdiction working on my poem, A SAR Case in the Making, that I posted a few weeks back on Day 50. It was a good reminder to myself that the Pros of this job far outweigh the Cons. It was also a great reminder that, regardless of the moral, legal, ethical, or humanitarian sides of Migrant Interdiction, crossing the sea in an unworthy craft is dangerous, and if what we did kept just one overloaded vessel from capsizing, it was worth it. One time in particular, after Interdicting a vessel loaded down with at least 60 men, women, and children seeking their own American Dream, we were flying back to GITMO for the night, as the Cutter now did not have room for us. We were all feeling that odd mix of emotions that anyone with a conscious feels after that kind of mission. And as we flew in silence to the West, each wrapped in our own thoughts, there was an amazing sunset. The kind that can clear away all these negative things you are carrying around, and give you a sense that, while today sucked, its over, and tomorrow will be much better. Once it struck below the horizon, I said to the Pilot, Man, that was nice. Lets do it again. And his response was to climb in altitude until the sun peeked back up, and we were able to watch it dip down for a second time.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 05:21:28 +0000
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