After many years of struggling by on crap jobs and being bored out of my mind, I decided that maybe I should look into the Coast Guard. It’s something I looked into briefly a few years ago. Now though I think I really want to join up. I like boats and being on the water(and the bigger the waves the more fun it is), I have many many years of boating experience on Lake Michigan.
What I really want to know is what can I expect once I get to boot and onwards. I want to go active duty and hopefully end up stationed somewhere thats not Michigan ( with my luck I would end up back in my old town).
So any stories, advice or tips would be much appreciated.
Replace the words “Coast Guard” with the word “Army”, and I am in the exact same position as you. Michigan too. I’ll be watching this thread closely for the applicable feedback.
I’m sure Scruloose will be along soon. He’s a CPO in the guard and can fill you in on anything you want to know.
I’m retired Navy, but I would recommend the Guard. It’s a great service and you could do a lot worse than a military career.
Well let’s see, I live right next to the United States Coast Guard Academy located in New London, Connecticut. If you look at the picture, I live in the upper right corner of the pic, near the horizon…yep, thats Long Island sound right there. The CGA is on the Thames River. It is a beautiful campus, and has, over the years hosted several POTUS events and is counted as one of the most elite colleges to get into…If I can call it that. I hear it is more difficult than Yale to get into, but that is just heresay.
I’m not sure if one just enlists or applys to the CGA, I do not know. But either way good on you you will learn a lot. I’m sure you have been all over the website I linked to…theyhave all the pertinent info.
I was in the Navy for five years, during which I was always busy. The Coast Guard is typically busier.
You can also usually see more quickly the fruits of your labor, which isn’t a small thing. Keeping readiness up is important, but isn’t tangible to a young sailor. Rescuing a person or capturing a drug shipment is pretty tangible, and is something to be proud of.
As my uncle told me, “They don’t tell you which coast you’ll be guarding”. He was in the coast guard during WWII and piloted landing craft during 7 major landings in the Pacific. Just so you go into it with your eyes wide open I hope you know that there are are overseas positions in the CG, particularly in port security. I’m not trying to talk you out of anything, after all I just passed my 18 year mark in the army. On my last deployment I dealt with some CG guys and it seems like a good gig.
My father, younger brother and best friend all were Coasties. Dad had a wide variety of jobs, all in the Pacific, circa early 1950s. Brother was stationed all over the world. He was assigned to the TACLET – I’m not sure what that stands for, but I was at his house one day a couple of years after he got out of the CG, and he received a package – it was a medal from Montenegro. All he said was, “Hmm. Nasty business, that.” He tossed the medal into a drawer with a bunch of others. I do know he injured his back rappelling onto an oil tanker leaving Iraq shortly after the Gulf War. My best friend, on the other hand, spent 20 years on LORAN stations before they were almost all decommissioned with the advent of GPS. All Coasties I’ve ever known were fiercely proud of their service and of the Coast Guard.
One very nice perk that the CG has to offer, is that not only will you be stationed by water, for the most part, you’ll be in larger cities in the US. (Not like some of the “garden spots” the other branches of the service have to offer.)
Coast Guard is a great service. I almost always recommend CG or Air Force despite being Navy. There are a few exceptions where Navy is better, but it sounds like CG is a great choice for you.
Captain_C, why army? This is not snark but a serious question. Why are you joining the military? It is possible that one of the other services is better suited to what you want out of life and the skills you want to learn.
Hi MAS*H City Rockers. Great username, btw. As A.R. Cane pointed out, I’m in the CG now, and I’ve been active duty enlisted for 16 years now, so I can answer most of the questions you may have about the CG. For starters, you must know that despite the differences between the CG and the DOD services, we still are a military service and must be available for worldwide deployment. We have cutters that will deploy for up to six months. We have folks in the Persian Gulf and in Iraq (all volunteers, FWIW). We still transfer our personnel every two to four years or so, and sometimes life for the most junior enlisted isn’t all that they see on Baywatch or in The Guardian. You may join wanting to drive motor life boats in the surf, and end up spending your first few years scraping buoys in Guam. As with anything else in life, you get out of it what you put into it. And if you keep your eye on the prize, you’ll eventually realize your goals.
If you enlist, you will go to boot camp in Cape May, NJ, which is eight weeks long. I’m not sure how they determine your first assignment; when I went through, you chose from available assignments based on class ranking. They no longer do this. I believe you’ll fill out ‘dream sheet’ - a listing of units to which you’d like to be assigned. If you want to go to a specific type of unit, say a patrol boat, you’d put that down. If you want to go to any unit in Alaska, you’d put that down. You can be as specific or as vague as you want to be. A word to the wise: Get on a cutter straight out of boot camp. If you do decide to enlist, and you remember nothing else in life, remember that! Trust me, it pays dividends in many ways.
As to what life will be like after that, it’s really hard to say. You could end up doing one of a million different things that non-rated personnel do. Anywhere from scraping buoys and waxing decks to chasing drug runners to patrolling the Persian Gulf to breaking ice in the Arctic to doing SAR… the list is endless.
If you want to drive boats, you may want to become a Boatswain’s Mate (BM), such as yours truly. You mentioned that you like waves. If so, you could become a surfman. You have to really like waves to that job. They are the best boat drivers in the world, and they operate in some of the nastiest waters found on the planet - the Pacific Northwest. I’ll link to a video and website below that shows a bit more of what they do. They drive boats through 20’ breaking seas. And those crazy bastards seem to like it. The surfmen are all Boatswain’s Mates. BMs can be found at almost every type of unit in the CG. They are the boat drivers, they do most of the law enforcement, they do most of the exterior maintenance on boats and cutters, they do the navigating (we no longer have Quartermasters - shame), and they do just about everything else but fly in helos and planes.
Here’s a surf training video from Station Coos Bay:
Here’s a decent montage video of various CG activities. It has a pretty decent shot of a motor lifeboat ‘knockdown’. Those boats will re-right themselves if they roll over:
If you call 1-800-get-uscg, you will be automatically directed to the nearest recruiter if you have any specific questions. Also, please feel free to ask me, here or e-mail.
You would apply to the Academy like any other service academy. One big difference between the CGA and West Point, Annapolis, or the AF Academy is that no Congressional recommendation is required for the CGA. All students get in solely on their own merits. I’ve been to a few ‘C’ schools there; that is a beautiful campus.
Here’s a poem for your uncle:
* I’D LIKE TO FIND THE GUY THAT NAMED THE COAST GUARD
I’d like to find the guy that named the Coast Guard
And find that bit of coast he had in mind
I wonder if he’s telling where invasion barges roar
the coast that we were shelling on a South Pacific shore
Wherever troops invade, we’re there to land 'em
With LCI’s and LST’S Galore
With the shot and shell are raining
Won’t somebody start explainig
Oh, I’d like to find the guy that named the Coast Guard
I’d like to find the guy that named the Coast Guard
And find that bit of coast he had in mind
What ever he was thinking is a thing that puzzles me
When submarines I’m sinking to the bottom of the sea
And when I’m dodging enemy torpedoes
Or landing troops upon a foreign shore
Then I have a salty yearning, while my hands my gun is burning
Oh, I’d like to find the guy that named the Coast Guard
I’d like to find the guy that named the Coast Guard
And find that bit of coast he had in mind
It wasn’t on the tanker we’d protect from submarines
The coast at Casablanca wasn’t soft by any means
I couldn’t find it on the beach at Attu
I couldn’t find it at Guadalcanal
If he thinks the name will rate it
Where the hell can I locate it?
Oh, I’d like to find the guy who named the Coast Guard
I’d like to find the guy that named the Coast Guard
And find that bit of coast he had in mind
I spent my time in sneezin’ in the in the Greenland icy night
And while my knees are freezing there’s not a coast in sight
No gals, no grub, no place to scrub each morning
Just icy flows and Eskimos and Seals
From my ears the ice is falling while my weary voice is calling
OH, I’D LIKE TO FIND THE GUY THAT NAMED THE COAST GUARD*
I love that poem.
TACtical Law Enforcement Team. They specialize in maritime law enforcement. They go around and train other units, do special LE ops, and provide the LEDETs (Law Enforcement Detachments) that ride around on Navy ships. The LEDETs will usually do counter-drug boardings, embargo enforcements, and migrant interdiction ops.
Actually, we still have those stations believe it or not. It seems that commercial fisherman are still pretty dependent on that LORAN signal, so we still have the signals beeping. Those isolated LORAN stations can be very difficult duty - especially up in the Arctic circle. Depression and drinking can wreak havoc on those not prepared for that much isolation.
I was cruising the NMLB website linked above and found some good videos of surf training and MLB knockdowns. Knockdowns are not that uncommon, but they are unplanned and dangerous. Rollovers are rare, and I have yet to find a video of one. Anyway, the vids:
Back in 1970 I spent about a year at a small NAVFAC at Coos Head, Or. We had a small Chief’s Club and the local CG Chiefs were members. There was this old CG Master Chief who was about to retire on 30 years. He had skippered surf boats and had appeared in several episode of the old “Lassie” TV series. I believe he actually did a 360 roll in one episode. Supposedly it wasn’t planned, or approved, but he claimed (officially) that the boat got caught in a bad position and he had no choice. With a wink, it was also said that the director of the filming had wanted a roll for the episode, but the CG brass vetoed the idea. I wasn’t witness to any of this, but I heard the story more than once. I can’t recall the Master Chief’s name now, but I might remember it if I heard it.
It wasn’t BMCM Tom McAdams, was it? He retired in '77, but he’s something of a legend within the community.
They don’t make guys like him anymore.
He had 9 rollovers on the old 44’ MLB. If the CG was going to put an expert surfman in a TV show or movie, they probably would have thought of McAdams. But I imagine there were a few salty Master Chiefs (or any surfmen, for that matter) during that time that would have rolled a 44’ on purpose. Rollover coxswains wear such an event as a badge of honor.
To be completely blunt: I hate my life. I went through the motions of college, got my bachelors degree, and thought I’d be fine. Now I can’t find anything better than $9/hr (Lansing, Michigan fyi) part time, no health benefits.
I want to get a masters degree. I want health insurance. I want to be forced to be physically fit (I don’t have the ambition by myself). I want to be a part of something greater than myself. I want to not have to live paycheck to paycheck never getting ahead. I want to get the heck out of here for at least 6 months, but not forever, as I am in a serious relationship that I want to be able to come back to. I need to be done in 6 years, as that is the time my SO and I feel she will be ready to have kids career wise, and it is my personal belief that parents shouldn’t be in the military.
Army reserve, as far as I can tell, fulfills all of these. I’ll know more after my meeting tomorrow.
Army reserve is a good one for “forced to be physically fit” so good start.
Are they promising you enough money to get your Master’s? Is so go for it, you have already answered your own question as long as you are willing to possibly serve in Iraq, Afghanistan or maybe even (god I hope not) Iran.
I did not realize you already had a degree. A lot of 18-20 years olds are looking for tech skills and the Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard are usually better than the Army for those. You sound like you have probably done your homework already. Just be sured you already asked and answered the question of possibly being in the field in the Middle East.
