That seems…dismissive.
There are several riveting chapters in James Michener’s novel, Alaska, that covers one of the first coast guard ships, the revenue cutter *Bear *commanded by Captain Michael Healy as he chased rum smugglers in the Bering Sea in 1886. I have always thought that would make a rip-roaring film. And Healy was half black as well.
I work for the Coast Guard as a contractor. I think a lot of the reasons have been covered upthread. For one, the USCG is tiny compared to the other services. I’ve heard it said around here with regularity that the entire Coast Guard is smaller than the NYPD. I’m pretty sure that just about everyone has met several people that are in, or have been, in each of the other four uniformed services. How many people do you know who are in or have been in the Coast Guard? At least for me, I think I’ve met one person I wouldn’t have otherwise met from work.
Second, the job of the Coast Guard is fundamentally different from the other services. Yes, the Coast Guard participates in armed conflicts, for instance, there are Coast Guard Cutters in the Gulf and Indian Ocean, but in times of war they fall under the command of the Navy, and any interesting fiction around naval warfare would, inevitably, fall on the Navy. What the Coast Guard does, they do very well, but it’s fairly routine. Even what could be dressed up to be exciting, like drug busts, probably couldn’t drive a whole plot by itself and you’d need the police, DEA, or whatever else in there as well. The Guardian was an excellent movie about the Coast Guard, but there just aren’t that many of those kinds of stories out there. Look at some of their biggest recent success stories in the public eye, like Hurricane Katrina and Deepwater Horizon, there just isn’t anything exciting about that, it was just “oh, there’s the Coast Guard doing what they do.” I can’t even remember ever hearing about one of their major drug intercepts making the news, even though I hear about some pretty impressive ones internally from time to time.
Third, the Coast Guard is often looked down about by the other services and, in many cases, by the public in general. As several people who have served in other services and then come to work here have said, they generally look at the Coast Guard as where people go who couldn’t get into other services, or wanted an easier service. Of course, that’s not true, they actually have pretty stict standards; one former recruiter said had told me he could only accept about one out of every five or six people. But regardless, it seems that image largely remains.
So, yeah, the Coast Guard just isn’t in the public consciousness, and any fiction you might write about them probably falls into a more accessible areas like the Navy or NYPD/DEA kind of stuff.
I grew up in Alaska and have huge respect for the CG. They were and are front and center in Alaska news year round. Their SAR teams are the best in the business, working in conditions we can’t even imagine. They’re also a big deal on the Oregon coast, particularly near the Columbia River Bar, where they’ve saved countless lives.
The Colunbia River in Oregon flows into the Pacific at the Columbia Bar, a systtem of reefs and sandbars that has sunk over 2000 large ships since 1792. Since the Columbia does not have a delta, the river’s current shoots out like a fire hose; in winter conditions, swells can run 20 - 30 feet. It’s one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world; mariners call it “The Graveyard of the Pacific.”
The Coast Guard trains in it. In ships that are designed to survived being rolled.
Danger = Drama
There’s an element of danger to most jobs in the other armed forces. For the USCG the rescue swimmer is the only routinely dangerous job and drowning just isn’t as dramatic as being shot, blown up, shot down, captured, tortured, or sunk.
Though the more common cause of death in the services in nominal peacetime and behind-the-lines is training/operational accidents, but I see your point.
Maybe the producers should try for lighter fare?
The Navy has kind of helped with that one now that they changed over their work uniforms to blue/grey digital cammies and their officewear to use more khakis. But it’ll probably take quite a few Navy-themed movies and TV episodes to imprint that.
One I was going to mention.
The Coast Guard also gets some solid hero scenes in The Perfect Storm, both a chopper rescue and a cutter.
There’s a show about the Australian coast guard “Sea Patrol” that’s on during the days here, it’s actually pretty decent.
I seem to remember USCG HH-65 Dolphin helicopters assisting the Baywatch team from time to time.
It is indeed a good show, but the characters are Navy, not Coast Guard.
I think there’s a Coast Guard team that shows up in NCIS occasionally, but I don’t follow the show.
:smack: I need to pay more attention methinks.
With the cartels and such, I’ll bet a number of the men and women of the Coast Guard see more combat than some of our troops in the Middle East.
It’s just the weak public image. Everybody thinks of the Coast Guard as hassling weekend boaters. All they need is a really good one hour drama series to turn things around.
Dave Barry’s comic crime novel Tricky Business portrys the Coast Guard in a sexy crimefighting light. Really.
Dang, someone beat me to it.
The Coast Guard helps Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell get together in Overboard.
I had a chance to go aboard the sailing ship USCGC Eagle in Boston a few months back, and it was great. I asked one of the young officers how long he thought it would remain in service and he said, with proper upkeep and periodic overalls, “forever.” Fun fact: it was originally a training ship for Nazi Germany; we captured and kept it as a war prize after WWII.
Although it got mixed reviews at the time, my teenage son and I enjoyed The Guardian. Some exciting scenes, and a good mentor-student dynamic between Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher.
The William Shatner and James Spader characters on Boston Legal, swept up by post-9-11 patriotism, become Coast Guard Reserve JAG officers because… they’re too old to qualify for any other military service.
A fictional Coast Guard cutter is captured by latter-day pirates of the Caribbean in the Peter Benchley book The Island, and the not-nearly-as-good Michael Caine movie inspired by it.
Yes, definitely. I remember from the book that the rescue swimmers are so macho and phlegmatic that the most they will say about dropping into terrifyingly mountainous seas is that the mission was “sporty.”
Sporty! I love it.
Location, location, location. The other four branches of the military can go places, both across the country and internationally, expanding storyline possibilities. The Coast Guard has very defined and limited territory.
The Coast Guard is the dominant branch of the military in SM Stirling’s Nantucket triology, but it’s the Republic of Nantucket’s Coast Guard which is really a navy (& was to be named as such, but Alston fought tooth & nail against it). The only military vessel caught up in The Event just happened to be a USCG training ship (that was also conviently a sailing ship). They even have a Marine Corp working for them (Nantucket being a thalassocracy).