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Coast Guard thread. For any discussion on the Coast Guard and those who are interested in careers with the Coast Guard.
What do you guys think will happen to the Coast Guard in light of the impending budget cuts?
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>>33308610
I don't get how you can secure our borders by cutting the people responsible for watching over our most important borders.
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>>33308703
agreed. i dont know what the rationale for this sort of thing even is
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The Navy can do all the coast guard stuff with their LCS
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Isn't the CG homeland security?
Is trump cutting HS or just all the other bloated federal departments?
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The CG needs to decide whether it wants to be HIGH SPEED LOW DRAG water cops or buoy techs and pass off the remaining responsibility to some other agency.
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>>33309801
Literally no one else can do it because the navy can't arrest people at sea without causing diplomatic issues. Code is written to make cg law enforcement.
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>>33309378
t. retard
You realize the Coast Guard does more than just literally defend the coast, right? They're responsible for more things than any other branch of the military without anywhere near the budget to do it. Vessel inspection, licensing of merchant mariners, search and rescue, maintenance of navigation aids (this one is fucking huge and they're already overwhelmed with what they have), icebreaking, drug enforcement, smuggler interdiction, law enforcement, coastal defense, and probably a few more I'm forgetting.
The Coast Guard is the only branch of the military that actually helps the average American in any way and is the least funded, it's bullshit. As a merchant mariner I get pissed when faggots in the Navy or Marines try to talk shit about the Coast Guard as if they're somehow better than them. Shootings sandniggers and mopping floors on an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea isn't doing shit to protect my freedom or improve my quality of life. Stopping drug smugglers and keeping the maritime infrastructure of our nation well maintained is, however.
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>>33309801
You act like they asked for all of this. The modern Coast Guard is actually the result of a half dozen other bureaus constantly being lumped together into them. Life Saving Service, a bureau for maintaining lighthouses and stuff, the actual Coast Guard, and the Revenue Service. Over the years these were gradually lumped into one by Congress and the result is an agency that never asked for the huge amount of responsibility on their shoulders and yet is expected to do it all without much help at all from Congress or the taxpayers
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>>33309862
So pass off the waterway maintenance to someone else. Pretty much everyone that joins the CG goes for something related to law enforcement position because that opens up a shitload of opportunities later down the line with other Federal agencies.
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>>33310262
>Pretty much everyone that joins the CG goes for something related to law enforcement position
You have no idea what you're talking about. That isn't even close to what most people in the Coast Guard even do. 90% of it is search and rescue and maintenance of aids to navigation.
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>>33308610
>impending budget cuts
You mean the leaked information from a draft that the White House hasn't even seen yet?
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man its nice to be reminded that were not completely forgotten about. well its time to wait till next year when someone remebers us
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>>33310742
The greatest heroes usually go unknown, but not unappreciated. My father and a few of his crew were rescued back in the 70s when his tug went down in a squall off the East Coast. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you guys. Who cares what normies think, us guys out here on the ocean never forget about our Coasties.
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>>33308610
Such a shame since the coast guard colors are asthetic as fuck.
>tfw not living in a bizarro hypermilitarized timeline where the coast guard is America's 2nd Navy and is orientated towars superheavy floating arsenal ships and reactivated or modern battleships with railguns or naval island fortresses loaded with missiles and direct energy weaponry while the navy focuses on total invasion capacity and becoming the sword of america with ultra advanced vessels and scores of carrier battlegroups.
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>>33309378
They don't just shoot boats that come to close to our precious coasts ya know.
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>>33310174
>>33310145
really just makes me respect the coast guard all the more. I am thinking about joining them after I get out of the army. Is that doable as an officer?
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>>33311015
They only take prior service from the Navy IIRC.
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>>33311036
Where did you read that? I have read it is possible to do a direct commission as an officer from another service once you are out... It doesnt really do a great job of specifying that on the website
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>>33311015
Wouldn't know, unfortunately. I'm a merchant mariner, not Coast Guard. I do know they have more options to become officers than probably any other branch. The Coast Guard is so strapped for personnel that even junior officers and NCOs often have a ton of personal responsibility. You can literally find O-3s in charge of an entire buoy tender, or senior enlisted in charge of rescue boats and stuff. They have OCS like every other branch, and also a Direct Commission program for graduates of state maritime academies and anyone else with a degree that would be useful to them. I believe they also have another commissioning program for former military but don't quote me on that.
My advice is to talk to a recruiter. I know normally talking to a recruiter is the last thing you want to do for actual information on joining the military, but Coast Guard recruiters tend to cut the bullshit and give you the facts. We had quite a few of them talk to us during my time at the Academy. They were practically begging us to commission and just do even the bare minimum service time
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Anyone here have any info on the recruitment process, sent an application in a week ago and no reply is this normal or should I call and bug them?
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>>33311058
You were at the Merchant Marine Academy? What was that like? What is it like being a Merchant Marine Officer? Have you ever considered joining the Coast Guard as an Officer?
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>>33310742
I love the Coast Guard. Even had a group of them board the chemical tanker I was on when off the coast of Galveston, Texas. Cool dudes who all seemed to be in excellent physical shape. Funny guys too.
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>>33311149
No, I didn't attend King's Point. I went to the Great Lakes Maritime Academy, one of the state academies. Did it because you get your first class pilotage for the Great Lakes. That said, it's pretty awesome being a merchant mariner. I don't do oceans very much but even on the Lakes, it's great doing a job that you actually love doing. Great pay, great food, I love the job I do and it makes me feel proud at the end of the day when I help safely navigate tens of thousands of tons of iron ore hundreds of miles across storms and squalls to reach its destination. I thought about doing the Coast Guard direct commission before I graduated (like 3 years ago), but decided against it because I didn't want to miss out on like 4 years of making a ton of money.
The oceans are fun too. Very different work for deep sea vessels, though. On the Lakes you're making port probably every night or every other night, lots of tying up and you keep so busy you don't even have time to think about free time. I did a few months on a containership, and it was awesome seeing the world. It takes about 2 weeks to cross the Atlantic, and when you're away from port you settle into your routine. Monotonous at times, but very peaceful.
It's hard being away from family. I haven't had a stable relationship in 7 years because of my career choice, but it's the price you pay. It takes a special kind of purpose, but man, there is nothing else quite like seeing a sunset on the open ocean, hundreds of miles away from another living soul.
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>>33311217
>It takes a special kind of purpose
special kind of person*
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>>33311217
Man. The sailors life... seems really special. You ever do any work on lake Erie? You ever stop in Buffalo?
Also, this sounds silly, but what kind of uniforms do you guys have and wear?
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>>33311056
That might just be a policy for enlisted personnel, I dunno. Never got any info on anything related to being an officer when I toyed with the idea of joining.
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>>33311085
That's pretty normal in my (limited) experience.
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>>33311242
Oh yeah, plenty of time spent on Erie. One of my least favorite lakes, actually. You can get a good northern gale on there and with how shallow it is it really gets the sea going. Been to Buffalo quite a few times as well. Good town for the most part, I like Upstate New York.
As for uniforms... no, haha. Before the 1970s or so, officers were required to wear uniforms. Not anymore, and American mariners are so relaxed and casual you'll almost never find one in uniform, or even one that owns the uniform (there is technically a standard uniform for MARAD, the organization responsible for the US Merchant Fleet as a whole, but not for the actual mariners themselves).
The big exception is cruise ships. Almost all crew on a cruise ship wear uniforms because the annoying cargo has to be able to find you and ask you stupid questions. Sometimes the officers will wear a uniform when they're in a foreign port so the port officials know who to talk to (nothing special, usually just black slacks and shoes with a white shirt that has soft shoulderboards on it).
Other than that, almost never will you see a US mariner with a uniform on. Which is pretty atypical, most other nations are very professional and wear uniforms all the time. Not that US mariners aren't professional (we probably have the most well trained mariners in the world, with Britain and Denmark being close contenders). We're just much more relaxed because the American maritime tradition is much more casual and relaxed.
But it definitely isn't a silly question! I'll be honest, I got a little bummed out when I first heard we didn't have uniforms. I always wanted one... until I actually worked on a ship. And then you'll realize very quickly why we don't wear them. Working on a ship is hard, hot, and dirty, even as an officer.
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>>33311293
What is your day to day like on the ship? What sort of things do you do? Do you spend most of your time in the deck navigating and so forth? Do you have to basically walk around all the time make sure everything is running properly?
Sorry for all these questions and sorry if they seem very surface level, it is just so interesting to me and it seems like you really love your career and I would love to learn more about it.
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>>33311342
I'm a third mate right now, which means that I'm an officer in charge of a navigation watch. Basically, you work 8 hours in a day, two 4 hour watches with an 8 hour break between (which really fucks up your sleep schedule for a while). These days, when you're on a steady course for a long time, you've usually got the "iron mike" (autopilot) on. This leaves the mate to do other tasks like correct navigation charts, do paperwork, shit like that. When you're coming up on port, that's when you'll have the helmsman (an AB, able-bodied seaman) take over. That's also when you'll be giving rudder commands and things like that. Or, if another mate/the captain is the conning officer, you'll probably be on deck calling out distances to the dock and stuff and helping the bosun and deckhands make her fast. The chief/first mate is the one in charge of cargo operations, the second mate is traditionally the navigation officer who's in charge of plotting out our course and shit, the third mate is the safety officer who maintains all of the shit like life jackets and lifeboats and whatnot. Like I said, all of them do the same job of navigating the ship when they're on watch, but those are their other duties. You also get a lot of overtime (which is time and a half for pay, ka-ching) because of how busy you are.
Now, on the oceans.... well, nobody will admit it because it's so fucking illegal, but when you're crossing the oceans most of the time you won't even have anyone on the bridge or even a lookout posted. And during your watch you'll actually be helping do other shit like cleaning and maintenance. Companies are trying further and further to downsize crews, and the result is that you never have as many people as you really need. That's not to say there aren't plenty of jobs, there are, but each individual ship has a pretty small crew for the job they have to do.
Engineers are another story and I can't tell you much, I don't visit the basement much lol
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>>33311421
Thank you for answering all of these questions. What are your favorite foreign ports to be in?
And what makes American merchant mariners so much better than everyone else? Like what does it take to be a good one? What separates Americans from other great ones, like the British and Danish like you said.
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bump. this is actually interesting
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>>33311269
Okay that's what I figured, hurry up and wait.
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>>33308610
Fuck they look gay
They'd look a lot better with storm grey paint or are you blokes worried the old 76mm will make you look gay ?
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>>33311821
Certainly way less gay looking than the neutered British Navy. How is the construction of your cuck shed coming out of which you can watch a gang of wild pakis rape your wife?
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>>33309767
Yeah, CG is HS. It's likely that them and all the other branches that aren't Navy are gonna get budget cuts.
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>>33312001
Why would the Army get budget cuts...
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>>33308610
>impending budget cuts
I guess on the plus side, drugs will get cheaper, if you like drugs.
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