I think Congress should give as much time to studying Homeland Securities' budget as the White House has given to Immigration, Health Care and the pipeline to carry Canadian crude oil. I'm OK with letting HLS take off for six years and maybe conquer some other country and eviscerate their Constitutional and civil rights.
9 comments:
Well, do save the Coast Guard if you please.
We aim to. The poor Coast Guard has labored under so many departments of gov. Personally, I'd wrap it under .......................................................... branch of gov. I used to play with them, my best friend is one, and they can't win. I hate them too. On a laser, you can, in fact, put the hull numbers down on a heel and let the local Coast Guard know that no, in 30 years of ownership, you never spent a dime to 'register' your boat in the local state or CG AREA. CG were always about 'registration.' That's the tack away.
Looking at the next few posts, I suss that I have been a little elliptical lately. But, you kno what? It's my blog and I can be as elliptical as I want to be.
On the other hand, I treasure readers and commenters.
The Coast Guard is always in a disadvantageous area of funding. Back when it was with the Revenue Service, it had some weight. It lost charm when it joined the drug war and definitely lost prestige when it turned into the Cuban and Haitian boat lift UBER.
I took my nifty surveillance system to Florida, to the Cape of Canaveral and we worked hard with a USCG liaison to mess with the stream of drugs flowing into Florida. We worked 24/7 for months and you know? We could not get a USCG interceptor underway to bust up obvious drug rendevouz to save our lives. We had a Coast Guard Petty Officer with gun and everything right there in the system calling the local Coast Guard base for a vessel to respond to the ........ it hurts.
I was actually OOD in SOCAL when were had driven a little further north than usual and so I listened on Channel 16 as a man frantically tried to reach Station LA and ask for help. The Coast Guard petty officer was all procedural and asked the frantic man to describe his burning boat so that the response unit could find it out there off Catalina. The man was priceless. "IT'S THE ONLY FUCKING BURNING BOAT OUT HERE."
I don't mess around with the Coast Guard. If they're out there with me, I put the tiller over and tack away. Not as bad as the San Diego Harbor cops, but almost as bad.
i should note, I had to tack away. Srlsly, my registrration was posted there plain to see, Alabama, 30 years ago when I bought that boat. I never ever did get around to 'registering' it. And me and the USCG never had an ugly moment unless you count that time in Korea with Reg and they brought us teeeny tiny fish for a snack.
Wow!! Well, I must admit that I've never had trouble with the Coasties---I operated with them quite a bit during my Navy years--and then some more during my second career in State (Virginia) Homeland Security. My impression was that they got more done with less better than anyone but that other sea service (That's USMC).
Since the two of us worked with them a bit, God were they cheap! We were slated to have one of the Port Security Units replace a couple of a Inshore Boat Units in Kuwait and the guys from Buzzard Point called me 30 times a day to bitch about how expensive it was going to be and asking how much was I going to pay them for the pleasure of having them replace a couple of boat units.
Yeah, I did reach the point where I told one of them, "call me one more time about the incremental cost of deploying one of ours vs one of yours and I'll find you and kill you. He felt pretty safe there in DC since he knew I was in San Diego.
I worked with them at both MARDEZPAC and MARDEZLANT. You?
Yes, I was the first Staff Plans Chief for MARDEZ 5. Then (after we stupidly scrapped that organization) I was the State Government rep to the equivalent based out of the Portsmouth USCG base and Little Creek. They also have a nifty Auxiliary organization, from which the Navy could learn much IMO.
5, Was that the JTF? We once did surveillance for them and JTF 6. I can never keep them straight because they defied a rule and the odd number was East Coast and the even number was Texas/West coast. Navy doesn't do that.
Yes, it was what eventually evolved into the JTF. The number was based upon the Coast Guard District which hosted it--in this case, 5. Interestingly enough the USCG Districts were loosely based upon the old Naval Districts; which were geographically numbered clockwise around the coast starting with FIRST (HQ Boston) and so on. Norfolk was the HQ for the FIFTH Naval District (the brass plaque on the building still says that). We have expended huge amounts on new stationery, patches etc in an increasingly ridiculous effort to come up with circumlocutions describing the very necessary functions performed by that command level. I think the latest is "Navy Region Mid Atlantic" or something equally uninspirational.
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