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NOW MORE THAN EVER IN OUR NATION'S HISTORY THESE GUARDIANS OF OUR SHORES ARE ESSENTIAL TO AMERICAN SECURITY | ||
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NOW MORE THAN EVER IN OUR NATION'S HISTORY THESE GUARDIANS OF OUR SHORES ARE ESSENTIAL TO AMERICAN SECURITY | ||
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Some careers are really just jobs. Your responsibility may increase over time, but the basic nature of the job never really changes. Other careers offer numerous challenges with the same employer for what can turn out to be a working lifetime. Does the opportunity to put a new spin on your career every few years sound like a good deal to you? How about jobs that come with plenty of adventure and even danger? How about jobs that really matter? "Jobs That Matter," is what United States Coast Guard recruiting ads have promised for decades. As advertising campaigns go, that's about as honest as they come. The Coast Guard does matters a lot to the safety and security of all Americans. The statistics tell the story. In a typical day the Coast Guard might:
That makes for a pretty busy day. It has been said that the Coast Guard is the only armed service that doesn't just wait around for the next war. Unless there's actual shooting going on, the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force spend essentially all of their time training for the day that they will be called upon to use their skills. This is vitally important to the nation's security, to be sure, but the Coast Guard fights its "war" every day of the year. In surveys commissioned by the federal government the Coast Guard is routinely cited as the federal agency Americans like most. Even financial audits of the service say that the Coast Guard gives taxpayers more value for their tax dollar than any other federal agency. The fact that you have chosen to read this report is a very good sign. It says that you want a career that is both exciting and important, and that you're willing to take on some significant challenges to make it happen. As you read this report take careful note of the information it contains. You will find sections on educational requirements, where you can live and pursue your career and even how much money you can expect to earn at various points during your career. If you like what you read, don't stop here. Your school library and counselor should be able to lead you to even more information. What You Can Do Now Most jobs in the Coast Guard require seamanship skills. This is especially true of entry-level jobs. It is possible to serve in the Navy for many years and never be assigned to a ship, but everybody gets wet in the Coast Guard! So use your weekends for recreational boating. Do whatever you like best: sailing, speed boating, personal water craft. And make sure you become a strong swimmer. The Coast Guard won't let you out of boot camp until you can prove that you can take care of yourself in the water. The process will be a lot easier if you get started now. Talk to a recruiter and gather as much information as possible about the Coast Guard, even if you're not quite ready to make a commitment. Recruiters are always happy to hand out promotional literature. Check out the Coast Guard Web site. Buy a review guide for the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, the standard test required by all the services, and study hard. Your ASVAB score can affect your entire career. If you are at least 17 years old and have basic seamanship skills, you can get some hands-on experience by joining the Coast Guard Auxiliary. This all-volunteer organization of 35,000 men and women is nearly as large as the Coast Guard itself. Auxiliary members do not get paid for their services, but receive free training in important subjects like how to inspect small boats for safety violations and how to secure aids to navigation, and they get really cool uniforms. Check out the Auxiliary Web site.
The fledgling United States formed a Navy in 1775 to fight the Revolutionary War, but allowed it to disband afterward. Various tax-collection and border-patrol agencies were also created and disbanded between the war and the passage of the Constitution in 1787, which created a solid government for the new country. In 1789 the Treasury Department established the U.S. Lighthouse Service, one of the services that would eventually be incorporated into the Coast Guard. In 1790 the Treasury Department created a system of cutters - small, fast boats - to enforce customs laws by boarding suspicious ships before they could unload their cargo at US ports. The service was known as the Revenue Service and Revenue-Marine, until 1863 when it was given its final name, Revenue Cutter Service. This is the service generally considered to be the forerunner of today's Coast Guard. Other services and functions that are part of the Coast Guard legacy include the Steamboat Inspection Service, the Life-Saving Service, the Bureau of Navigation and the Bureau of Marine Inspection. Most of these agencies and functions were folded into the newly founded Coast Guard in 1915. Originally part of the Department of Commerce, the Coast Guard has also been under the control of the Department of the Treasury. It was moved to its present administrative home in the Department of Transportation when that agency was created in 1967. The Coast Guard only comes under the command and control of the Department of Defense in time of war. Along the way, the Coast Guard picked up responsibility for the five essential functions that it performs today:
Known as America's "fifth armed service," the Coast Guard, with 38,000 active-duty members, is actually smaller than the New York City Police Department, which has 44,000 sworn officers. Its collection of about 50 cutters (ships at least 65 feet in length), 200 or so aircraft and more than 1,500 small boats make the Coast Guard the 7th-largest navy in the world. Because it is not part of the Department of Defense, the Coast Guard is exempt from the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which puts strict limits on the ability of US armed services to participate in law enforcement duties. Enforcing the law is in fact one of the Coast Guard's most important functions. Coast Guard boarding teams are routinely stationed onboard Navy ships to board suspicious vessels, something that Navy personnel are allowed to do only in time of war. Today's Coast Guard is divided into nine districts. Most of the districts are located on the East and West coasts, but the 8th District serves the Mississippi River from bases in St. Louis and New Orleans, and the 9th District patrols the Great Lakes from its headquarters in Cleveland. All told, the Coast Guard staffs about 800 facilities ranging from major bases to small recruiting stations and lifesaving stations. The Coast Guard faces significant challenges in the coming years brought on by a combination of internal problems and the changing nature of the external threat to the United States. Many changes will probably be made even before you read this report. The Coast Guard's fleet of ships and aircraft is one of the oldest in the world, which hampers readiness and keeps maintenance costs high. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. James Loy said in 2001 that the members of the service take "perverse pride" in doing their jobs with antiquated, potentially dangerous equipment. The service has proposed the Deepwater Capability Replacement Project to replace essentially all of the Coast Guard's ships and aircraft by about 2020 to remedy this problem. Along with Deepwater, there is also the National Fleet Concept, in which all Navy and Coast Guard ships would adhere to the same set of standards so that they can serve as a unified fleet in time of war. Both of these programs have been well received by Congress, resulting in a 12 percent boost to the Coast Guard's budget for 2002. It should be noted, however, that the resulting budget of $5.1 billion is still not nearly enough. The Navy, which has 10 times more people than the Coast Guard, gets 20 times more money, or twice as much for each job it is expected to perform. The Navy called on the Coast Guard to protect the crippled destroyer USS Cole after it was attacked by suicide bombers in the port of Oman on October, 2000. Thousands of Coast Guard reservists were recalled to active duty after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. There is serious consideration being given to incorporating the Coast Guard into the Department of Homeland Security, which President George W. Bush created shortly after the September 11 attacks. It is too early to tell for sure, but it's a good bet that the Coast Guard is only going to get more responsibilities and more funding as it heads into the early years of the 21st century. It could easily be argued that the need for a bigger, better Coast Guard is basically unfortunate - the world has become a very unpredictable place, and the dangers have reached our American shores. But there's no doubt that right now is a very good time to be considering a career in the United States Coast Guard.
Enlisted personnel in all ratings advance through a rank system abbreviated as E-1 to E-9, or seaman, the lowest rank, to master chief petty officer, the highest rank. Rank and rating are combined in a Coastie's personal designation. For example, Third-class Petty Officer Jones, a yeoman with the rank of E-4, would be known as YN3 Jones. First-class Petty Officer Hernandez, a boatswain's (pronounced "bosun") mate with the rank of E-6, would be known as BM1 Hernandez. An E-7 chief petty officer in public affairs would be addressed as PAC. Some enlisted personnel advance to the rank of chief warrant officer. A small community grouped between enlisted and officer personnel, warrant officers tend to be specialists in their fields who either lack the college credentials to become officers or who simply don't want to become officers. Chief warrant officers, who go by CWO, can apply for commissions up to lieutenant, or O-3, rank if they have completed the necessary time in service and meet several other requirements. Here are descriptions of the work done by enlisted personnel in different ratings:
Officer Job Descriptions Legally speaking, a commission is a standing order directly from the commander-in-chief, the President of the United States, to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure the security of the country. That order gives the officers of the armed services the authority they need to direct all service functions on a day-to-day basis. Officers formulate policy and plans and then pass their orders down the chain of command to the chief petty officers who manage the enlisted personnel beneath them. Officers generally have little direct contact with junior enlisted personnel and only meet with chief petty officers to discuss the orders of the day. In most cases Coast Guard officers are commissioned beginning with the rank of ensign, or O-1. If they do their job well and take advantage of opportunities for education and training, they move up the chain of command through the ranks of lieutenant junior grade, lieutenant, lieutenant commander, commander and captain. There are four admiral ranks, O-7 through O-10, known as rear admiral, lower half; rear admiral, upper half; vice admiral and admiral. Officers are generally required to retire after 30 years of service, at which time most officers have risen to the rank of commander or captain, and a lucky few have broken into the admiral's ranks. Like enlisted personnel, officers follow career paths oriented toward a particular specialty. Aviators, for example, climb the aviation ladder during their careers. Officers can also expect to take on a few "out-of-specialty" tours during their careers. in which they will be assigned to career-broadening assignments in fields outside their areas of expertise, such as in the administrative bureaucracy of a command center, for example. Here are descriptions of a few officer career paths:
Except for recruiting stations, which are scattered everywhere, Coast Guard facilities understandably tend to be near coasts that need guarding. That means the Atlantic coast, the Pacific Coast and the Great Lakes. Very small Coast Guard detachments patrol some inland waterways, usually on a seasonal basis. Coast Guard Auxiliary members can be found wherever there is a body of water big enough to attract boaters. Depending upon your specialty, you could be posted in places as different as suburban Chicago and the coast of Alaska. You could find yourself commuting between a home base on the Great Lakes and month-long assignments with smuggling patrols in the Caribbean. You may work 12 hours on, 12 hours off for two weeks, then rotate to another part of the country and trade places with another team to do it again. You will also probably spend a large part of your career assigned to shipboard duty. Is Coast Guard sea duty less difficult than Navy sea duty? It is different in the duration of time spent at sea. In the Navy, a three-year billet - a job assignment - to a ship may include only one, six-month deployment at sea, plus a few training cycles of two weeks or less. Unless there is a major crisis, Coast Guard cutters never deploy for six straight months at a time, but do tend to be in and out of port pretty much constantly. You could easily spend more total days at sea in the Coast Guard than you would in the Navy. You should plan on taking this much time away from home if you plan on a career in the Coast Guard. Return to Top
I found my challenge. I've been in the Coast Guard for four years and have moved up to the rank of second-class petty officer, or E-5 on the paygrade chart. In those four years I've been posted on the Atlantic Coast and the Great Lakes and have tackled more jobs than I ever would have imagined. We boatswain's mates, or BMs, as we don't really like to be called, have to know how to do a lot of things. Basically, boatswain's mates run the cutters and small boats that are at the heart of Coast Guard operations. We know all about line-handling, cargo stowage, underway and in-port procedures and a million other details that make the cutters go. We are, in simplest terms, sailors. We work very hard, but there's never a dull moment in this job. I would recommend this job to anybody who isn't content being an armchair adventurer. I've been lashed by cold waves, fried by tropical sun and shot at by drug runners. Some days it's the worst job in the world, but it always matters. We save lives out here, and that's the most important job anybody could have." I Am the Commandant of the Coast Guard The Coast Guard has always had to fight hard for funding from the federal government. In some ways, we are the most important armed service because we fight for the security of the United States every day. But our battles are small, usually involving a small group of smugglers, a minor oil spill or a handful of illegal migrants. Our fleet is small, too, at least when compared to the United States Navy, which is the largest in the world. Americans, it must be said, like their heroes to be bigger than life and that's just not the kind of heroics we perform around here. But the other services do their big heroics once every few years. We perform our minor miracles every single day. I guess it's easy to take us for granted. There was a time, in my early days in the service, when we complained loudly that the Coast Guard was getting short shrift in the money department. Over time, however, many Coasties began to take pride in their ability to do their jobs with inadequate resources. Instead of being concerned about flying a tired helicopter 25 miles offshore in a storm to do a rescue, many Coasties started to look forward to it. This daring-do is commendable, in a way. The hero mythology that surrounds the Coast Guard is the envy of the other services, with the possible exception of the Marine Corps, the next-smallest service. Recent events, I'm sorry to say, may actually bode well for the future of the Coast Guard. The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 have changed the way we view our nation's security needs. Our borders - our coasts - are not as solid as we once thought they were. Securing our coasts has become more important than it ever has been, and everybody knows that we are the best outfit for the job. Our budget got a 12 percent hike in 2002, which is a lot. We still need more, though, especially since it seems likely that we are only going to get bigger. I have high hopes for the Deepwater Capability Replacement Project. I won't be around to see it completed, probably by sometime around 2020, but it could be just the ticket for us. A comprehensive program involving every major defense contractor in the country, members of Congress, the Navy and plenty of Coast Guard officers, Deepwater aims to replace essentially all of our ships, aircraft and shore facilities and do so in a coordinated, integrated way. It won't be cheap, and the budget battles will go on for a long time, but I have high hopes." I Am a Public Affairs Specialist for the United States Coast Guard There are only 77 public affairs billets in the entire Coast Guard, and I fill one of them. I've been in for 12 years and hold the rank of chief petty officer, or E-7. It is my job to make sure that the taxpayers we serve know what we've been up to lately. We do our jobs with their money and their moral and legal authority, so we have an absolute responsibility to keep them updated. We public affairs specialists also do what we can to keep the Coast Guard in the public eye, because we are often overshadowed by the other services, all of which are much larger. I have done all sorts of jobs over the years, serving as a journalist writing for various Coast Guard publications, as a photographer and as a spokesperson for the service, answering questions at press conferences. I have thoroughly enjoyed every part of my career and look forward to at least eight more years. If I stay in that long I can retire at half pay and start a second career, probably as a newspaper reporter. I already have plenty of experience. I recently finished a bachelor's degree and have considered applying for a commission. I'm not sure I want to go officer, though. I like the job I have and am comfortable with my current slate of managerial duties. I'd also have to start at the bottom of the officer ladder, just like recent college graduates with no Coast Guard experience. That's a lot to ask, and I don't see how it benefits me or the service. I may go for the warrant officer program, though, so at least my peers-in-rank would be about my age. I want this job to continue to be as exciting, and as much fun, as it has been for the past 12 years." I Am a Helicopter Pilot In the Coast Guard, helicopter pilots get a lot of respect. In the Navy and the Air Force they're always overshadowed by flashy jet pilots. But in the Coast Guard, we helicopter pilots are the flashy ones. We fly small, powerful helicopters out into stormy skies over even stormier seas to do things that darn few organizations can do. Our helicopters are highly specialized, with most of the fuselages, or bodies, coming from a manufacturer in France, and the engines and electronic systems coming from American suppliers. In those machines I've flown missions that were so dangerous that they actually put me into a mild state of shock, but only briefly, and not until after the mission was accomplished and we had returned to base. The twisted thing is, I love this job. I've been in for six years and have reached the rank of lieutenant. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to go for the full 20 years or more. That will depend on the kind of assignments I can get as I get older. This flying-into-storms stuff is very exciting, but it's definitely best-suited to younger people. Eventually I'll have to move into a more desk-bound position. If I like it, I'll stay in. If it's not exciting enough, I'll find something else to do. I would recommend this job only to careerists who are extremely dedicated. You have to stay in top physical condition. You have to be very levelheaded but also crazy enough to fly into danger. You have to believe very strongly in what you do because some days are very, very hard. We fight our war every day, and you have to be ready at all times. That's what our motto, "Semper Paratus," means in Latin; "Always Ready." I Am an Investigator in the United States Coast Guard Reserve The investigator rating is open only to reservists. Most of my colleagues are police detectives in real life, but a few of us joined up with credentials as other kinds of investigators, like me. I investigate insurance fraud in real life, and that's a lot like investigating criminal cases for the Coast Guard. I also conduct background checks, collect and analyze intelligence information and serve on personal protection details for Coast Guard officers and other VIPs. Being a reservist may be a part-time job, but it isn't a part-time commitment. I went to boot camp like every other enlisted person in the service and I am legally obligated to serve full time whenever the service needs me. Mostly, I work one weekend per month and also ship out for two weeks of active duty once a year. Sometimes I am called in for a few weeks at a time to assist with an investigation, and I have been called up for a six-month hitch, which is the longest time the service is allowed to call up reservists except in time of war. I like being a reservist because it allows me to pursue a full-time career and live a normal life with my family even while I get to have an adventure once in a while and serve my country at the same time. But being a reservist is a serious commitment. I make a lot more money as an insurance claims adjuster than I do as a first-class petty officer. My employer continues to pay my salary during my two weeks of annual duty, as most employers do, but they don't pay my regular salary when I'm called up for six months. Federal law says they have to give me my old job, or one at the same salary, when I return, but they don't have to pay me while I'm gone. That was tough on my family, who had to get by for six months on less money than they're accustomed to. But they've never complained. They're proud that I take the time to serve my country. So am I." Return to Top
On paper, becoming a member of the Coast Guard is relatively straightforward. You must be a native-born or naturalized United States citizen in order to become an officer, or at least a Resident Alien to enlist. You must be between 17 and 27 years of age, have a high school diploma or GED, have no more than two dependents and pass the ASVAB test and a physical exam. There's more to it, of course. The Coast Guard's last requirement, straight from the recruiting literature, is "Be the type of person who wants to work to serve the public on or around the water." So if you're prone to seasickness you shouldn't join the Coast Guard! The idea of serving the public can be a challenge for some people. Military personnel are, first and foremost, public servants. No matter how much firepower the service puts in your hands, and no matter how many medals it hangs on your chest, you will always be outranked by even the humblest of civilians. Civilians pay your salary. They pay for your ships and aircraft. Even more importantly, civilians lend you, in the military, the moral and legal authority to act on their behalf. The Coast Guard and the other services exist to do the bidding of regular folks. In the military you can't forget this. Return to Top
Hollywood doesn't make movies about insurance claims adjusters. They may be dedicated professionals who provide a service needed by just about everybody, but what they do just isn't as exciting as flying an HH-60 Dolphin helicopter at low levels over a stormy sea to pluck a family from the deck of their sailboat before it sinks below the waves. Crunching numbers, however important it may be, just doesn't have the adrenaline-filled punch of boarding a ship filled with heavily armed drug smugglers and successfully keeping them and their drugs from reaching the streets of your country. Coasties perform many jobs in the service, but at some point in their career, they will personally engage in the kind of heroics most insurance claims adjusters can only experience at the movies. If you want excitement, the Coast Guard could be the career for you. On the practical side, the Coast Guard offers excellent benefits. Most private-sector employers don't offer employees 30 days of vacation each year until they have reached a very high level, if at all. In the Coast Guard, everybody gets 30 days of paid leave every year starting the day they graduate from boot camp. The Coast Guard also offers generous health benefits for members and their families and special allowances to cover just about any situation encountered during service, such as being required to move. Coasties are also entitled to benefits offered to members of other services, such as mortgage loans from the Veterans Administration. The federal government and many state governments offer tax advantages to service members, too. But serving in the Coast Guard is about much more than enviable perks and benefits. It's about service. Nobody joins the armed services to get rich or famous. Nobody joins expecting a cushy government job, either. Coasties earn their paychecks. The standard workweek for Coasties while deployed is 68 hours. That's not easy. But the Coast Guard provides very valuable services to American citizens. And those citizens aren't just entries on a Census ledger. They are your friends, your neighbors and the members of your family. When you choose to serve the United States of America, you choose to serve them. Not many jobs can give you that kind of opportunity. Return to Top
The military exists to destroy enemies and their property. Don't let the glossy recruiting brochures lull you into thinking that the US military is so high-minded that it's somehow above the dirty business of death and destruction. Of course, the mission is to kill people and cause destruction when our people and property are threatened or under attack. Making war will always be a damnable, murderous business. Maintaining readiness for war comes with a host of inconveniences that wouldn't be tolerated in the real world. In the real world, for example, people tend to move up their career ladder based on their ability to do the job asked of them. This is unquestionably the most efficient and productive way to manage personnel. In the military, the need to maintain a clear chain of command from the lowliest Coastie all the way to the President of the United States means that the jobs in between have to be filled, no matter what. Jobs are filled according to rank. Rank is achieved according to a very complicated system based on time in the previous rank and, depending upon the job, an array of other factors, including age and educational credentials. Capability is one of the factors used to determine who moves up in the Coast Guard, but by no means is it the only factor. All the services are also divided into a two-tier ranking system that arbitrarily limits the ability of the service to put the right people into the right jobs. In simplest terms, people without bachelor's degrees enlist and are eligible only for jobs specified for enlisted people. People with bachelor's degrees may join as officers and are eligible for leadership positions. Said to be the most efficient way of separating leaders from the people they may have to order into battle someday, this class system comes with inequities. A Coastie who joins at 18 and spends the next 20 years working up to the rank of master chief, the highest enlisted rank, will still be outranked by a 22-year-old recent college graduate with the rank of ensign, the lowest officer rank. The system does provide limited opportunities for enlisted personnel to earn commissions and become officers, but almost always requires that new officers taken from the enlisted ranks start all the way at the bottom as ensigns, with no credit given for what they've learned during their years as an enlisted person. Salary is adjusted, but a 40-year-old chief with 22 years of Coast Guard experience will have less authority than a 22-year-old ensign who just graduated from college. In the business world, all that experience would count for something. In the military, rank is everything. These inequities are not likely to change any time soon. Among other things, the military is a bureaucracy, and bureaucracies change only when they are forced to. If you think you can thrive in such a rigid environment, then a career in the Coast Guard may be for you. Return to Top
Enlisting in the Coast Guard After completion of boot camp you will be sent to a training program to learn a specific skill. Known as "A" school, this first training program will teach you skills you'll need in your first Coast Guard job, such as boarding unfriendly vessels, placing and maintaining aids to navigation or any number of specialty fields. You will receive more advanced training as your career progresses. The Coast Gaurd Academy College Student Pre-Commissioning Initiative (CSPI) Officer Candidate School Interested candidates must put together a package of credentials including college transcripts, SAT or ACT scores and ASVAB scores. Candidates will also be interviewed by serving officers. The completed package is assessed by a board of officers who choose the best candidates until all spaces at OCS are filled. Go to the Web site www.gocoastguard.com for more information. The Coast Guard offers direct commissions to lawyers, engineers, maritime specialists and environmental managers whose skills are sorely needed by the service. Working professionals who meet the necessary requirements attend a four-week indoctrination course in New London and are commissioned as an ensign, lieutenant junior grade or lieutenant, depending upon their experience. Coasties who start out in the enlisted ranks can apply for OCS after they have served for at least four years, reached the rank of second-class petty officer and earned at least 30 hours of college credit. Enlisted personnel can also apply for OCS after they reach the rank of chief warrant officer or apply for the Warrant-to-Lieutenant program. Return to Top
As of 2001, monthly basic pay for Coast Guard personnel ran from $964.80 for an E-1 with less than four years of service to $11,141.70 for an O-10 with at least 26 years of service. That translates into $11,577.60 per year for the Coast Guard's lowest-ranking people up to $133,700.40 per year for the highest-ranking people in the service, four-star admirals. Actually, there is only one four-star admiral in the Coast Guard, the admiral who serves as the commandant, or head honcho, of the service. For that matter, there are only four three-star admirals, known as vice admirals, and 35 one- and two-star admirals, known as rear admirals. That's a total of 40 admirals out of 38,000 active-duty personnel. The military world also comes with many benefits, such as base communities that are worlds unto themselves, including shopping, dining and entertainment facilities. Some facilities are free, others are quite inexpensive. In general, the Coast Guard, like the other services, strives to provide a comfortable, middle-class living for its members. Basic pay is always augmented by some other allowance, such as a housing allowance and allowances for children and other dependents. Basic pay increases a bit for each child, and housing allowances are based on the cost of living in the area where Coasties are based. On-base housing is often provided at no out-of-pocket cost to the service member. Although base pay may seem a bit on the low side, the whole package can work out very well. If you have no housing expense and eat at least some of your meals for free while on-base, your base pay will go pretty far, and some states don't assess income tax on military personnel. One of the best perks offered to service members is the retirement plan. If you serve for 20 years you can retire at half pay for the rest of your life. If you serve for 30 years you can retire at three-quarters pay for the rest of your life. Both plans include lifetime medical benefits and the right to shop in military exchanges and commissaries. If you join at 22, for example, you could retire at 42, continue to receive pay at half your last salary level, and start a second career. Many military personnel use this benefit to start their own businesses, knowing that they'll always have money coming in from their retirement, or to start a second career in another profession that doesn't pay very well, like teaching. Return to Top
If you are still in high school you can seek out a volunteer position with the Coast Guard Auxiliary. The 35,000 men and women who make up the Auxiliary can be found on both coasts, the Great Lakes and any inland waterway that's big enough to draw a steady stream of recreational boaters. Because they are volunteers, auxiliarists don't really have any legal authority to enforce laws, but they are often called upon to place and maintain aids to navigation and to conduct boat safety inspections. They may also be called up in time of emergency to help out active-duty Coasties and other law enforcement authorities, even if only with relatively simple tasks like directing traffic or taking telephone calls. They tend to be recreational boaters themselves, and you do need some nautical skills to be useful to the organization. But since you're interested in this career, that will probably not be a problem for you. If you are in college or at least 18 years old you can join the Coast Guard Reserve. Reservists have to attend boot camp or Officer Candidate School, just like their active-duty counterparts do, but they are only required to serve one weekend per month and two weeks per year. A popular option for college students is to attend boot camp during a summer vacation. College students who earn a bachelor's degree can apply for a commission after they graduate. Because the Coast Guard doesn't have a ROTC program like the other services, joining the reserves is the best way to get some real experience while you're still in school. Be warned, though, that joining the reserves may be a part-time job, but it's not a part-time commitment. There are about 8,000 reservists. As a reservist you may be called upon to respond to crises anywhere in the world at any time. You could be called up for as little as a day to help out with a localized mission or for as long as six months to lend your skills to a national mobilization on the other side of the world. Of course, as a reservist you can always petition for an active-duty position. You will be expected to meet and maintain the rigorous requirements specified by the Coast Guard. You will have to earn good grades if you want to be considered for a commission or a top enlisted job. You will have to steer clear of drugs, alcohol abuse and problems with the police. And you will be expected to stay in very good physical condition for as long as you are in the service.
It may seem strange that deadly serious careers like those offered by the Coast Guard are available as part-time jobs through the Coast Guard Reserve and even the more part-time Coast Guard Auxiliary. The Coast Guard is a career you can ease yourself into. Or you can just go for it. Today, more than at any time since World War II, your fellow Americans need to know that there are people like you willing to go to the front lines of a new and terrible kind of war. And a kind of war in which the Coast Guard is destined to play a much larger role than ever in our history. If a career in the Coast Guard is what you want, you couldn't have picked a better time. Good luck!
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Careers Research Monographs Copyright 2004 by The Institute For Research CHICAGO
