Rear Adm. Roy Nash, deputy director of the National Maritime Intelligence Center, receives an on-scene briefing in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, from Lt. Cdr. Mark Gibbs, who was working with the Maritime Transportation System Recovery Unit (MTSRU), forward deployed on the CGC Oak, on Jan. 23, 2010. The MTSRU helped facilitate the port recovery efforts in order to regain the ability to offload large amounts of aid and supplies. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer Eric J. Chandler

The waters off the Gulf Coast were dotted with dozens of cargo barges and tankers, waiting their turn to come in. The delivery of some of that cargo – perishable food, materials, or chemicals needed to manufacture essential goods, supplies needed for the recovery itself – was more urgent than other freight. How would the captain of the port ever sort through the sea of vessels and decide who would come to the front of the queue?

The unit, unique to the U.S. Coast Guard, that facilitated the movement of the most urgent cargo is one many people have never heard of: the MTSRU (pronounced MITZ-roo), or Marine Transportation System Recovery Unit. Charged with restoring cargo flow after a national transportation security incident, the MTSRU, as part of the Incident Command Post, was created by the Coast Guard in 2006, using the lessons learned about recovery issues after the major disruptions of maritime commerce that occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The MTSRU has the job of informing stakeholders at all levels on maritime transportation issues after a disruption, of supporting and prioritizing recovery efforts, and of opening the communication channels and discovering the information that will facilitate the recovery of waterway traffic flow. A MTSRU, for example, helped facilitate the flow of relief supplies into Port-au-Prince after the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake.

The task of helping to select from a floating expanse of cargo barges which among them should be the first to enter a crippled port, seems complicated enough. But when you consider that it’s just one of hundreds of tasks that must be accomplished, in the correct sequence in the wake of a disaster, it seems hardly possible. Coast Guard personnel, however, have long known the secret to getting things done: relying not necessarily on the person in charge, but on the one who knows the most, no matter who he or she may be.

“That MTSRU liaison has to be someone who has already made those contacts in that local area,” said Frank Shelley, training coordinator for the Coast Guard’s Pacific Area Incident Management Assistance Team. “He or she knows what the concerns are, and knows who to reach out for: not the big kahunas, but the people on the docks who actually know what’s going on.”

The Coast Guard and the Incident Command System

The standardized system many American institutions now use to manage emergencies and recovery efforts, regardless of scale or of how many responders from different jurisdictions and disciplines are involved, is known as the Incident Command System, or ICS. It was born from the chaos and tragedy of a single disastrous California wildfire season, in 1970, in which the lives of emergency personnel were needlessly endangered by disorganization and lack of communication, and both people and materials were dispersed instead of being focused at points where they could most effectively meet main objectives. The protocols of the ICS are widely used today to respond to everything from local flash floods to an event of unprecedented scale such as the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill.

In such large-scale events, the ICS is designed to bring order to an enormous, often intimidating mess – and the Coast Guard, as the nation’s maritime first responder, has been able to lend the expertise of its personnel to the development of the ICS, and to the nation’s most historic emergency responses. “I’ve heard it said,” Shelley said, “that the ICS is comparable to setting up a Fortune 500 company and having it working in 18 hours.”

In order to get a response up and running, it’s necessary to have specialists placed where they can do the most good. The MTSRU is one element unique to the Coast Guard in the ICS; another is the leader of the Vessel Support Unit, which is responsible for maintaining and repairing response vessels after a disaster, and for coordinating transportation between or among shore resources.

Incident Management Assist Teams

The highest level of incident management expertise within the service is its Incident Management Assist Teams (IMATs), comprised of active-duty, Reserve, civilian, or Auxiliary volunteers schooled in the ICS. The IMATs are, technically, housed within the two Coast Guard areas (the Atlantic Area fields two IMATS, a “blue” and a “gold” team), though members go wherever they’re most needed to augment personnel within the response organization. Because the ICS works by essentially throwing the organization chart of every participating agency out the window and establishing a new command hierarchy, Shelley said the IMATs are not typically deployed as teams. “We come in and complement,” he said. “We’ve found out that instead of always wanting a team, everybody, even during Katrina, wants particular positions filled – a planning or operations section chief, or division group supervisors, or a safety officer, or a liaison officer. They order a la carte rather than say, ‘I need a team.’”

U.S. Coast Guardsmen from the Pacific Strike Team and local EPA officials conduct shoreline assessments in Pago Pago, American Samoa, on Oct. 3, 2009, after an earthquake and tsunami hit the U.S. territory Sept. 29, 2009. The Coast Guard had tactical IMAT members on the ground in American Samoa and strategic IMAT members at the ICS command center in Honolulu, Hawaii. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech Sgt. Cohen A. Young

Katrina, Shelley said, offered stark contrasts between activities that were or were not governed by the ICS. “I was at the Joint Field Office [JFO] in Mississippi,” he said, “and that JFO was run along ICS guidelines. Everybody knew, coming from all these federal agencies, what their job was coming in, and we went from 198 people at the State Emergencies Operations Center to 800 people in the JFO in two days. The thing was up and running. They were paving 52 acres of property a day, setting up over 250 FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] trailers a day. That means putting the roads down, blocking up the trailers, installing the lines that bring the water in and the waste out, the electricity – and having those things feasible in a day.”

Depending on where an incident occurs, the deployment of IMAT members can create unusual command situations. When a tsunami struck the coast of the remote U.S. territory of American Samoa in the fall of 2009, Shelley said, the ICS command center was established at the Coast Guard’s sector command in Honolulu – about 2,500 miles away. Some IMAT members served at the ICS command, while others deployed to the field, sleeping in tents in the jungles of American Samoa. “We needed different skillsets there – the tactical people in American Samoa, and the strategic people in Honolulu,” Shelley said. Tactical IMAT members led harbor and other infrastructure recovery efforts; determined the best means of financing recovery operations; helped with logistical decision-making; relayed information to Honolulu about equipment and supply needs; and ensured that people – including some Coast Guard families – were supplied with adequate water and shelter.

After Hurricane Ike hit the Gulf Coast in 2008, IMAT members rotated into shifts after spending the day or night sleeping in the hallway of the ICS command post – a gymnasium 30 miles west of Houston, Texas.

The deployment of IMAT members is not always due to a disaster, explained Cmdr. Tim Scheel, leader of the Atlantic Area’s “blue” team – it’s often pre-emptive to place incident management experts at the scene and help plan for contingencies. IMAT members are scheduled for deployment to Honolulu in November 2011, when President Barack Obama was slated to address the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. “Also, IMAT members have been deployed to the Democratic and Republican conventions, major sporting events such as Super Bowls, and other National Special Security Events [NSSE], and I am sure we’ll have people at the conventions in the coming election year,” Scheel said.

A Coast Guard HU-25 Falcon jet crew flew over Galveston Island near Bolivar Point, parts of which were damaged or destroyed during Hurricane Ike, to assess damage to communities, critical infrastructure, and waterways, Sept. 13, 2008. Coast Guard crews worked diligently to help citizens in areas affected by the storm through search and rescue, re-establishment of waterways, and other Coast Guard missions. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Tom Atkeson

“We recognize this is demanding technical work that can’t be done solely by volunteers anymore,” said Shelley. The president’s FY 2012 budget request includes funding to establish a Coast Guard National Incident Management Assistance Team – a central repository of incident management expertise that could, as well as being deployed in times of need, export its skills and knowledge.

“Since 2001, when the IMAT concept was established,” said Shelley, “we’ve been trying to kind of put ourselves out of business by making sure each sector has that expertise on staff. It looks as if that may happen soon, and I think it’s going to be quite exciting.”

This article was first published, under a different title, in Coast Guard Outlook: 2012 Edition.

If the recently passed FY 2012 defense budget is any indication, the end of the Iraq war has marked a turning point in the military’s priorities. Rather than growing the force and providing incentives for recruitment and retention, this year’s budget appears to focus on trimming costs where it can, and matching steep post-war cuts in Army and Marine Corps end strengths with modifications to the benefits package.

Though for the past three years the topline amount has risen slightly, Russell Rumbaugh, co-director of the Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense program at the non-partisan Henry L. Stimson Center, points out that the rate of increase has been essentially negated by the rate of inflation.

“We’re now three years into a flat budget,” said Rumbaugh. “What that means is, in real terms, the defense budget is eroding. We’re already in the drawdown. It’s already happening.” In the 2012 budget, while few benefits have suffered an outright cut, some have been frozen or leveled off – which, again, factoring inflation, will result an effective cut for active-duty, reserve, or retired personnel.

Policies behind the provisions of the 2012 budget are detailed in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama on Dec. 31, 2011. Many of these provisions will have a direct impact on the bottom lines of active-duty or retired military personnel, including:

• An across-the-board 1.6 percent increase in military pay. The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations (Title 37, Section 1009) provides a permanent formula for an automatic annual military pay raise, indexing it to the annual increase in the Employee Cost Index. For six of the past eight years, Congress has added an additional .5 percent to this raise; this year, as in 2011, the legislature held itself to the indexing formula.

• An increase in TRICARE Prime annual enrollment fees. In a recent report titled “FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act: Selected Military Personnel Policy Issues,” (www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R41874.pdf) the Congressional Research Service says that about 700,000 households, or 1.6 million beneficiaries, are enrolled in TRICARE Prime, the military’s HMO-style insurance plan. For working-age retirees, this year’s budget calls for modest enrollment fee increases for the plan, raising them by $30 annually per individual and $60 per year for families.

While modest, the fee increases are the first since the TRICARE program’s establishment in 1995, and Congress has authorized fees to be raised in future years by the same cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) applied to military retired pay. This is also modest, compared to the projected per capita increase in health care costs for Americans over the next decade, which is estimated at about 5 to 6 percent per year by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

TRICARE’s 16 years without a fee increase, while the Pentagon’s health care costs have spiraled – tripling over the last decade – has been controversial, and they has become more so in a time of constrained federal budgets. As Todd Harrison, Senior Fellow for Defense Budget Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), points out, keeping these health care costs artificially low for personnel has the potential to nibble away at other parts of the defense budget.

“Because fees are so low, it’s incentivizing working-age retirees to go on the government military health care system instead of taking health care from the private employer,” Harrison said. “So you want to raise the fee high enough that people won’t have that incentive. It saves DoD a tremendous amount of money that they can put toward better training and better equipment for our troops. That’s the tradeoff:  We’re either subsidizing health care for retirees, or we could use that money for better training and equipment for today’s forces.”

•  The conversion of the High Deployment Allowance (HDA) from mandatory to “authorized.” The HDA was enacted before 9/11, to provide additional pay – $100 a day in addition to other pay and allowances – to service members who are deployed for 401 or more days out of a 730-day span. This provision gives the Pentagon more authority to determine what is meant by ‘deployment’ in the context of HDA, and it seems unlikely that this determination is destined to become more generous.

• Expansion of the Wounded Warrior Careers Program. The authorization obligates funding to provide testing, assistance, and other services to help wounded warriors develop career plans and improve skills at 20 centers nationwide. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the provision, if implemented, will cost $60 million from 2012-2016.
• Incentives for early retirement or voluntary separation. Several provisions have been included in anticipation of the coming force reductions, including:

•Extension of voluntary separation pay and benefits authority, which was set to expire on Dec. 31, to the end of 2018. The provision, for select enlisted personnel and officers who have served between 6 and 20 years, will reduce the need for involuntary separations over the next several years.

•Temporary Early Retirement Authority (TERA). This will allow certain service members to collect a reduced annuity if they are released after 15 years of service, but before serving 20 years.

•Voluntary retirement incentive pay – up to 12 months of basic pay – for a limited number of officers who elect to retire with 20 to 29 years of service.

•An expanded period – from three months to one year – that an enlisted member may be discharged early without incurring a loss of benefits.

 These are arguably just the first in a series of adjustments in personnel spending to come over the next few years. The national defense strategy outlined by Obama and Secretary Leon Panetta on Jan. 6 (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/us/obama-at-pentagon-to-outline-cuts-and-strategic-shifts.html?scp=1&sq=defense%20strategy&st=cse), while short on specifics, did ensure a “leaner” military, no longer sized “to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations” – though both vowed not to balance the budget on the backs of service members. Panetta ended his remarks, on the day the document was released, by addressing service members directly: “I believe the strategic guidance honors your sacrifice and strengthens the country by building a force equipped to deal with the future,” he said. “I have no higher responsibility than fighting to protect you and to protect your families.”

Petty Officer 2nd Class Kyle Kappessar (left) and Petty Officer 3rd Class Chris Smith (right) secure first-responder gear aboard a C-130 fixed-wing aircraft from Air Station Elizabeth City, N.C., at Homestead Air Reserve Base in Homestead, Fla., Jan. 14, 2010. The aircraft transported nearly 30 first responders to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to assist those affected by the January 2010 earthquake. The Coast Guard is unique in its ability to coordinate local, state, and federal responders to disasters - a role the service assumes with ease because it is "always ready." U.S. Coast Guard photograph by PA1 Bobby Nash.

Likewise, Petty Officer James Collins of Coast Guard Station Saginaw, Mich., is much more than a boatswain’s mate – he’s one of the most experienced ice rescuers on the Great Lakes, which is within the Coast Guards 9th District. When someone falls through the ice into the frigid Great Lakes’ waters, Collins is part of the team – comprised of himself, boat mechanics, and people of other rated job classes – that sets out with an ice skiff to find the victim. He also teaches ice rescues to other service members at the Coast Guard’s Ice Capabilities Center of Excellence in Saginaw.

In the Commandant’s Direction, issued in early 2011, Adm. Robert J. Papp Jr., reminded the Coast Guard: “Every Coast Guard member is a first responder.” That principle is impossible for Coast Guard members to ignore; it’s in the Coast Guard’s motto, Semper Paratus (Always Ready), and can be traced to the service’s founding roots. The Revenue Cutter Service was for a few years the nation’s only naval assets, and not only were they law enforcement ships – but they protected the nation’s coasts from incursion, and responded to vessels in distress. When the Revenue Cutter Service merged with the U.S. Life-Saving Service in 1915, it was a natural fit, and a unique agency was born: a combination of the nation’s first responders, with both law enforcement and military capabilities.

For Coast Guard Deputy Commandant for Operations Vice Adm. Brian M. Salerno, this dual nature defines the organization. “I think one of the most distinctive aspects of the Coast Guard is that we are at all times both a military organization and also a law enforcement organization,” said Salerno. “It’s the only service in the federal government that has that dual characteristic.” Its very nature allows the Coast Guard enormous flexibility: If a seagoing vessel entering U.S. waters has been identified as a threat, the federal government doesn’t have to decide whether it’s a military or a homeland security issue – the Coast Guard has the authority to act in either case.

This authority also allows the service to exercise control in U.S. seaports. For example, the Coast Guard has the authority to control traffic in response to any threat or incident such as a terrorist attack, environmental pollution, or a natural disaster. The service’s cutters serve alongside U.S. Navy ships in the Northern Arabian Gulf, and Coast Guard law enforcement detachment teams, commonly known as LEDETs, serve aboard Navy ships and perform counter-piracy operations off the Horn of Africa, as well as counter-drug operations in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Carol Baillie, center, a marine science technician assigned to the Atlantic Strike Team based at Fort Dix, N.J., provides coaching and guidance to Petty Officer 2nd Class Daniel Hieter, right, and Petty Officer 3rd Class Donald Munk, both marine science technicians from Marine Safety Unit Duluth, Minn., who were performing the duties of the resources unit during Operation Down Under, Aug. 24, 2011. The Coast Guard and its state and local area partners conduct emergency preparedness and response exercises every year as part of established strategies to build response capabilities and improve readiness levels for first responders. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class George Degener.

The Coast Guard tends to describe its activities functionally, in terms of prevention and response, but that dichotomy doesn’t describe the ways in which its prevention activities strengthen its response capability. The service’s people and assets are distributed throughout the country. “Our people,” said Salerno, “live and work in the communities they serve.”

The Coast Guard works with local police, fire, emergency management, and environmental protection agencies to prepare for anything from an oil spill to a hurricane. As they work to manage risk through safety exercises, vessel and equipment inspections, and other community interactions, Coast Guard personnel become the “cop on the beat” within the maritime domain. “All of those activities bring our members in contact with the maritime community, which makes us aware of how they operate, what’s normal, and creates relationships,” Salerno said, “which then become extremely valuable in a response when you rely on partner agencies. We’ve formed those relationships, and they’re exercised almost every day in some way. So when the really significant event happens, we are not meeting people for the first time in a command center. There’s an element of trust that’s been built up. That’s enormously powerful in the chaos of a big event.”

When the Coast Guard switches into response mode, its military culture guarantees that it can do so instantly, without asking for permission; its relationships with local, private, and state organizations ensure that it can mobilize resources around a local incident commander.

When President George W. Bush appointed Adm. Thad Allen, then-chief of staff for the Coast Guard, to lead the federal government’s response and recovery effort as the principal federal official after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, it was a recognition that the Coast Guard’s leadership expertise was necessary because, as a Coast Guardsman, he knew how to interact with other government and civilian organizations. “In a situation like Katrina,” explained Salerno, “where you had a military joint task force, commanded by Gen. [Russel L.] Honoré, and then you had the entire rest of the federal government response – FEMA working with the states and local governments – those two things had to be bridged somehow. That’s really what Adm. Allen did in that role. Because the Coast Guard is comfortable in both worlds, we are in a very unique position to help broker across agency boundary lines.”

Emergency medical technicians rush a gurney to an awaiting HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and crew from Coast Guard Aviation Training Center Mobile, Ala., at Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans. The helicopter crew medevaced multiple survivors from the mobile offshore drilling unit Deepwater Horizon after the April 2010 explosion and subsequent fire caused the crew of the vessel to evacuate. U.S. Coast Guard photograph by Petty Officer 3rd Class Tom Atkeson.

The events that unfolded over six months during the response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster – and the effects of which are still being assessed by the Coast Guard and its partners – offer examples of the service’s ability to lead and transition among different missions, all within the timeline of a certain event. When the offshore oil drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico, about 40 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast, the event was, first and foremost, a search and rescue (SAR) case – 11 workers were killed in the explosion and ensuing fire, 16 injured, and more than 100 people needed to be evacuated from the platform. The Coast Guard immediately launched an operation involving two cutters, four helicopters, and a C-130 Hercules aircraft; within two days, these assets had surveyed nearly 2,000 square miles of ocean in search of the 11 lost crewmembers.

Also within those two days, the entire rig had burned and sunk, and it was clear that the wellhead was leaking oil from the ocean floor. Deepwater Horizon had become a pollution response case – another of the Coast Guard’s primary missions. “Some people might ask: ‘Couldn’t some other agency have been in charge?’” said Salerno. “And perhaps another agency could be given that responsibility – but it’s important to realize that in addition to pollution response, large maritime spills raise a host of other issues which have to be managed in a coordinated way – a role that the Coast Guard is uniquely suited, trained, and equipped to perform.”

Petty Officer 3rd Class Marimeray N. Deelong, air crewman from Coast Guard Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron, performs aircraft maintenance on an MH-65 Dolphin Aug. 27, 2011, at Shaw Air Force Base, Sumter, S.C. Seven Coast Guard air units joined forces to combine eight helicopters and nine search and rescue crews for response efforts to Hurricane Irene, which affected states along the East Coast. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jessica Potter.

As the scope of the environmental disaster gradually became clear, large numbers of commercial vessels and aircraft began to converge on the area to help with cleanup efforts. However, such a large congregation in the Gulf, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, posed a potential threat to the safety of the vessels and response personnel themselves. In addition, the large area impacted by the oil in the Gulf could have disrupted the normal flow of commerce into several Gulf Coast ports. Within this complex set of circumstances posed by Deepwater Horizon, the Coast Guard led SAR operations; led the coordination of the largest pollution response in the nation’s history; established control of the area to manage marine traffic; ensured safety and protected lives; and protected the U.S. economy from further damage. “All of that in one package,” said Salerno, “is what you get with the aggregation of authorities in the Coast Guard.”

To be able to transition from one mission to another in a chaotic, unforgiving and dynamic maritime environment so quickly requires a high degree of proficiency, agility, and resourcefulness that is unusual among public servants. People like Altavilla and Collins, who can switch at a moment’s notice from repairing helicopters or driving boats to saving lives, may seem unusual to most Americans, but they’re fairly typical Coast Guardsmen. Last Jan. 12, when Haiti was struck by a catastrophic earthquake that affected 3 million Haitians, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutters Tahoma and Mohawk – already in the Caribbean conducting counter-drug patrols and other missions – were first on the scene. With their Haitian counterparts, Coast Guard crewmembers began to sort through the chaos, setting up triage for the wounded and performing first aid, often using scraps of wood to splint broken bones. They shared their food and water, and within 24 hours, they were evacuating the severely injured to facilities for treatment or amputation. The Tahoma’s crew even delivered a baby on the cutter’s flight deck. After the dust had settled, the CGCs Oak and Valiant arrived to conduct port assessments and repair damage to the nation’s main harbor at Port-au-Prince, to enable needed supplies to flow directly into the city.

“There’s a humanitarian aspect to what we do,” said Salerno. “I think that attracts a unique person. I’m always proud of our service, and I think most people who wear this uniform have resourcefulness and a desire to help others that’s quite uplifting. You see people in the Coast Guard do extraordinary things when they’re put into situations that look almost impossible.”

This article was first published in Coast Guard Outlook: 2012 Edition.

In the late 1990s, the service struggled to counter a new weapon in the arsenal of drug smugglers: the go-fast boat, a small boat with a planing hull that could reach speeds of 50 knots in the open ocean. At the time, even the fastest Coast Guard cutter, with both turbines maxed out, could reach a top speed of about 29 knots.

The Coast Guard didn’t waste time trying to figure out how to crank out faster boats for chasing drug runners; its history had taught its leaders to look at what it had, rather than to fantasize about what it wanted. The answer, they understood, was on the flight decks of its large cutters: a helicopter that could travel at 120 knots.

An MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter, assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 22 embarked aboard the littoral combat ship USS Freedom, hovers over the position of illicit drugs dumped overboard by the crew of a high-speed go-fast vessel. Sailors and Coast Guardsmen from Freedom (left) and Colombian navy sailors in a patrol boat search the area beneath the helicopter. Freedom's boarding team recovered 72 kilograms of cocaine from the Caribbean Sea. U.S. Navy photo

The next problem was how to use a helicopter to stop a boat. The go-fasts were outlasting enforcement aircraft, speeding out of U.S. jurisdiction before they could be apprehended. The Coast Guard found its answer in the HITRON – the Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron. HITRON helicopters were outfitted with .50-caliber anti-material rifles and their crews modified to include snipers – not for shooting smugglers, but for disabling the outboard motors of their boats. If smugglers don’t respond to warning shots, the service’s snipers are authorized to disable their boats with rifle fire. It’s a simple solution, enabling the service to use its assets wisely and minimize risk in a high-risk environment. Since 1998, the HITRON has participated in more than 150 go-fast boat interdictions, without the loss of a single Coast Guard member’s life.

Why not simply build a faster boat? Two reasons: First, the Coast Guard understands that the secret of its enduring value to the nation is its versatility; it has always avoided specialization. History had taught it that once the threat of the go-fast was neutralized, drug smugglers would think of something else, leaving the service wondering what to do with a fleet of super-fast speedboats. This suspicion has been borne out in the illegal transit zones of both the Caribbean and the East Pacific, where you don’t see many go-fast boats any more; you see – or struggle mightily to see – self-propelled semi-submersible (SPSS) craft packed with drugs.

Second, and more important: The Coast Guard’s budget has never been much to brag about. Today the service pays for itself – its 42,000 personnel, its 244 cutters, 1,850 boats, 204 aircraft, and a growing mission portfolio executed from shore installations throughout the world – with an allowance of about $10.2 billion a year, or slightly more than the cost of three B-2 stealth bombers.

A Culture of Resourcefulness

As Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, the assistant commandant for Marine Safety, Security, and Stewardship, points out, the frugality of the Coast Guard is nothing new; the service traces its roots to 1790, when the cash-strapped United States – a nation without a naval force – bought itself 10 cutters to enforce tariff and trade laws and prevent smuggling. Over time, some people saw the ships as a quasi-navy, performing key defense functions; some saw them as law enforcement vessels.

Today, when people see a large white cutter at sea, some may see it as a vessel that enforces the U.S. exclusive economic zone protecting American fish stocks. Some may see it as a forward-deployed vessel for the interception of illegal drug shipments, or for responding to illegal migration attempts at sea. Others may see it as an antiterrorism asset capable of intercepting a ship carrying a weapon of mass destruction toward U.S. shores.

A Coast Guard cutter is, of course, all of the above, and much more – and recent history offers unprecedented examples of the service’s versatility and resourcefulness. The service typically has cutters and aircraft deployed in the Florida Straits, performing a variety of missions, and on Jan. 12, 2010, when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the island nation of Haiti, these assets had been diverted to lend humanitarian assistance as soon as the tremors had ceased.

“I’ve commanded a number of ships in my career,” Zukunft said, “and once you’re under way, you’re not tethered by a bureaucratic decision-making process. As the commanding officer, you ultimately have that authority, and you can easily shift from one mission set to another. In a natural disaster, it is pretty easy for us to make that shift and then immediately provide situation awareness back to the Department of Homeland Security, and ultimately to the administration, saying, ‘This is a mass casualty event and we’re going to need the whole of government to respond.’ We saw that in Haiti.”

For the Coast Guard, that command authority extends to the field in more than 44 bilateral agreements with other nations. These bilateral agreements increase the operational reach of U.S. assets and foster integration with international partners by providing support to enable partner nation assets to patrol and respond to threats in their own sovereign waters. Drug smugglers are agnostic to borders that ostensibly create a “safe haven” in the territorial seas of many nations across the transit zone that do not have the capacity to conduct sustained detection, monitoring, and interdiction operations. These bilateral agreements cover a range of subjects from procedures on ship boarding to over flight of national airspace.

The Coast Guard has a similar relationship with the U.S. Navy, which is, by law, limited in its ability to support a U.S. law enforcement response. However, the Navy has made significant contributions in the counter-drug fight. The Coast Guard, with limited assets for patrolling the maritime transit zones into the United States is able to capitalize on the intercept capability of Navy ships: As a military force with a long tradition of interoperability, the service deploys law enforcement detachment (LEDET) personnel on these Navy ships. When the Navy detects an incursion, LEDETs aboard that vessel can promptly carry out the enforcement action. All of this happens instantly, without deliberation, within the military command structure shared between the Department of Defense with its Title 10 authorities, and the U.S. Coast Guard with its Title 14 authorities.

Perhaps the most significant example of how the Coast Guard uses its relationships with other agencies – local, regional, state, and federal – as a force multiplier to protect and secure the nation’s maritime domain, and to bring order to chaos in the wake of a national incident, occurred during the months-long response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which began with an explosion of the offshore oil rig on April 10, 2010, and continued over the next several months as the damaged wellhead beneath the rig spewed crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

From July 12 to Dec. 17, Zukunft was the federal on-scene coordinator for the Deepwater Horizon response, which at one point, involved nearly 5,000 Coast Guard men and women; under National Incident Commander Adm. Thad Allen, the Coast Guard led the entire response, an undertaking that involved nearly 48,000 people. It was the first time the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (commonly called NCP), formulated more than 40 years ago, had been implemented in a real-world event. The plan, said Zukunft, provides the Coast Guard the authority to be the face of the federal government in a response of Deepwater Horizon’s magnitude. “What we bring to the table is a number of mission sets,” said Zukunft, “but just as important is a number of unique authorities that aren’t duplicated anywhere else in the federal government.”

Strategically Allocating Assets

The unique authorities of the Coast Guard are not limited to the response arena; in its prevention activities, the service leads in a way that maximizes the efficiency of global maritime commerce. In more than 35 sectors throughout the United States, a sector commander, as captain of the port, has broad authority for providing for the security of port facilities. “You can put the most stringent security measures in place,” reminded Zukunft, “but as soon as you do that, you gridlock our global supply chain.” Coast Guard captains of the port work with all stakeholders – interagency, private-sector, state, tribal, and local – to focus on the most significant threats to U.S. ports. For example, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Coast Guard examines cargo manifests and determines vessels of interest that may require more stringent inspections. “It’s a very select, targeted process,” said Zukunft, “so we’re not making every vessel pull off to the side and operating maritime checkpoints.” In 2010, the Coast Guard screened more than 257,000 ships and 71.2 million people.

To help assure the security of port facilities in more than 196 countries from which U.S.-bound cargo embarks, the Coast Guard deploys several international port security liaison officers who assess those countries’ compliance with the International Ship and Port Security Code. Vessels departing from any nation found not to be in compliance are automatically vessels of interest, subject to inspection before being allowed into a U.S. port.

The Coast Guard has a long tradition of maximizing the efficiency of its resources. Every year the service takes a close look at all of its mission sets and matches them to its assets. The demands on those assets are expressed through federal strategic planning documents, such as the National Drug Control Strategy, regional fisheries management plans, or the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. “Of course, every year,” Zukunft said, “the demands that emerge far exceed the resources we have available. But we look at the threats on a global scale and then determine where we’re going to allocate our major cutters, our C-130s [Hercules aircraft], and where we look to get the best return on our investment.”

A Coast Guard smallboat crew enforces a security zone in place along the East River for the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 20, 2011. The Coast Guard was working with local law enforcement to promote safety and security throughout this high-profile event. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Erik Swanson

An eye toward efficiency results in a service that is constantly refining the proficiencies of its workforce: The Coast Guard is, first and foremost, a learning organization that evolves along with its knowledge set – and this knowledge leads to refinements that better protect the American homeland from threats. Zukunft points to Deepwater Horizon as a wake-up call that revealed to the Coast Guard, and to the nation, that its ability to imagine the scope of the threat posed by mobile offshore drilling units (MODUs) had been insufficient. Programs since implemented by the Coast Guard include area committees that reach down to the local level to prepare for worst-case scenarios in their contingency plans, and close collaboration with the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to ensure integrated and complimentary inspection regime to mitigate the risks associated with deep water drilling.

The ability to learn and adapt has led the Coast Guard to take a closer look at its recapitalization plan, launched more than a decade ago to replace and enhance the capabilities of vessels and aircraft that are, in many cases, years beyond their designed service lives. “What we learned through our acquisition process is that when it came to designing requirements for a new generation of vessels and aircraft, the expertise resided in the Coast Guard, and not necessarily among contractors. In terms of understanding what today’s and tomorrow’s mission needs are, we were best positioned to guide and have since taken over leadership of that process.”

It’s a good bet that if the Coast Guard doesn’t ask for a piece of equipment, it’s already figured out a way to do without it. In the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific transit zones, where drug smugglers have largely abandoned the go-fast boat in favor of semi-submersibles, the Coast Guard isn’t giving chase with a new fleet of submarines. With its partners in the Navy, it has figured out a way to approach the submersibles stealthily and board them before their cargo can be scuttled. Under the Drug Trafficking Vessel Interdiction Act, passed at the Coast Guard’s urging, anyone operating an unflagged semi-submersible in the open ocean, for any reason, is subject to criminal penalties and a heavy fine.

It’s too early to measure how effective these new measures are in discouraging the use of self-propelled semi-submersibles – but there’s no denying that operating an SPSS is now much riskier for drug traffickers.

“The ocean is just as big,” said Zukunft. “The threats are even more complex, and we have fewer ships. Being able to efficiently and effectively direct our resources toward the greatest likelihood of success – that has paid huge dividends for us and our nation.”

This article was first published in Coast Guard Outlook: 2012 Edition.

A map of the district’s U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ), or waters that project 200 miles outward from the nation’s 90,000 miles of coastline, shows eight large ring-shaped areas in the Pacific Ocean south and west of Hawaii, representing remote U.S. island commonwealths and territories. Of the total 3.4 million square nautical miles of U.S. EEZ, 43 percent resides within this region.

Because so many Pacific nations have the same challenges, District 14 has become adept with international engagement and diplomacy; among U.S. partners in the region, the Coast Guard is one of many of the nation’s eyes and ears.

Coast Guard Activities Far East (FEACT)

One way in which the Coast Guard engages with other Pacific nations is through Activities Far East, a forward-deployed operational command collocated with the headquarters of U.S. Forces Japan at Yokota Air Base, west of Tokyo. FEACT carries out its designated missions across a 41-nation region from Russia to New Zealand and from Madagascar to French Polynesia – a region containing the world’s largest ports and some of its most strategically important shipping routes.

A crewmember aboard a 47-foot motor lifeboat (MLB) from Station Kauai signals to an aircrew aboard an HH-65 Dolphin helicopter from Air Station Barbers Point that they've received a rescue basket lowered to them during a training exercise off the southeast coast of Kauai, Feb. 10, 2011. The exercises involved lowering a rescue basket to the MLB and deploying the rescue swimmer via free fall. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Anthony L. Soto.

Among the most significant FEACT missions is execution of the Coast Guard’s International Port Security program – the evaluation of trading partners’ maritime governance, port facilities, and personnel to ensure safety against terrorist threats. The program is conducted by a small cadre of international port security liaison officers (IPSLOs), deployed from FEACT’s offices in Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. Though an antiterrorism measure, the work of the IPSLOs in Pacific port facilities also has the potential to deter activities such as drug or contraband smuggling, human trafficking, or other transnational crimes.

As Cmdr. Scott Kim, the district’s chief of Inspections and Investigations Branch, explains, IPSLOs have unique skills among Coast Guard members – their interface with foreign government agencies and port facilities is arranged and conducted in partnership with the U.S. Department of State, through the relevant U.S. embassy. Each IPSLO is responsible for assessing the security of port facilities in not one, but several nations in the region, requiring a diverse set of cross-cultural communication skills. The International Ship and Port Facility Security Code, which came into force in 2004, is the internationally accepted standard – which makes it the primary benchmark against which the Coast Guard measures effective security measures in foreign ports. The IPSLO reviews how the facility conducts risk management between potential threats and vulnerability of ships and port infrastructure. If a country is found to lack effective security measures, the IPSLO will guide and assist the country in improvement efforts and monitor their progress. In all cases, an IPSLO will promote best practices in areas such as monitoring and controlling access, security plans and equipment, and personnel.

“We have people from all different occupational specialties [serving as IPSLOs],” said Kim. “But these are proficient maritime professionals with good diplomatic skills who can work independently and represent the Coast Guard and the United States well.”

Partners in the Pacific

Coast Guardsmen aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Walnut and New Zealand assessment teams work together to load supplies and containers of fresh water to deliver to a small island-nation in the South Pacific suffering from severe drought conditions Oct. 5, 2011. The crew prepares to travel more than 358 miles to help approximately 1,500 residents. U.S. Coast Guard photo.

The 14th District plays an important role in several regional enforcement agencies, including the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC). With 17 member countries, the FFA helps countries manage, control, and develop their tuna fishery resources that fall within their 200-mile EEZ. The WCPFC is comprised of approximately 40 nations that regulate the fishery in the high seas regions. Within these partnerships, District 14 works closely to promote the conservation and sustainable use of migratory fish stocks.

The Coast Guard also participates in the Quadrilateral Defense Cooperation Talks, or “Quads,” a collaboration between France, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand to ensure a “prosperous, secure, and stable Pacific.” The Quads focus on maritime safety and security issues such as fisheries enforcement and deterrence of transnational crime.

In addition to participation in these agencies and the Quads, the Coast Guard executes bilateral agreements with six Pacific Island countries: Tonga, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), the Cook Islands, and Kiribati. The seventh and eighth bilateral agreements were recently negotiated and executed with the Republic of Nauru and the government of Tuvalu. This body of agreements, commonly known as “Shiprider” agreements, allows the service to engage in bilateral or joint maritime surveillance operations in which a visiting law enforcement officer rides aboard a Coast Guard vessel or aircraft and, essentially, uses those assets as a platform for enforcing their own nation’s EEZ.

Capt. Eric Brown, chief of Response Division for District 14, said this body of international agreements and partnerships allows the Coast Guard to move freely about the Pacific – from U.S. EEZ, high seas, and partner nation EEZs. “It’s a great expanse of ocean,” he said. “So where the Coast Guard might have done fewer than 10 boardings in a patrol in the past, they’re now doing 40 to 50 boardings. These agreements really have made our patrols much more effective.”

In the past year, these surveillance operations yielded results that far exceeded those of traditional USCG patrols in the Pacific. In a 70-day voyage that lasted from Oct. 12 to Dec. 20, 2010, the CGC Rush executed bilateral patrols with Kiribati, RMI, and the Cook Islands; hosted an Australian Shiprider in a professional exchange; patrolled eight distinct U.S. EEZ areas; and, with participants from the 17-nation FFA, conducted Operation Kurukuru, a fisheries enforcement patrol in the Solomon Islands. The Rush also conveyed vessel-sighting information to other nations as the cutter transited through their EEZs, and conducted high seas patrols under the auspices of the WCPFC. For part of the Rush’s 14,000-mile voyage, it was aided by a Coast Guard Hercules aircraft – and it carried a Dolphin helicopter for its entire patrol.

Chief Petty Officer William Hoffman, a boatswain's mate, and Seaman Zachary Smith, from the CGC Galveston Island, assist in the transfer of a member of the Merrell family from the cargo ship OOCL Guangzhou, July 3, 2011. The Merrell family was disabled at sea after their vessel struck debris, causing them to lose steering during a trip from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, to Oregon, July 1. Mr. Merrell placed a radio distress call, which was received by the crew aboard the Guangzhou, a voluntary member of the Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue system, who rendered assistance to the family approximately 10 miles south of Oahu, Hawaii. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Anthony L. Soto.

The CGC Jarvis followed with a 71-day patrol of Oceania from March 11 to May 21, 2011, during which it executed five Shiprider agreements. The Jarvis traveled through the Oceania, transitioning from one strategic patrol segment to another – U.S. EEZ, bilateral partner EEZs, the high seas U.S. tuna fleet, and high seas areas in the WCPFC enforcement area. This highly effective patrol, similarly yielded 40 total boardings of U.S. and foreign fishing vessels.

Operation Big Eye, an FFA operation that used the combined resources of the Quad partners and the FFA’s Pacific Island nations members, was conducted Aug. 1-15, 2011; the Coast Guard contributed 30 hours of surveillance with a Hercules aircraft, in which a Kiribati law enforcement official was a passenger – the Coast Guard’s first “planerider” in the Pacific and a fisheries liaison officer in the FFA’s headquarters in Honiara, Solomon Islands.

On the heels of Operation Big Eye, the Quad partners led a conference of Pacific Island countries in Honiara – the first time the Quad partners together had interacted in a significant way with these nations beyond a specific operation. “We all actually talked broadly and very enthusiastically about how we can work together to improve our regional relationships,” said Brown.

When Pacific Island countries, consider their own national security, they often focus on their marine resources such as some of the worlds last remaining healthy tuna stocks. Coast Guard operations, such as the Shiprider engagements, are a significant demonstration of U.S. commitment to the region.

“We will continue to conduct operations aimed at supporting the region’s economic viability and environmental sustainability,” concluded Kim. “At the same time, we will ensure our homeland security and economic interests through programs such as the international port security program. But the key to our success is maintaining agreements and relationships as this is the best way we can go about protecting U.S. interests.”

The members of PSU 305 were told that they were headed to the Middle East, to help keep watch over Defense Department personnel and shipping infrastructure. When asked where in the Middle East she was headed, Foranda gave the only answer a member of PSU 305 could give: “I don’t know. But I’m extremely excited.”

The Coast Guard’s eight PSUs have been rotating in and out of places such as Kuwait, Guantanamo Bay, and Iraq. Even among the Coast Guard’s Deployable Specialized Forces, they are unusual. They’re comprised mostly of reservists like Foranda who live their lives apart from the Coast Guard, except for one three-day, intensive training weekend each month. The PSUs are staffed by 140 reservists and six active-duty personnel.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Benjamin J. Kiger, a storekeeper, surveys the landing zone as a U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter lands to transport his team. Kiger, a reservist, is a member of the U.S. Coast Guard Redepoyment Assistance & Inspection Detachment (RAID) team. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Lt. James Cullen

For PSU reservists – law enforcement officers, students, clerks, teachers, construction workers, firefighters, and other professionals, many of them with families – readiness is essential. Units cycle into six-month periods of “go-team” status, which means they’re required to deploy within 96 hours’ notice, either domestically or overseas. Recently, PSU 307, out of Florida, was deployed to assist with recovery after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. “We provide not only port security such as antiterrorism and force protection for facilities and shipping, but humanitarian assistance,” said PSU 305’s commanding officer, Cmdr. Mike Ferullo. “We roll with a full medical unit. I have a physician’s assistant and an independent duty corpsman.” Once in the field, a PSU is expected to be completely self-sufficient for 30 days – its members often spend days eating only Meals, Ready-to-Eat – except for its supplies of fuel and drinking water.

PSU training is intensive. All members attend port security basics school at the Joint Maritime Training Center at Camp Lejeune, N.C.; some attend the Air Force’s Phoenix Raven program for training security forces in the air and on the ground. While the training itself is delivered in a long, intense three-day weekend, it’s a mistake to assume unit members are finished with the Coast Guard once they leave. Maritime Law Enforcement Specialist 1st Class Luis Rivera,  with PSU 305, describes a typical training weekend: “My drill this month started on Friday at 7 a.m. On Saturday and Sunday, my days generally start at about 4:45 a.m., and on Sunday things will probably end at around 7 p.m. Then I’ll go back to work on Monday. But what many people don’t understand is that I’ve worked every day this month for at least a couple of hours, either dealing with Coast Guard-related paperwork or just communicating with troop members, speaking to their family members or just touching base with my division officer or the skipper in my master-at-arms capability, to make sure all of my junior members are taken care of and that everybody is going to be safe and secure.”

Reservists in all branches of the armed forces have been crucial to the surge in overseas personnel required for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Coast Guard has been no exception – it’s not only the expertise of its people, but the service’s placement within the military command structure, that allows a PSU to operate effectively as a security force in the Middle East.

Similarly, the work of Coast Guard Redeployment Assistance Inspection Detachment (RAID) represent a Coast Guard specialty – in this case, ensuring the safety and security of containerized cargo – in a forward-deployed military setting. RAIDs are deployed with the Army’s 595th Transportation Brigade, charged with moving cargo in and out of a war zone, and are within the command structure of the Coast Guard’s Patrol Forces Southwest Asia, or PATFORSWA, based in Bahrain.

As Lt. John E. Bannon, the RAID deputy commander, explained, RAID members do everything Coast Guard inspectors do, with the added complication of being in a war zone: “Our job is to assist with cargo coming back to the states, containerized cargo that will go on a commercial carrier or a Military Sealift Command ship. They’ve got to fulfill all the regulations that a commercial carrier would have to do. So we look at how they segregate the hazardous material, whether or not their containers are seaworthy, as well as a variety of different federal and international regulations.”

As Bannon explained, RAID members are also among the Coast Guard personnel deployed farthest forward in a combat zone. When 38 people, including 30 Americans and 22 Navy SEALS, died after their Chinook helicopter was shot down by Afghan insurgents on Aug. 6, 2011, Bannon said, “We had two guys up in the air and we didn’t know which helicopter they were in. They were in the same location, headed to an operating base in the mountains, in Afghanistan, to inspect containers.” Bannon’s team, composed of 17 active-duty Coast Guard members and 10 reservists, is in the midst of a year-long deployment.

Honor, Respect, and Devotion to Duty

When Rivera of PSU 305 departs for the Middle East, he’ll leave behind his wife, four children, and four grandchildren. Bannon, stationed in Kuwait, has a wife and young children waiting for him in San Diego, Calif. “I’m going to bed when she is waking up,” he said, “and when I call, I hear about how difficult the teething is today.”

How do you stay focused on a mission when you don’t know yet what the mission will be? How do you prepare yourself – and your family – for deployment into a combat zone? Such deployments are never easy, said Ferullo: “I mean, everybody is excited to deploy. We’ve trained for this. We’re ready for what we’ll be doing – but I’m seeing the stress here at home with my family, and I know it’s there for the others. Active duty is hard enough – you’re dealing with your job with the Coast Guard and your family. But from the Reserve standpoint, you’re dealing with your Coast Guard obligation, your family obligation – and then you also have a civilian employer.”

As Ferullo pointed out, active-duty personnel usually live in the general vicinity of where they’re assigned. “But reservists are spread out all over. They can’t walk out the front door and go visit their XO [executive officer] and his family if they have a question or concern.”

Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Reserve Force Mark Allen speaks with Stacey A. Ward Turko, president of the Boston Coast Guard Spouses' Association, at a Yellow Ribbon Program event Aug. 20, 2011. The Mission of the Yellow Ribbon Program is to provide Reserve and National Guard members and their families with information and resource opportunities throughout the deployment cycle. This is a Department of Defense program that allows different service members to work on pre-deployment planning as well as reintegrating back into society after returning home. U.S. Coast Guard by Petty Officer 3rd Class Amber Mitchell

The intensive regimen of pre-deployment training required to work a RAID detachment includes courses in the policies and procedures of inspection, as well as the training, delivered at Joint Base Fort Dix, N.J., in the knowledge and skills required for entering a war zone: improvised explosive device detection, counterinsurgency, weapons training, first aid, tactical combat care, and more. For Bannon and other RAID members, these requirements add up to another four months to the year they spend away from home on deployment.

For Coast Guard reservists who, as Ferullo pointed out, share a unique set of circumstances, a unique set of programs offers additional support. The Yellow Ribbon Program, a defense-wide effort to provide National Guard and Reserve armed forces members with information before, during, and after deployments.

According to Cmdr. Karl Leonard, former commanding officer of PSU 309 who is now the Coast Guard’s Yellow Ribbon Program manager, the program begins when, in advance of a reservist’s deployment, the Coast Guard funds the travel, lodging and meals for members and their families or designated others to attend a single service delivery center, where the process begins. “We educate members and their families – spouses, significant others, parents, and children – about some of the challenges of separation and how to cope with them, whether they involve child behavior, marital stress, finances, education, physical or psychological well-being, or other aspects,” said Leonard. Once the pre-deployment program concludes and families return to their communities, program volunteers work to link them with local counseling and support services.

The structure of the program involves five phases: pre-deployment, deployment, immediate reintegration, short-term reintegration, and long-term reintegration – that leaves no doubt as to the most complicated and stressful part of the deployment: coming home and resuming family life together.

“The reintegration has a lot of unknowns,” said Leonard. “Everybody changes during the deployment, the members who deploy and the families who stay behind. There’s a lot of stress. For a service member, all the daily tasks have changed. You’re no longer responsible for paying the bills, fixing the things that are broken, taking the garbage out. Those functions have been replaced while you’ve been gone. You just can’t simply step back and say: ‘OK, it’s back to normal now.’ Your family has learned to become very independent. That doesn’t mean that everybody fails at it – we have great success in reintegration. We’re just trying to give them the tools to make it easier, make it more successful, and to make a resilient family so they’re ready for the next deployment.”

Recent enhancements to support programs have made them more inclusive – for example, the Yellow Ribbon Program now offers the same level of support to single service members. “That’s an important change, to allow us to use funds to bring designated others to these events,” said Leonard. “We need to show single service members that they’re not alone, that they can be accompanied by anyone – a boyfriend, girlfriend, or just a friend. They’re all part of the family.”

One of the support tools Rivera has found most helpful has been frequent communication with his unit’s ombudsman, a liaison who exists solely to solve problems and improve communication. “She’s been a real lifeline,” he said, “in emergencies, or if our families just kind of need someone to talk to. With her I’ve compiled a list of all my junior members’ family information. I don’t want to just know that seaman so-and-so works for me; I want to know who his wife is. I want to know how old his children are. And I work with the ombudsman to make sure she can be aware and step in if a spouse or other family member has issues. She has really helped us stay sane during deployment.”

In his “State of the Coast Guard Address,” Adm. Robert J. Papp, Jr. commandant, in recognition of the value of these services, pledged to hire additional full-time ombudsmen to help service members in the field. He declared 2011 “the Year of the Coast Guard Family” and pledged even greater support for families by reinvesting in improved housing, child care centers, and other programs that strengthen Coast Guard communities.

By relieving pressures on Coast Guard service members and their families, the Coast Guard not only improves their quality of life, but also improves the quality of their work, by contributing to their health, readiness, motivation, and mission focus. Coast Guard personnel have proven strong and capable and fully aware of what their work demands of them – and of what that work means.

“I’m a firm believer in the idea that freedom is not free,” said Rivera. “So I decided this is my way to give back to my country and also make sure that not only my family, but everybody’s family, is safe back home.” In this Year of the Coast Guard Family, the service is, at every level possible, striving to do the same for its own.

This article was first published in Coast Guard Outlook: 2012 Edition.

Construction of the Las Vegas VA Medical Center is scheduled to be completed in late 2011, and when it opens its doors in early 2012, on a 150-acre campus at the southwest corner of the I-215 North Beltway and Pecos Road in North Las Vegas, it will offer a long-needed central location for primary care to veterans: a seven-story, 790,000-square-foot medical center housing a 90-bed inpatient care unit, a 20-bed mental health facility, and a 120-bed nursing care unit. The nursing care unit is architecturally tied to the medical center, a multi-tiered structure enclosed in a glass curtain wall and powered, in part, by an advanced photovoltaic system that capitalizes on southern Nevada’s most abundant energy resource.

In Orlando, the new VA Medical Center, a 1.2-million-square-foot, $665 million facility, will be only part of a new “Medical City” under development in East Orlando, a complex that will include the University of Central Florida Medical School, the Sanford-Burnham Institute for Medical Research, the Nemours Children’s Hospital, and the University of Florida Academic and Research Center. Set to open in late 2012, the Orlando VA Medical Center will increase access to medical care for about 400,000 Central Florida veterans. The LEED-certified silver facility, the first VA medical center built on a completely new “greenfield” site since 1995, will include a large multi-specialty outpatient clinic, 134 inpatient beds, a 120-bed community living center, and a 60-bed domiciliary.

The Orlando and Las Vegas medical centers are two of the most recent in a series of ambitious construction projects launched since 2004, when the Department of Veterans Affairs completed the early portion of its Capital Asset Realignment and Enhanced Services (CARES) study of VA Medical Centers nationwide.

“These are long-awaited projects,” said Bob Neary, acting director of the VA’s Office of Construction and Facilities Management. “We have six brand-new hospitals under way; four under construction right now. In Las Vegas and Orlando, two of the biggest and fastest-growing cities in the country, they have never had a VA hospital.”

Fulfilling President Barack Obama's commitment to rebuild New Orleans, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki joined state and local officials for a groundbreaking ceremony for a new 1.5 million-square-foot medical center for the Department of Veterans Affairs. When it opens, the facility will have 120 inpatient beds in addition to 60 transitional-care beds that provide rehabilitation, hospice and palliative care, and mental illness research. The hospital will accommodate a half-million outpatient visits annually. All mission-critical services will be 20 feet above ground level, and the facility will have a heliport and boat dock for evacuations. VA photo by Dennise V. Sauvage

The other new medical centers – in New Orleans, La.; Denver, Colo.; Omaha, Neb.; and Louisville, Ky. – are replacing decades-old facilities that no longer serve their surrounding populations as well as they should. In New Orleans, the need is especially urgent; the VA Medical Center on Perdido Street has been closed ever since Hurricane Katrina incapacitated much of it in August 2005. Since then, care for tens of thousands of veterans has been dispersed among seven clinics and an ambulatory care center, with some VA doctors providing inpatient care at other area hospitals.

Restoring a home base for a completely integrated health system for veterans, including inpatient care, long-term rehabilitation, and research, is an important step for New Orleans. The proposed 200-bed, $800 million medical center, set on 29 acres in the South Market District, will, like the Orlando VA Medical Center, be part of a larger medical district that will include the Louisiana State University Medical Center, the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, and the Louisiana Cancer Research Center. Construction on the VA Medical Center began in late 2010, and delivery of care is expected to begin in late 2014. Several features of the new hospital are noteworthy, including a heliport and boat dock for evacuations, and the location of all mission-critical service areas at least 20 feet above ground.

The New Orleans VA Medical Center represents another first for the VA: It’s the first time the VA has contracted a large project under something resembling the “construction manager at risk” delivery method, which establishes a maximum price early in negotiations. “As the design is going on, there’s a firm price negotiated with the contractor,” explained Neary. “Under federal acquisition regulations, that private-sector model gets a little tricky, so in New Orleans and in Denver, we held a competition with some of the early design drawings available, and firms had to come forward, demonstrate their qualifications, and then also provide us with what we call a ceiling price – they can’t go over that – and then a target price, the price they felt they could bring the project in for. So it’s our hope and expectation – and we believe it’s being borne out – that when they actually had to commit to a price, they knew more about the job, and therefore didn’t have to put in extra contingencies to guard against the unknown.”

The new Denver facility, Neary said, will replace the Denver Medical Center for the Eastern Colorado Health Care System, and is under construction on the system’s campus in the Denver suburb of Aurora. The 184-bed replacement center will include a 30-bed Spinal Cord Injury/Disease Center, a 30-bed community living center, and a research building.

Both the Louisville and Omaha centers are in earlier phases of development, Neary said. “Both those cities have VA Medical Centers, both constructed in the early 1950s, so they’re fairly old. In Omaha we’re in design now and we’ll be building the new hospital on the grounds of an existing hospital. In Louisville, we’re in the site selection process. We’re looking at five sites: the existing site, a site downtown next to the university of Louisville, and then on three greenfield sites – sites that have not been developed in the past. We’re finishing up the environmental compliance review work now.” The final site decision for the Louisville Medical Center is expected sometime in the fall of 2011.

New medical centers are, of course, the VA’s most conspicuous and often-discussed projects, but they don’t represent the totality of the department’s ambitious construction program. Three new projects are under way to provide facilities for the VA’s Polytrauma System of Care, established to accommodate the injuries suffered by many service members in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We’ve had people coming back from the field who, in past wars, wouldn’t have made it home,” said Neary. “They’ve suffered blasts, burns, loss of limbs. These are very sophisticated medical care centers. We’re building new ones to replace the existing ones in Tampa [Fla.] and in Palo Alto [Calif.], and we’re also building a new Level One center in San Antonio, Texas.”

Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., listen to VA Medical Center Director John Bright explain the construction plans for the new Las Vegas VA Medical Center. VA photo

The San Antonio Polytrauma Center, the nation’s fifth Level One center, is a cutting-edge facility, a three-story, 84,000-square-foot space integrated in the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital. The center includes a ward, physical medicine and rehabilitation services, prosthetics services, and polytrauma research and support programs.

The department has also recently completed, or is currently building, spinal cord injury centers in New York; Milwaukee; Syracuse; Dallas; Minneapolis; Chicago; and Brockton, Mass. Across the country, many outpatient clinics are under way (the Fort Worth Clinic, opened in November 2010, is the largest outpatient clinic in the nation); as well as various improvements, expansions, renovations, and retrofits. The VA strives for maximum efficiency in every facet of a project, from contracting methods to the choice of building materials to power supply.

Many VA projects, some funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), have replaced or supplemented aging power plants with renewable energy resources; VA has contracted no fewer than 40 photovoltaic projects at medical centers and national cemeteries across the nation. “For every project,” said Neary, “we’re looking for ways to include renewable energy. We’re putting in photovoltaic solar systems, and new and much more efficient heating and power plants. We’re also installing windmills at several facilities around the country to generate electricity.”

Newer VA projects also feature retrofits that ensure earthquake resistance, which has been a top priority for the department since the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, in which 49 people were killed in a partial collapse at the local VA hospital. Of the four new major projects proposed in the department’s FY 2012 budget, three have been prioritized primarily because of the seismic safety risk faced by existing facilities.

The Standard in Patient-centered Care

Anyone can build a new hospital, of course; it’s the VA’s focus on patients that places its medical centers at the leading edge of care in the United States. The VA’s new hospitals aren’t just bigger and newer – they’re better, in many ways.

“By far the most important difference [between old VA hospitals and new],” Neary said, “is the concept of patient-centered care: designing facilities primarily with the patient in mind, and having more home-like environments. In recent years we’ve had a very robust program of physical plant upgrades, with a focus on improving patient areas, improving clinic space, and getting better efficiencies. It used to be one exam room per doctor – when you finished examining a patient, you went for coffee while they cleaned the room and got the new patient in. Now we’re putting two and three exam rooms into a space, so physicians can move from room to room, and the staff has the patient in place.”

Retired Capt. James A. Lovell, left a NASA astronaut, speaks to more than 750 guests at the official opening of the Capt. James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in Chicago, Ill. The center is the nation's first fully integrated Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Defense (DoD) entity combining DoD and U.S. Navy medical personnel with VA staff members. U.S. Navy photo by Scott A. Thornbloom

In mental health settings, the long-corridor hospital, designed like any other medical ward, with patients in individual rooms, will soon be a thing of the past in VA facilities: “We’re now building facilities that have more of an apartment-like feel to them,” Neary said. “You have something like a living room, and a kitchen area, and you might have four bedrooms or six bedrooms off that living room. So each patient has his or her own bedroom, and more of a common area with a television and other features. That’s a big deal, a big change in the model of mental health care.”

In ambulatory settings, the VA is designing spaces in accordance with its new model of patient-centered care, the Patient-Aligned Care Team, or PACT. “On a PACT team you have a physician, a nurse,” said Neary, “and you might have a clinical medical physician. You might have a mental health physician. Those folks, instead of having their offices located around the building, will be located in the clinic itself, so that they can do a better job of engaging with the patient. We’re also putting family spaces in; in the hospital rooms themselves, there are larger spaces, so a family member can not only be there for old-fashioned visiting hours, but there might be a fold-out sofa they could sleep on during the night, if it’s appropriate and could be a benefit to the patient. In our physical spaces we’re looking at ways to enhance engagement with the patient.”

The VA finds out what veterans need from its facilities in two simple ways: First, it asks. For all large projects, such as the new medical centers, development is driven in part by a council of veterans who meet regularly with planning and design teams. For facilities that have a narrower focus, a more specialized group may advise; the Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA), Neary said, have offered their collective insight to help the VA design its spinal cord injury facilities. “PVA has their own group of professional architects,” Neary said, “who work on things like accessibility. They’re very, very knowledgeable people, and they make a big contribution to our work.”

The VA and its design partners also – like so many leading designers of patient-centered health care facilities – rely on studies of how and where patients and providers move and spend their time. Many studies involve the placement of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on staff members, which then track their movements for up to 60 days or so, to document traffic flows and areas of congregation.

Knowing where people spend their time, Neary said, may sound like a simple thing, but such studies are actually a fairly recent development. Too often in the past, without this knowledge, facility design has allowed other factors – aesthetics, compactness, or simply the inertia of age-old practice – to nudge aside the needs of the VA’s patients. That’s not likely to happen in today’s VA medical centers and clinics. “In our new order of things,” Neary said, “we don’t want to just build a brand-new old place.”

This article first appeared in The Year in Veterans Affairs & Military Medicine: 2011-2012 Edition.

In her change-of-command speech, delivered at the academy on June 3, 2011, Stosz tried to take the focus off that fact. “I don’t see this so much as a milestone,” she said, “but rather a natural progression in the Coast Guard’s efforts to create a climate of equity and inclusion.”

The academy has tripled the number of accepted applicants from under-represented minorities in the last three years, and more than one-third of the current incoming class is women. What kind of work is the academy doing to sustain this trend?

Rear Adm. Sandra L. Stosz: One example is the new engineering mentoring program we introduced this year. We partnered with four Historically Black Colleges and Universities to sponsor eight engineering students who completely embedded into our summer STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] recruitment program, where we work with high school students during three, one-week Academy Introduction Mission, or AIM, sessions. These students will then go back to their home schools and continue mentoring others through similar AIM experiences, all the while sharing their experiences at the Coast Guard Academy. Through this near-peer mentoring and leadership Mentor Academy, our cadets, engineering faculty, and admissions officers will be able to exponentially grow our outreach network, getting the word out to communities across the nation to the amazing opportunities we have to offer.

I should say that we take a systems approach – I see this program as not just a recruitment tool, but also as something that enriches the overall experience at the Coast Guard Academy. Not only will these eight students go back with a great message about STEM, the academy leadership experience and our community of inclusion, having these and future students with the program embedded in campus life will further enrich the diverse environment we’ve worked so hard to grow. I think that as we create an understanding of our programs, more students who major in STEM will consider coming here because of our community of inclusion. And I think they’re more likely, therefore, to succeed.

In your change-of-command speech, you mentioned that you would focus on retention as much as recruitment.

Retention of these students – keeping them in for four years and making sure we graduate them in an equitable proportion as we recruit them – is a big focus at the academy. We actually start our outreach to retain as much as six months before some students even walk through these doors, through a robust prep school program. We try to get them ready to come to the Coast Guard Academy and succeed. Once they get here, we administer an initial testing battery that enables us to identify youngsters of any background who might not have had the exposure to some of the tougher courses you might need to succeed. I wish they’d had that when I was here, because I really struggled with calculus and physics, and those two are related – if you don’t know how to integrate and how to differentiate, you’re not going to do well, and it becomes a downward spiral of defeat if you fail to keep up in both those classes. So we’re identifying the youngsters that need to have some extra help in that. We actually have – as probably most schools do – a tiered system, so students can be placed appropriately in courses from the introductory up to the honors level.

But testing and placement are only part of the picture. You have to follow students to make sure that as they go through their first year and second year, they’re not going to be behind – and that if they do get behind, it’s noticed. If they don’t self-report to an instructor for extra help, there is a system in place that notices this person is falling behind a little bit and needs an intervention. We’re looking at interventions and programs and support networks, even beyond what we already have. Understanding that our population demographic is changing a bit, how do we change our programs and interventions here during the four years so that we are constantly monitoring and tracking, while retaining the high levels of excellence?

You’ve identified several focus areas for your tenure. One is maintaining the academy’s progress in promoting diversity among the student body; another was strengthening the relationship between the academy and the maritime industry. It seems as if that focus, long term, is probably aimed at improving collaboration between the service and the maritime industry – but it also seems as if a tug operator who gets a good look at what the Coast Guard does might be more interested in pursuing a career in the Coast Guard.

Actually, what they do is they send their sons and daughters to us. A mariner can tell his or her kid: “We have the Coast Guard out here, riding with us, inspecting us, and they seem like a pretty cool organization.” Those partnerships, hopefully, can only improve the Coast Guard’s visibility, and can also ensure that anybody in America, wherever he or she might live, will have the opportunity to hear about the Coast Guard Academy – a tremendous education, paid for by the government.

Race, ethnicity, gender, and religion are only some of the components of diversity. I see diversity as getting our word out to the Midwest, or the Dakotas, or Montana, or to families working the Pennsylvania coal mines. That kid from the mining town, [which] might not be as robust as it was in the past should have a chance to hear about us, and to go off to the Coast Guard Academy and have an opportunity his or her parents didn’t have.

Ramona Kausch assists Spc. Jay Mendoza, from the 23rd Ordnance Company, in creating a new user account with GoArmyEd, a computer portal that must be used for tuition assistance, at an open house at the education center on Rhine Ordnance Barracks. File photo by Christine June, USAG Kaiserslautern

The Post-9/11 GI Bill has been a blessing for service members and veterans seeking education and training opportunities. The law’s benefits are far more generous than its previous incarnation, the Montgomery GI Bill, which covered veterans beginning in 1984. Even in the current budget climate, most Americans agree that better benefits are due to the members of our all-volunteer force who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan – and who have served as never before, in multiple tours that have, in many cases, spanned a decade.

When the first iteration of the Post-9/11 GI Bill was passed in the summer of 2008, it was widely believed that there was, at long last, a veterans’ education benefits bill to match the original GI Bill, which lent aid to more than half the nation’s 15 million World War II veterans and is widely considered to have played a key role in launching an era of optimism and prosperity. The Post-9/11 GI Bill authorized the Department of Veterans Affairs to pay for up to 100 percent of a veteran’s tuition and required fees at a state college or university, depending on the veteran’s length of service.

Subject to some restrictions, the 2008 law also included allowances for housing and books. In certain cases, the benefit could be transferred to the veteran’s spouse or other dependent. Private or graduate schools with tuition higher than the in-state maximum were given the option to participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program, designed to help veteran students who want to attend higher-priced private and public universities. Under the program, the school or institution may provide up to half the amount of the total tuition cost, which will then be matched by the VA.

Fault Lines

Beth Juachon, a Veterans Affairs military services coordinator, explains details of the Montgomery GI Bill for active-duty service members to Naval Special Warfare sailors at Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado, Calif. The Post 9/11 GI Bill offers tuition and fees, yearly books and supplies, and a monthly housing allowance to qualified service members. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Megan N. Anuci

The early months of implementing the Post-9/11 GI Bill revealed that, generous as it was, it had some problems. It was difficult – unnecessarily difficult, many critics charged – to process claims, which were calculated on a state-by-state basis. The benefit equaled 100 percent of the tuition and fees at the most expensive public school in the given state, which provided a moving target for processors. Combined with some technical problems, VA’s troubles created a backlog of claims in the fall of 2009.

The law also had some unintended consequences that left certain categories of veterans uncovered. It seemed too narrowly focused on academic, degree-granting institutions, neglecting many opportunities for veterans to pursue vocational training, apprenticeships, or on-the-job training. It failed to account for the prevalence of distance-learning opportunities in the contemporary educational system, neglecting to offer housing assistance to full-time distance learners at schools such as the University of Phoenix or the American Military University. It forced disabled veterans to choose between their Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E) benefit and their GI Bill benefit, which have different coverages for tuition and housing. And it left out entirely a significant number of National Guard and Reserve service members – those who served full-time stateside for the purpose of organizing, recruiting, training, instructing, or administering Reserve components, or those who served in support of contingency operations or in response to a national emergency.

It’s important to remember that when it was passed in 1944, the original GI Bill wasn’t perfect, either; it was amended in later legislative sessions to expand and refine benefits. “The folks that worked on this first Post-9/11 GI Bill,” said Tim Ebree, legislative associate for the nonprofit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), “had a huge task, trying to figure out so much information – so many things have changed since that first GI Bill passed. Many of these people were learning for the first time, but they got a great bill passed. Some of the consequences were things that people didn’t foresee. So the veterans service organizations, IAVA and other groups, were saying: ‘Hey, guys, great benefits – we just need to tweak a few things and make it phenomenal.”

2.0: The Tweaks

Reserve Cpl. Stephanie Alexis enthusiastically flips the tassel from the right to left side of her graduation cap during the ceremony in which she received an associate degree in management. Alexis has been working on the degree for the past six years and plans to continue her education using her GI Bill benefits. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Scott L. Tomaszycki

In the spring of 2010, a second bill – the Post-9/11 Veterans Education AssistanceImprovements Act – was introduced by Hawaii Sen. Daniel K. Akaka. More commonly known as the GI Bill 2.0, the law addressed these and other shortcomings in the original Post-9/11 GI Bill. Passed during the final hours of the last legislative session of 2010, 2.0 was signed into law by President Barack Obama on Jan. 4, 2011.

Most of the provisions of the Post-9/11 GI Bill 2.0 were effective Aug. 1, 2011, including:

• expansion of GI Bill eligibility to National Guard members who serve on active duty stateside in a number of circumstances, including emergency response or training Reserve components.
• expansion of transfer entitlements – the ability to transfer benefits to a dependent – to include qualified members of the commissioned corps of the Public Health Service (PHS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
• elimination of the confusing state-by-state “undergraduate cap” method of calculating benefits, establishing instead a $17,500 annual tuition and fee cap for private institutions. (The Yellow Ribbon Program still serves to cover costs for out-of-state fees and costs above this cap.) Students attending public schools will still have tuition and fees completely covered, at the rate applicable to in-state residents.
• coverage for a greater number of licensure, certification, or placement tests such as the SAT, GRE, LSAT, and CLEP.
• resolution of the apparent conflict between GI Bill and the VA’s Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E) program benefits. One of the most confusing difficulties of the Post-9/11 GI Bill involved the difference, for wounded veterans, between the Post-9/11 GI Bill housing stipend and the subsistence allowance of the VR&E program: Under the VA’s disability rating system, wounded warriors are assigned a subsistence rate that’s often lower than the housing stipend for which they’re eligible under the Post-9/11 GI Bill, explained Col. Bob Norton (USA-Ret.), deputy director of Government Relations for the Military Officers Association of America.

“If you are a disabled veteran coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan and you are rated by the VA at 20 percent or greater – in other words you have a disability that came as a result of your military service since 9/11 – you can get counseling services, testing, job placement, and use your GI Bill underneath that Voc-Rehab umbrella,” Norton said. “But your cost of living stipend was way less than the Post-9/11 GI Bill’s. So now those folks who want to go to college and use the VR&E can choose, if they wish, to take the full national average for housing, which in many cases more than doubles what they were getting under VR&E.”

2.0 provisions that went into effect on Oct. 1, 2011, include:

• expansion of the annual book stipend eligibility – up to $1,000 for textbooks – to include active-duty service members and their spouses.
• a living/housing allowance for service members who are full-time online or “distance learners,” of up to half the national average Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) for 2011, a total of $673.50 per month. Norton thinks this allowance for distance learners – a growing segment of veteran students – is one of the most significant provisions of the Improvements Act. “If you are cranking out online courses in your basement and you don’t go to a physical campus, you can still get $673.50 to help you make ends meet, for whatever you need to do to continue your program,” he said. “This is a great provision for folks who had been excluded before.”
• expansion of coverage to non-degree-granting programs. The VA will pay the same benefit as at degree-granting colleges and universities: the net cost for in-state tuition and fees at public programs; for private and foreign programs, the actual net cost or $17,500, whichever is less. The VA will also provide up to $83 per month for books and supplies.
• expansion of coverage to on-the-job training or apprenticeship programs. VA will pay a monthly benefit based on the amount of time spent in the program, and up to $83 per month for books and supplies.
• expansion to include flight training programs. VA will pay the actual net costs of the program annually or $10,000, whichever is less.
• the online or correspondence training benefit for tuition and fees will be capped at $8,500 annually.

Trade-offs

Though widely supported, the bill was introduced at a time of intense budget pressure. Congress’ ability to pass the law was due, in part, to the fact that it is projected to save $730 million over the next decade. In order to expand coverage to more veterans, some cost-saving trade-offs were necessary, including:

• Prorated housing payments: The monthly housing stipend will now be prorated based on a student’s “rate of pursuit.” This provision, Norton explained, was added to eliminate a deal that was considered a bit too sweet for students who were previously considered “full-time” simply because they took a shade over half of what the VA had designated as a full course load: 12 credits. “It used to be that if you were enrolled for seven credits at a college, you would get the full monthly housing allowance,” Norton said. “So you’d get about $2,400 a month, for example, to take seven credits at San Francisco State – a pretty darn good deal. The government has said: ‘Not really what we intended, not really fair.’” Under the new law, the student in Norton’s example would receive about 58 percent of the basic housing allowance. Prorated payments are probably the biggest money-saver in the Improvements Act – which means a significant number of students will see their housing allowances reduced under the new law, which, while simplifying the formula for tuition payments, makes the calculation of housing/living allowances a bit more complicated for the VA. Three factors – rate of pursuit, locality, and the student’s eligibility tier (the amount of creditable active-duty service) – will now be used to calculate each student’s housing payment.
•  The housing stipend will not apply during mandatory school breaks – when school is not in session, students are assumed capable of earning their rent.
• The $17,500 cap on tuition and fees will, in a handful of states, not cover the entire cost of education at certain institutions – but this doesn’t necessarily mean students will be left out in the cold. The provision is intended not only to save government money, but to urge participation in the VA’s Yellow Ribbon Program, which will pay up to half the total amount of fees and tuition if participating institutions agree to pay the other half.

Still, this provision, more than any other, is claimed to be unfair by some current benefit recipients. In seven U.S. states, Norton pointed out, “if you are already enrolled as a nonpublic school student – in other words you’re in a private college or university – under the change that was passed in January, you had a de facto cut in your benefits because of the new cap.”

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki, seated at right, meets with Student Veterans of America on June 11, 2010. Student Veterans of America is a coalition of student veterans groups from college campuses across the United States that works to develop new student groups, coordinate between existing student groups, and advocate on behalf of student veterans at the local, state, and national levels. They provide, peer-to-peer networks for veterans who are attending school, coordinate activities, provide pre-professional networking, and generally provide a touchstone for student veterans in higher education. From left to right (far couch): Rodrigo Garcia, Brian Hawthorne, and Derek Blumke. VA photo by Michael Moore

Overall, Norton considers these trade-offs to be well worth the outcome. Three years ago, he pointed out, few veterans would have contemplated attending private schools at all; most were simply out of reach. “When you consider all the good of expanding the number of veterans eligible now to get all kinds of GI Bill benefits under these fixes,” he said, “it far outweighs the perceived or real cuts, both in terms of the number of people affected and in terms of the quality of the benefit overall.”

A GI Bill 3.0?

Given the budget climate, it’s unlikely that a major expansion of benefits will make its way through Congress anytime soon, though a bill called the Restoring GI Bill Fairness Act of 2011 cleared Congress in July 2011. Essentially, the bill proposes to eliminate the $17,500 cap for students who were enrolled in a private school before the GI Bill 2.0 became law. It’s a minor provision, expressed in an unusually short (four-page) piece of legislation, but restoring those benefits to an estimated 30,000 veteran students will cost about $50 million that has to come from somewhere – in this case, by means of raising home loan origination fees on loans backed by the VA.

“Some folks objected to that on the Hill within committee,” Norton said. “They said: ‘Well, that’s not fair. You’re borrowing from one set of veterans to pay for another.’ … Would we have preferred another source of the funding? Absolutely. Would it happen in this environment? There’s only three ways you can do that: deficit spending, which ain’t going to happen; raising taxes, which ain’t going to happen; or table the bill. When you look across the board at the potential good that this bill does for the current generation of returning veterans – who down the road will be possibly seeking VA home loan assistance – right now they’re focused on job training and college, and that’s what they need moving forward. And this sort of evens out some of the lumps, if you will, that still remained in the 4 Jan. [2011] legislation.”

This article first appeared in The Year in Veterans Affairs & Military Medicine: 2011-2012 Edition.

“In 2003, there were several 110s that actually penetrated further into enemy territory than any of the coalition naval vessels,” said Coast Guard Atlantic Area historian Bill Thiesen, Ph.D. “In part, that’s because they could navigate some of the shallows that other coalition vessels couldn’t.”

"Defense of the Cutter Eagle" by Aldis B. Browne, II. One of the murals depicting various incidents in Coast Guard history organized by the Works Progress Administration for the Coast Guard Academy. Courtesy of the Coast Guard

Coast Guard service members are the world’s recognized experts in port security and shallow-water combat – but those functions were not in the job description of the service’s precursor, the small fleet of revenue cutters established in 1790 at the request of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Though it was the only national maritime service until the U.S. Navy was created eight years later, the revenue fleet was not intended to be a military force. “From 1790 until the War of 1812,” Thiesen explained, “the cutters were largely responsible for what we call today law enforcement, which means enforcing legislation regarding trade, shipping, and revenue laws on merchant ships. That was their mission. But the cutters’ role expanded dramatically during the early 19th century. A lot of the missions that are performed today originated back in those days.”

In 1799, during what is known today as the “Quasi-War” with France, Congress set the precedent, followed ever since during wartime, of placing the revenue cutters under the Navy’s command. The cutters set some precedents in this Quasi-War, engaging in high seas combat and capturing nearly all of the French vessels taken early in the war, as well as assisting with the capture of several others. Cutters also performed escort duties for merchant vessels and convoys.

When the United States declared war on Great Britain on June 18, 1812, Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin knew the American fleet faced the much larger and more powerful British Royal Navy. “We want small, fast sailing vessels,” he said in a message to Congress. “There are but six vessels belonging to the Navy, under the size of frigates; and that number is inadequate.” The performance of these cutters in the War of 1812 dramatically expanded the mission of the service, which, after less than three years, more closely resembled the modern Coast Guard than the revenue fleet conceived by Hamilton.

When war was declared on June 18, 1812, the missions of the cutters had expanded, overnight, to include the protection of American merchant commerce and its merchant fleet, in cooperation with the Navy. Most historians of the War of 1812, when recounting the exploits of the revenue cutters, tend to focus on the extraordinary bravery and resourcefulness of the captains and crew who were clearly outmanned and outgunned. These stories are now part of Coast Guard lore:

• On June 25, 1812, the Cutter Thomas Jefferson, commanded by Capt. William Ham, made the war’s first capture of a British vessel, the merchant vessel Patriot, which carried a valuable cargo of sugar.

• On July 23, 1812, the Cutter James Madison, under Capt. George Brooks, captured the 300-ton, six-gun brig Shamrock. James Madison also, in taking custody of the schooner Wade, acquired $20,000 in silver and gold for the U.S. Treasury.

• In one of the fiercest naval battles of the war, Capt. Samuel Travis and the crew of the Cutter Surveyor fought against a surprise boarding attempt by British sailors, who outnumbered them nearly four to one. The bravery of the cutter’s crew in bloody hand-to-hand combat, in which three British seamen were killed, so impressed the commander of the capturing British barges that he returned Travis’ sword after the battle with a note commending his crew that read: “Your gallant and desperate attempt to defend your vessel … has excited such admiration on the part of your opponents as I have seldom witnessed.”

• The Cutter Vigilant, commanded by John Cahoone, performed what was perhaps the war’s most impressive capture by a cutter when it seized the Dart, a privateer sloop that, in capturing at least 20 American vessels, had become the terror of Long Island Sound. In October 1813, Cahoone chased down the privateer and surprised the vessel by firing on it with his cannons – forcing the Dart’s crew below decks. The Vigilant’s crew then boarded the sloop, took it as a prize, and captured its crew.

• Capt. Frederick Lee and the crew of the Cutter Eagle, while on a mission to rescue a captured merchant crew, found themselves overmatched by the HMS Dispatch and ran the Eagle ashore in a narrow Long Island channel. Lee’s crew dragged the cutter’s cannons to the top of a high bluff and fought the Dispatch and its armed tender from there, exchanging musket and cannon fire throughout the day and into evening. As ammunition ran low, the crew tore up the cutter’s logbook for wadding, and returned fire with the small shot of the enemy, which they dug out of the hillside below them. Three times, crewmembers ran down to replace the cutter’s flag, which had been shot away during the exchange. Despite the Eagle’s eventual capture, this scene is memorialized today in the painting “Defense of the Revenue Cutter Eagle,” on display at the Coast Guard Academy.

When he lectures about the revenue fleet in the War of 1812, Thiesen is glad to regale audiences with tales of these and other swashbuckling escapades – but as a Coast Guard historian, he has paid careful attention to how the service’s mission profile was broadened by the necessity of circumstance during the war. In the War of 1812, he points out, the cutters – which would not be formally named the Revenue Cutter Service until 1863 – took on several new missions that gave it a much closer resemblance to today’s Coast Guard, including:

• Shallow or “brown-water” combat. The cutters, designed to catch smugglers in shallow inlets and waterways, proved effective; Thomas Jefferson captured three Royal Navy barges, along with more than 60 British officers and men, in the shallows of Hampton Roads in April 1813. Three months later, the Cutter Mercury – with all cash and bonds collected by the customs collector at Portsmouth, N.C., aboard – escaped an enemy ambush in the shallow harbor of Ocracoke, N.C., and warned the nearby city of New Bern of a pending attack.

• Naval and merchant marine escort duty. Several cutters were assigned the duty of transporting naval officers to and from their ships, as well as providing protective escort for merchant vessels and convoys along the Atlantic coast.

• Port and coastal security. By the order of local customs collectors, each of the revenue cutters, Thiesen points out, was responsible for the security of its homeport. These duties often involved the engagement of British privateers who prowled nearby in search of prizes, with the legendary battle between the Vigilant and the Dart being the most famous example.

• Intelligence gathering. Cutters provided customs, military personnel, local officials, and the press with news of enemy naval and privateer movements, as well as information about American naval and merchant vessels. This was, Thiesen has written, the primary mission of the Cutter General Greene during the British blockade of Delaware Bay – to monitor the movement of enemy vessels and report details about numbers, locations, and activities. Cutters Eagle, Mercury, Vigilant, and Active were also valued scouts and/or reconnaissance vessels.

• Transport and communication. In wartime, the quick, nimble cutter fleet delivered messages to U.S. naval units and transported naval personnel to and from other ships. Cutters also carried diplomats and important documents – including the order, carried by the cutter Active, for cessation of hostilities after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war.

"The capture of the Revenue Cutter Surveyor by forces of the Royal Navy, 1813," a watercolor by Irwin John Bevan. Courtesy of the Mariners' Museum

By war’s end, the revenue fleet had suffered considerable losses – the Cutters Commodore Barry, Eagle, Surveyor, and James Madison had been captured, and several others were so worn-out by their war service that they lasted only a few more years. The Cutter Louisiana was lost with all hands on deck in a hurricane on Aug. 11, 1812. The Cutter Gallatin, which had seized one British brig on its own and several vessels in conjunction with the Thomas Jefferson, was lost when it exploded in Charleston Harbor on April 1, 1813.

Despite the significant loss of men and ships, the revenue fleet – which would not become the United States Coast Guard for another century, in 1915 – had grown considerably in terms of its utility to the American nation. It was now a multi-mission force, combining domestic law enforcement and (as yet unofficially) lifesaving duties with security and defense functions. The defense of the nation’s coastal and inland waters, through the conduct of port security and shallow-water combat missions, is a hallmark of the modern Coast Guard, and the expertise of its practitioners is recognized around the world. Certainly, the service’s Port Security Units and its 110-foot shallow-water cutters have earned the respect of their partners – and of their enemies – in the Middle East. It all started 200 years ago, during the War of 1812, with the work of a handful of revenue cutters and their stalwart captains and crew.

This article was first published in Coast Guard Outlook: 2012 Edition.