Coast Guard

Destiny's Child singer Kelly Rowland gets an assist from Coast Guard off Cape Cod

By Toni Rico on July 22, 2013 Coast Guard

Kelly Rowland can thank the Coast Guard for being a survivor after the service helped locate a boat carrying the Destiny’s Child singer Friday when it became lost at sea off Cape Cod. The captain of the vessel carrying Rowland and some friends got disoriented while following a whale-watching vessel about 30 nautical miles from Provincetown, Mass., said a Coast Guard spokeswoman from District 1, which overseas the Northeast region. Watchstanders at Sector Boston received a call around 4 p.m. Friday reporting the situation. “Using our Rescue 21 system, we were able to triangulate their position,” said Public Affairs Specialist…

Coast Guard loses WWII combat hero

By Toni Rico on June 10, 2013 Coast Guard, Historical, Marine Corps, Navy, World War II

A Coast Guardsman who earned a Navy Cross for actions during combat operations in Guadalcanal was buried June 5 in Lakewood, Wash. Retired Cmdr. Ray Evans, whose actions during World War II earned him the Navy’s second-highest award for valor, was part of the a mission to rescue Marines along with Douglas Munro, the Coast Guard’s only Medal of Honor recipient. Evans and Munro were known as “The Gold Dust Twins.” They were both from Washington State and joined the Coast Guard together in 1939. They subsequently served together in New York before entering the history books in the South…

http://www.dvidshub.net/video/290681/femaleastchief#.UajjitgwjrQ

Coast Guard helicopter rescue swimmer makes history

By Toni Rico on May 31, 2013 Coast Guard, Helicopters, leadership, Mentoring, Navy, Rescue swimmers

Rescue swimmers in the Coast Guard have to be a tough lot. That’s even more true for female rescue swimmers. There are only four of them in the service, and that gives you a good indication of their caliber. In April, we wrote about Aviation Survival Technician 2nd Class Jaime Vanacore, a rescue swimmer who was trying out for American Ninja Warrior (she got invited to Las Vegas for finals, by the way) and now Chief Aviation Survival Technician Karen Voorhees has made history by becoming the first female rescue swimmer in the Coast Guard to make chief. She was…

Coasties on cross-country golf cart trip are helping vets, rediscovering America

By Toni Rico on May 18, 2013 Batteries, Coast Guard, Environment, Humor, Navy, Wounded Warrior Project

A military team is testing the limits of a solar and battery-powered, street-legal golf cart by taking it on a 4,000 mile trip across America. The 10-person team made up mostly of Coasties is hoping to raise $50,000 for the Wounded Warrior Project. The idea for the trip came to Chief Electrician’s Mate Ray Rehberg while on the job at Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown, Va. “It was born in the classroom,” said Rehberg, who is an instructor at the training center. They were wondering how far they could actually drive a golf cart on battery power alone. But they…

Coasties make cameo in Mark Wahlberg's "Pain & Gain"

By Toni Rico on May 1, 2013 Coast Guard, Entertainment, Movies

If Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson are not enough reason to draw you into the movie theater to see “Pain & Gain” — the top-grossing movie in America last weekend — how about the fact that several Coasties make cameos in the movie? As the good guys, of course. Coasties with a law enforcement detachment from Tactical Law Enforcement Team South, out of Opa-locka, Fla., had a chance to be extras in the movie and meet Marky Mark. On screen, the Coasties were the guys escorting Wahlberg from a helicopter to turn him over to Miami authorities, said…

VIDEO: Rough seas keep Coast Guard cook on his toes

By Toni Rico on April 25, 2013 Coast Guard, Cooking, Entertainment, Hampton Roads, Life at Sea, Morale

If “Top Chef” was set on the high seas, Coast Guard Food Service Specialist 2nd Class David Blonn might have a shot. The cook on the coastal patrol boat Albacore has had to do some of his cooking in 12-foot waves. His galley is only 12 feet by 8 feet, including all the equipment. The 6-foot-2 Blonn looks like a giant when cooking inside the small galley, and when the seas get rough and the boat is rocking back and forth, cooking a meal can seem like a monumental task in the tight space. While some crew members might be…

Coast Guard chiefs confront sexual assault in the service

By Toni Rico on April 5, 2013 Chiefs, Coast Guard, leadership, Morale, Sexual assault prevention and response, Uniforms

If you are a junior enlisted Coastie, you might have wondered if you missed the memo April 3 when you went in to work. Your chief was looking sharp in his or her service dress blues, and you were wearing your ODUs. But the chiefs wore their SDBs on Wednesday to bring attention to a serious issue: sexual assault in the Coast Guard, said Command Master Chief R. Shane Hooker, command master chief for the deputy commandant of mission support at Coast Guard Headquarters. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The service had 156 reported cases of sexual assault in…

Coasties sing 'Semper Paratus' around historic piano

By Jacqueline Klimas on March 26, 2013 Coast Guard, Historical

Though it may be a little off key, there’s something special about the rendition of “Semper Paratus” below. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ6w39N-t4E[/youtube] The piano in the video was used by Capt. Francis Van Boskerck to compose the service’s official song in 1927. Coast Guardsmen from high endurance cutter Munro recently visited the piano in Unalaska, Alaska, wearing dress blues to honor the place where their service’s song was born, a Coast Guard blog post said. Van Boskerck wrote the lyrics to “Semper Paratus” in 1922, but didn’t write a melody to accompany the song. Five years later, he became friends with the only…

Coast Guard rescue video offers close-up look of daily danger

By Toni Rico on March 12, 2013 Coast Guard, Helicopters, Navy, Rescue swimmers

[HTML1] It’s not often that we get to experience a close-up view of a Coast Guard rescue, but a video released by the Coast Guard gives us exactly that, showing a North Carolina man being plucked from the sea March 6 off Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Rescued was Patrick Small, of North Carolina. Two other men, Walter and Steve Tate, also of North Carolina, remain missing. The Coast Guard called off the search for them the next day. The men were aboard the fishing vessel Seafarer when it became disabled, the Coast Guard reported in a news release. The Seafarer’s sister…

High fashion on the high seas

By Jacqueline Klimas on January 17, 2013 Coast Guard

Amid the thousand-dollar dresses and stick-thin models, a Coast Guard small boat will grace the pages of next month’s issue of Vogue. The photo is part of a tribute in the February issue to rescue workers who cleaned up New York and New Jersey after Superstorm Sandy in October, according to fashion site Styleite. The models also took photos with the National Guard’s 69th Infantry, Con Ed workers, Bellevue Hospital staff, and members of the NYPD and FDNY. See all the shots here. You may think that the models are missing the most stylish accessory of all: a bright orange…

Browsing: Coast Guard