Is anyone here a member of the Coast Guard or do you have family/ friends who are in it? I'm seriously considering joining the USCG Reserves. One weekend per month and being able to be based out of my hometown of Wilmington sounds like a pretty sweet deal. I hope to go in as a boatswains mate and do search and rescue until a billet opens up in the Port Security Unit in Norfolk, VA. I've already met with a recruiter and submitted an application, just looking for personal experiences before I fully commit. Thanks guys.

8/24/2010 1:49:00 PM

Hello! Im a YN3 in the cg at Air Station Cape Cod, MA. I enjoy it. as a reserve you should def get a guaranteed A school because they don't like having non-rated reservists. Are you more interested in driving the boats or the law enforcement aspect of it? i know PSUs get more money, but you may also get deployed every couple of years overseas. But from the last batch of guys that we had return, they lived in sweet quarters and didnt even have to clean up after themselves. Right now we have a lot of reservists deployed down to new orleans for the oil spill.

All in all its a good time. Boot camp was cake when i went through, if you can handle getting yelled at.

8/24/2010 3:28:44 PM

Thanks for the reply. That's really cool to have a coastie presence on TWW. I grew up on the coast and am on boats constantly. I can drive anything from a 50 footer with twin inboard diesels down to the smallest outboard boats. I'm really hoping to get some good boating experience and training from the USCG so that's why I'm hoping to be a BM. As fun and rewarding as search and rescue sounds, I would really like to play a part in security/ anti-terrorism. I feel drawn to this given our current situations in Iraq/ Afghanistan and the constant terror threats we face. I am a very active and athletic guy and would love to go through the combat training PSU's do at Camp Lejeune and would be kind of excited to deploy at least once. I also like the idea of being a defender rather than an aggressor in another country. From what my recruiter is saying I will probably be around the Wilmington area for a while until a spot opens at the PSU in virginia. Hopefully I can get guaranteed A-school and won't have to be a non-rate.

CodeRed- are you AD or a reservist? I'm interested to know if my job will really only require 2 days per month or if I will be putting in extra hours to keep up with my work/ training. Also, how are reservists treated by their AD counterparts? I hear mixed things.

8/24/2010 3:56:24 PM

My buddy just got out after pulling a 10 year stint after enlisting right out of HS. He originally went on the boating side of it (he grew up on Lake Gaston, so he had driven boats and lived on the water since he was born) but he transitioned into law enforcement and loved it. He just left about 3 months ago and he was the Asst. Chief of the police department for USCG New York. He got to live all over the country because of the CG and was stationed at Cordova, Alaska, Treasure Island in SF Bay, Baltimore, and then NYC. He got to do some cool shit and see some things he probably wouldn't have been able to otherwise.

8/24/2010 9:58:35 PM

^ Cool, thanks for the info. It's amazing how many people in the coast guard say they love it and how many people in the other branches say they hate it. That was one of the huge deciding factors for me.

8/24/2010 10:13:04 PM

Im AD but we deal with a lot of reservists. The weekends you just drill, but you have the 2 weeks of summer where you can complete training or whatever you need to catch up on. You can also request additional orders to train in other areas.

If you go BM, you would attend the A school in Yorktown, then could attend the MLE (maritime law enforcement) Academy to get boarding team/boarding officer qualled. your unit may have specific requirements. at a boat station youll learn how to stand radio watch and drive the boat.

I enjoy it, we get to go all kinds of places and get paid for it. reserves is a good deal if you have a full time job already. a lot of the guys at the PSU up here are cops, so they could potentially retire with 2 checks.

8/25/2010 6:46:59 PM

a friend of mine is in - he pretty much loves it. Went to see him last year when he was stationed in Key West, and met all of his buddies - they all love it, too.



That's all I really got


stations like Key West - all the people I met were happy. oh, and the wives were happy, too. That says a lot for a military job.

8/25/2010 7:06:39 PM

My mom is a supervisory contracting agent in Elizabeth City.

She be makin goodt money yo.

8/25/2010 11:08:15 PM

My brother joined the Coast Guard two years ago. He was on a cutter for most of that time and recently transferred to Air Station Elizabeth City to start school. He's training to be a flight mechanic. It's the best thing he's ever done with his life, and he really enjoys it. He spent time in Haiti after the earthquake, and did a lot of relief efforts with hurricanes in the Caribbean, as well as a stint in Africa patrolling for pirates. I have a lot of respect for the USCG and would recommend it highly to anyone who's interested.

He's a maritime law enforcement officer as well, so he goes onto boats and searches for drugs, and can make arrests at sea. It's not a combat position, but there is a lot of action and it's very involved.

8/26/2010 9:31:47 AM

^ That's awesome. The law enforcement is something I'm really interested in. Being able to do anti-piracy in africa or asia would be a sweet job!

[Edited on August 26, 2010 at 10:06 AM. Reason : .]

8/26/2010 10:06:15 AM

^^I may know your brother.. which cutter? I too was on a cutter patrolling the Caribbean and went to Africa back in '08.

8/26/2010 12:25:58 PM

Just outta curiosity, I've got a bunch of friends (0-1s, 0-2s) in the CG. What Ensigns/LTJGs you guys have working with you?

8/27/2010 10:42:51 PM

So are the reserves something someone with a full time job could begin doing? Does your employer have to give you the time off for basic, or is it unpaid but you get paid from the training?

8/27/2010 11:27:32 PM

^They are required to give you time off for drill and deployments, but not for basic. Basic is only 8 weeks long, but then you go to A-school to learn your rate which is normally around 3-4 months. But yes, after that it's only 2 days per month so it is very easy to do while you have a full time job.

8/28/2010 12:15:28 PM

Right, so that doesn't sound like an endeavor I can BEGIN while holding down a full time job as I'd have to stop doing what I am doing for nearly half a year.

8/28/2010 1:11:49 PM

you pick when you go to school and everything, as long as a school is going on at that point. the reserves have a couple of critical rates that have schools that take less than 2 months to complete.

so you can do boot camp now, do your class A school later.

8/28/2010 1:32:28 PM

^What she said There is a program my recruiter told me about where you can do basic during the summer and A-school the next summer. Or you can split it up however you need. Most military branches allow you to do this. However, it mostly only helps for students. I would imagine it's much harder to do when you are already committed to a full time career. That's why I'm doing it before I finish college. I think I'm just going to take a semester off and knock out basic and A-school.

8/28/2010 1:43:37 PM

Yeah, I kind of wished I would have done this when I came out of school as now that I am a little older I have been trying to think of things that seem interesting to supplement my income. I just don't think this is possible to do with a real job. I never had Huggard for personal finance but my roomate did and I think this is kind of what he did. Joined the reserves, puts in his time each year (or put in his time, I imagine he is retired now) and gets a nice extra paycheck from the taxpayers.

8/28/2010 2:15:50 PM

Yea I've always felt like if I don't do the military thing now, I never will. Honestly, I don't think I want to make a career out of it I just want to "put my time in" so to speak while I'm young. Would it be possible to talk to your boss and see if he will rehire you when you return from boot?

8/28/2010 2:47:39 PM

CodeRed, he was on the Legare from August 2008 to June 2010.

9/3/2010 1:31:15 PM

FYI: for anyone interested in joining coast guard reserves you must live within 100 miles of a base or small boat station. I did a ton of research before submitting my application and didn't even realize this until the recruiter called last week and told me. Luckily, we own a beach house in Carolina Beach so I have to change my legal address to that house.

Also, I always thought it would be easy to join the military, but the coast guard is fairly selective. Right now all active duty positions are full and many rates are also full in the reserves. Luckily, there's some openings in NC for the reserves, but damn, this is going to be a much longer process than I thought.

9/17/2010 9:51:35 PM

Quote :

"Also, I always thought it would be easy to join the military, but the coast guard is fairly selective."

There's your problem!

Military:
Army
Navy
Air Force
Marine Corps

Other Non-Military Federal Uniformed Services:
Coast Guard (DHS)
Public Health Service (HHS)
NOAA (DoC)

Also, the CG is very selective: There are more personnel in the NYPD than in the USCG.

9/18/2010 4:53:32 AM

^ You are crazy if you think the USCG is not part of the military. There are 5 branches and the Coast Guard is the fifth. Yes, they are Department of Homeland Security, but that does not mean they aren't military. During war time they also fall under navy command. Right now there are cutters deployed to the middle east along with Port Security Units, Maritime Safety and Security Teams and other members of DOG (Deployable Operations Group). The USCG lost one boat in Iraq in which 5 navy sailors and one coast guard sailor were killed. So please kdogg, get your facts strait before you post.

[Edited on September 18, 2010 at 12:20 PM. Reason : .]

9/18/2010 12:15:53 PM

I think when he said Non-Military he meant Non-DoD

9/18/2010 12:28:38 PM

haha, somebody's crazy in the thread and it ain't kdogg

9/18/2010 12:29:38 PM

Quote :

"I think when he said Non-Military he meant Non-DoD"

He listed the USCG as a non-military uniformed service, which is just absolutely incorrect. I will be going into a port security unit next semester and they tell me to expect 2 deployments during my six year contract so, yes, it makes me a little upset when people don't consider the coast guard to be military.

9/18/2010 12:37:24 PM

Read up on your Title 14 of the USC.

Quote :

"The Coast Guard as established January 28, 1915, shall be a military service and a branch of the armed forces of the United States at all times. The Coast Guard shall be a service in the Department of Homeland Security, except when operating as a service in the Navy. "

[Edited on September 18, 2010 at 7:20 PM. Reason : eeeee]

9/18/2010 7:20:06 PM

do NC state conceal carry laws apply when boating off the NC shore? Is there a certain distance that is considered state territory and a certain distance considered federal territory in ocean waters off the NC coast?

9/18/2010 7:40:20 PM

^ I believe federal waters start 6 miles offshore. Google it, shouldn't be hard to find.

9/19/2010 12:16:58 AM