Coast Guard Career

There are a plethora of reasons a twenty two year old middle class male might decide to join the military. For example, I could have been born into a family that has a tradition of serving our nation, maybe a desire of doing something with “purpose”, a sense of patriotism, the list goes on forever. Throughout my time in the United States Coast Guard I have severed and will still serve with shipmates that all fall into one, if not all of these categories. They come from different places, upbringings, cultures, and economic status. Never the less, this is my story and how this eight years and counting adventure started.

Depending how introspective I want to be, this career choice very well could have started when I was a child. The military …show more content…
While working at a Sunglass Hut for the better part of a year, a cousin of mine offered to join him on a Coast Guard Auxiliary patrol. The Coast Guard Auxiliary is a volunteer group that works under individual Coast Guard units. They are mostly compromised of middle age men and women who are all civilians. They assist in search and rescue and lots of observe and report type tasking. I accepted my cousin’s offer and that is when it all …show more content…
Shortly after having launched the boat from a local marina, a transmission came over the radio. The transmission stated that there were people in the water and there was a boat in the vicinity maneuvering sporadically. Immediately, upon hearing the report we navigated as fast and safely as possible to the location. Once on scene, our crew determined that the persons in the water were indeed children and it was their vessel that they had been ejected from which was circling around them. Another auxiliary unit, which was on scene, was able to disable the circling vessel while our crew took on board the three children. I couldn’t help but feel that we were “ heroes” on that day, and that moment would be the first step in my decision to join the United States Coast Guard.

Throughout the month that followed, I came in contact with a Coast Guard Recruiter. Like any recruiter would, he loaded me up with all of the propaganda of why joining the Coast Guard would be the best decision of my life. Little did he know that my mind was already made up. We spoke about different rates and what their purposes were, and how exciting of a career field the Coast Guard could be. What ensued afterwards was a gauntlet of paper work and medical examinations; there were the physical examinations, urinalysis, background checks, etc. The process for enrollment into boot camp took approximately two