Coast Guard: New Technology, Traditional Standards

CAPE MAY — This isn’t your grandfather’s Coast Guard or maybe even your father’s version of America’s Maritime Guardians.
It’s a new world after 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and more recently, the BP oil spill. The world is in a recession and jobs for young people even with college degrees are hard to find.
Coast Guard Training Center Cape May opened its gates to the media Thur. Oct. 21 leading a group of reporters through the base. What is apparent is computer technology has changed the manner in which recruits are trained during their seven and a half weeks of basic training.
In small arms training, recruits are firing guns, powered by compressed air, at computer screen targets. The only “bang” from the guns comes from speakers under a computer console.
In seamanship training, recruits learn to take the helm to steer a ship with a device that looks like an arcade video game that simulates real-world circumstances.
A gym is filled with exercise machines, models better than most local gyms. Fire fighting training for recruits takes place in a room with safe “smoke,” and a digital fire.
What hasn’t changed are the basics such as learning to tie knots and how to throw a line from a ship to a dock and military discipline.
Chief Warrant Officer Veronica Colbath, public affairs officer and a member since 1993, said while some recruit companies’ number as few as 23 persons, a recent company numbered 100 recruits.
“They come in to make a change, to do something for their country,” she said.
Lt. Adam Birst, instruction and design officer, said when recruits arrive in Cape May, they need to learn the military lifestyle, both “leadership and ‘followship.’” He said they learn to take orders and follow the chain of command.
“They learn they are in an organization that does a lot of great things,” said Birst.
He said boot camp can be daunting for recruits, “a rite of passage.”
In addition to the base housing the only Coast Guard recruit training center in America, it also houses a school for company commanders and a school for recruiters.
Physical fitness is a major part of basic training along with classroom and simulator hours. Birst said recruits know what they are getting into when they enlist.
“The recruiters share the physical fitness standards, those standards are not hidden, they’re posted on the website, they are really pushed to a prospective recruit,” he said.
One standard of physical fitness is being able to lift a 150-pound person during a water rescue. Tests that must be passed by members includes push-ups, sit-ups, sit and reach, a 1.5 mile run, completing a swim circuit, treading water for five minutes, jumping off a 5-foot platform and swimming 100 meters.
Recruits that falter in physical training are given extra opportunity and extra assistance by trainers, said Birst.
The academic training includes instruction in the Uniform Military Code of Justice, Coast Guard history, how to address military personnel, firefighting, handling heavy lines and using survival gear.
During a recruit’s first week at the training center, they fill out forms, get haircuts and uniforms and medical tests.
“The end of week one is when the real fun begins, their company commanders are introduced to them,” said Birst.
Recruits begin waking up at 5:30 a.m. and start their day with running, swimming and other workouts.
ME2 Fred Chase ran members in their seventh week of training Thursday through the “confidence course,” which features walls to scale and ropes to climb. He said some recruits couldn’t climb up a rope to ring a bell at the top in week five but can in week eight.
Earlier in the day, recruits fought with padded pugil sticks, which he said allows them to release some tension and aggression.
Training Center Cape May Commanding Officer Captain Bill Kelly said when recruits arrive each Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. on a bus from Philadelphia International Airport, “They give up all of those things that are so important to them,” such as using a cell phone and texting, iPods, smoking and drinking coffee and soda.
Signs on the wall of the classroom in Sexton Hall where incoming recruits first congregate read “Honor, Respect, Devotion to Duty.”
“We want them to be successful,” said Kelly. “They may not really believe that at first when they are getting pushed to the limit but we truly want each and every person that comes through to be successful.”
“I tell them we are going to insist you meet the standard and we are going to do everything to assist you to meet that standard,” he continued.
He said in order to change a civilian into an “enlisted maritime guardian in seven weeks, you have to make that change pretty significant and pretty stark.”
“One of the ways you do that is by stripping them down of all those comforts of home that they’re accustomed to,” said Kelly.
Recruits are stripped down so they can be built up again to be the “Guardians the nation demands and expects” from the Coast Guard, said Kelly. Privileges return as recruits progress such as being allowed to have dessert at chow.
He said the training center has never graduated a class containing everyone that showed up on the bus on a Tuesday night. Kelly said some twist an ankle, lose a week and graduate with another class and some decide the Coast Guard is not for them and leave.
He said the Coast Guard recruits tested comparably with upper end testing of the Air Force.
The average age is 23 with almost half of recruits arriving with a Bachelors or Associates degree and it is not uncommon to find a recruit with a Masters Degree in a company of 100, said Kelly. He said the nation’s current economic conditions are driving some recruits to join the Coast Guard. A new post 9/11 G.I. Bill provides opportunity for recruits to continue their degree, said Kelly.