“I am a witness to the witless, immature fan boys and spineless cowards trapped in swollen men’s bodies that populate the Coast Guard officer corps .”

Employment Opportunities Available in Coast Guard Leadership - Apply WIthin

The Coast Guard has become insular and stale. It is time for the Coast Guard to reach out beyond its own agency to bring in talent that can really take a fresh look at what it is they do, and how they do it.  The Coast Guard has never had a Commandant that wasn’t an Academy grad nor promoted from within. There is an overarching “lack of ownership” conveyed by the Coast Guard officer corps. They never take responsibility for any administrative or operational failures. Rather they place blame on enlisted leaders or worse on junior Coastguardsmen. Further, they do little in the way of self-reflection in terms of identifying areas of missteps, omissions or opportunities for improvement. As a result, they keep making the same “leadership” mistakes over and over again. 

Daily pot smokers are rapidly catchingup to daily alcohol drinkers in the race to see who can escape their sad lives in the Coast Guard more… But if you’re upset about this, the good news is the USCG Human Resources has several manuals detailing the Coast Guards’s s code of ethics. Now, the bad news is that they wrote those manuals and they don’t follow them.” — Mitchell Daly

Coast Guard Officers - The Blind Blindly Following the Blind…

This is your leader. This is who you follow and laud. This is whose banner you willingly carry. Why? Because she is a mirror, not a lighthouse. You see yourselves in her. She is what you would be, if you had shed the last vestiges of conscience and shame. 

And no, I do not “respect your choices,” nor do I admire your loyalty and dedication to this demoniac vision. You have demonstrated not only a lack of virtue, loyalty to the country and to the rule of law, but a willingness to engage in criminality at her slightest expressed wish. And you will never, ever admit you were wrong. Because you see your dark, twisted, resentful dreams in her. And to renounce her is to renounce yourselves.” 

Do The Coast Guard Really Need More Serial Liars?

Since around 2015, the Coast Guard has been using prior drug use as admited to on a recruit’s enlistment documents as a means of discharging them administratively for wholly conconcted reasons between their 2nd and 8th year in the Coast Guard.

However, I only recently became aware that the Coast Guard doen’t track the number of recruits that admitted to prior use of marijuana / hashish / THC in block 26 of their Enlistment documents in relation to their subsequent success or failure in the USCG. Then why ask the question?  Said another way, the question has no “validity” in the statistical sense if it is not a credible indicator of future success or failure as a Coastguardsman.  

We now live in the 21st century, where statistically 75% of U.S. teens have smoked marijuana to varying degrees prior to graduating high school. (That’s the same percentage of teens who have cell phones in high school.) Thus, the question is not only invalid but it’s unnecessary. Prior marijuana use by those enlisting (or seeking a commission) in the military is now a given. And I seriously doubt that 75% of USCG enlistees (or even USCG Academy plebes) admit to marijuana use on their applications. So, who IS the preferred potential USCG enlistee:  A person with integrity who readily admits to prior marijuana use, or a person who lies about prior marijuana or other drug use?  This is important because the USCG is now defaulting to the latter.  And, I personally believe the Coast Guard prefers to enlist or commission liars.  As noted elsewhere on this site, from E-6 to O-10, it’s what they do. - Active Duty YNC

“Just when you think there are no more seats at DHS’ Mad Hatter tea party, the folks in OGC scooch over and make room.”

 The Peter Principle in Practice…

The Coast Guard appears to follow a sort of swarm strategy in regard to promotions, flooding the advancement boards with so many unqualified and incompetent candidates that would not pass muster in any Department of Defense military service and forcing the promotion boards to choose which, if any of these ethically void candidates to block and which to promote. It’s overkill meant to overwhelm - a "blitz" approach. And with this surfeit of sordid promotion prospects, the Coast Guard has created a yardstick that favorably measures anyone without, say, a rape conviction, an addiction to alcohol or a predilection to lie.

The Coast Guard’s Human Resources Directorate’s (CG-1) inability to function in accordance with its own policies and regulations mark it as the three-toed sloth of a Coast Guard jungle full of snakes, snails, rats and feral pigs. CG-1 moves so slowly, with such little action or accomplishment that even the most insignificant Coast Guard commands are free to inappropriately and improperly discharge junior personnel undisturbed by compliance with written regulations.

Even accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive in the country’s most despised cabinet level agency: DHS.