Remarks

It's done and in the books. I have no more responsibilities in the Coast Guard, and am now unmoored from most of what I've known for the last 22 years. More to follow on the experience...For now, though, here is what I said at the ceremonies on Tuesday, 22 June 2021 -- or most of what I said. There were lots of pauses and some commentary on how hard different bits of it were to get said. Hard to take in air to speak when my throat was closing over on me.

Change of Command Ceremony Remarks

Distinguished guests, fellow COs, VIGOROUS crew, family members and friends – it is wonderful to see you all at today’s ceremony. And for those joining online – I wish you were here in person, but am so grateful you’re taking the time to be with us virtually.

Nearly two years ago at a ceremony eerily similar to this one but with a few key differences, I shared one of my favorite quotes attributed to Helen Keller. She said, “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” This tour definitely offered that daring adventure – and so much more – and I am so grateful I got to share it with this crew!

We’ve put up with a lot. Even before the first 96 hours of our first patrol – which still brings shivers of dread when mentioned – Hurricane Dorian churned up a lot of chaos when we got kicked out of JEB Little Creek for storm avoidance in the middle of our first top end overhaul. It was super hectic then and I don’t think the pace of things has ever really slowed down.

I am continually impressed, even awed by your individual and collective ability to persevere through the gnarliest of challenges. The 20-foot head on seas on our way to Mayport for AVSTAN in January 2020 (before COVID was anything but a small story buried in the international news) – I still have a hard time picturing how the cooks manage to make meals for nearly 80 people in conditions like that – but they do it, and do it well. He’s not here right now – busy getting the shrimp cocktail ready for the reception – but I will miss CS3 Ferrer’s beans and rice topped with roast pork and a side of fried plantains. That and Taco Tuesdays always made my days a good bit brighter.

The sewage vent clog that backed up seriously gross nastiness into the Chiefs and Lower O heads while we were in AVSTAN. I probably shouldn’t go from talking about delicious food to sewage – but maybe it makes sense after all. EO, for all my word nerdiness, I am not sure I can adequately convey my thanks for all the heart and soul, time, energy, blood, sweat, and (well probably not tears – even though you admit to being sensitive but not as sensitive as our sewage system…) you put into your job. Your leadership, technical expertise, project management skills, ability to simplify your complex understanding of each and every engineering system to the crayon drawings I could understand, and bluntness were undeniably critical to VIGOROUS’ operational success and went a long ways to making the ship able to last the next decade she’ll need to stick around. You absolutely earned that VADM Perry Award for Engineer of the Year Afloat! I’m so glad the Service acknowledged the value of your contributions.

I suspect your response to all that is to deflect the accolades to your engineers. Engineers throughout the Coast Guard are well known for their ability to get sh-tuff done. And VIGOROUS’ engineers are no exception. I can’t count the number of hours our engineers spent making repairs, doing required maintenance, refueling, chasing gremlins, offloading oily waste, long after the rest of the crew had gone on liberty. And the gremlins – this ship sure did have more than her fair share of them. Yet, you engineers never gave up. Every time one popped out their aggravating head, you knocked it off and kept on cruising to the next project. The anchors are no longer known as “cantankerous” (get it – can’t anchor us) and “port-snickety” because of the Auxiliary Division’s efforts. DCs – how many times did you have to go digging after a steam line leak, in addition to your planned worklist? EMs, how much wrecked wiring did y’all trace out and replace after the water-jetting at drydock? And also working with Main Prop when we started having our generators’ issues (that’s both generators – VIGOROUS has a canny knack for letting us know when she’s done with patrol). I am impressed by your teamwork and rejection of the concept of giving up on something because it’s hard. And of course I could not forget to mention the engine room flooding response. I love the story I was told of then-MK3 Groll plugging the leak with his finger until someone showed up with the patching and plugging kit. 300 gallons of sea water in the bilge and a leaky synthoglass patch later, we were safely headed back into port to get it fixed.

I could go on and on about the engineers’ ability to come up with creative and ingenious fixes to the craziest problems VIGOROUS’ gremlins could come up with. Thank you, Engineers, for keeping the spinny things spinning and the lights (mostly) on. All the rest of what we do isn’t possible without your efforts.

One of the other accomplishments I’m most proud of is the impact we had on moving the entire cutter fleet into the 21st…or, hmm, at least the 20th century, with paperless navigation. I remember reporting to my first ship in 2000 – BOUTWELL had the old Vega laptop system installed, and the senior Quartermasters were, at best, skeptical of it. After learning that’s how most commercial ships navigated all the time, I simply couldn’t understand what was taking the Coast Guard so long to adopt a similar system.

So when the stars aligned – or rather CDR Pecora and ET1 Dunn brainstormed them into alignment after hours of nugging through practical applications of the new Commandant’s Navigation Standards, I jumped feet first into trying to get -751’s approval to take on the challenge. And now, four more classes of ships are authorized for paperless navigation, and 210s have blanket authorization from -751.

Thanks to ET1 Dunn’s technical expertise, LT Sohn’s hard work and practical approach to every challenge, CDR Pecora’s vision, and lots and lots of effort and attention to detail by the entire Navigation and ET divisions, we proved we could navigate without paper charts…and do it fantastically well. Some of my fondest memories on the bridge are of hearing “sweet fix” or “best fix” sung out from the plot team after laying down an especially accurate manual fix. I admit to some dark moments of stark doubt, like when we couldn’t get the emergency circuits, including the ones supplying power to all the navigation equipment, back from the emergency generator – I had crazy plans in my head of launching the small boat to guide us into GTMO with their installed SINS-II. I think that’s kinda right though – there should always be a contingency plan, no matter how crazy it sounds. Thank you, Operations Department for your willingness and dedicated work to move the Coast Guard forward a few leaps and bounds. And especially, OPS, for putting the 10 days you spent isolated in your cell – ahem – stateroom – enroute to Tampa for drydock to good use on the paperless navigation policy prototype report. I’ve had two COs from different classes of ships reach out to me in the last couple of days referencing that report, impressed with how detailed it was.

And Support Department – I’ve already mentioned how hard the cooks work, and their conditions. For the SKs and YN2, your patience with trying to do your jobs on underway connectivity is so very admirable. Especially when we were able to righteously spend $40,000 in 24 hours at the end of last fiscal year.

And to wrap up how awesome and amazing this crew is, I'd like to share what the last few days of our last patrol was like, ya know... after we got back underway once repairs from the major flooding in the engine room were complete.

We started out with 21 boardings in two days, taking full advantage of some absolutely beautiful weather about 120 miles east of Cape Cod in the scallop fleet. Both boats out, each with their own boarding team, doing drills back on the ship, and CIC continually updating their targeting list to vector the boarding teams to the best boardings. We even shook out a couple of violations from a very heavily regulated and monitored fleet. After two days of that, we exhausted good boarding opportunities, and headed west to duck into Long Island Sound to wait out some crap weather that was blowing in from the south and west.
OPS found us a cherry spot -- outside of three nautical miles from shore, not in a restricted area, but still offering some good protection from the wind and seas and swells. We expected to spend maybe a day or so there, and then come out to head west for a super cool transit up the Hudson River, visiting Lady Liberty and Manhattan.

We spent less than 12 hours in that super sweet spot. OPS called me at 5 am the next morning, Captain, I have some bad news. Yep, sure 'nuff, someone broke down back out where we had just come from, and we had a 220 mile transit to get back to them. Thankfully, they weren't taking on water, just broke down and in crap weather. We did the best we could getting out to them, surfing downswell in 12 to 15 footers. Knowing we'd get on scene after dark, we decided that we'd wait to take them in tow until the next day when it was light and the seas were predicted to settle a bit.

Seas were about 13 feet when we got on scene just before midnight, and thankfully abated to about 10-12 feet by first light, as we were setting up for the tow.

Ya know how, sometimes during shipboard evolutions, angels sing and everything goes exactly right? That’s what happened for us that morning…to the point that we even had a pod of curious humpback whales keeping an eye on things. I mean that literally – as we pulled up, one of the whales stuck their snout (?) straight up into the air enough to get their eyes out of the water and looked around like, “Hey guys, whatcha doing? Everything ok up there? You’re here to help, right?” They stayed with us for an hour or so, through about the first mile of the tow as we settled out on our long trackline back towards shore.

A number of our crew told me later that they really enjoyed and got a lot of satisfaction out of the tow, even though it wrecked our plans to transit the Hudson River and see the NYC sights. They took pride in how smoothly it went, how much everyone learned on deck from doing it in pretty bad conditions, and how we were the ones there to help the fishermen who ran into trouble. As OPS said, it was a pretty salty last SAR case. The F/V finally did get their engines back on line after about 20 hours of being dragged behind us. Watching how they were riding – just uck. We escorted them back to off of Martha’s Vineyard, and then turned south to the Chesapeake Bay.

This will likely forever and always be one of my favorite sea stories because of the absolute magic of the experience that being a part of this crew offered me.

For the families that make this all possible, thank you. It is your love and support, your keeping the household going, your sending emails and waiting patiently for that phone call when we sporadically get cell service, your welcome home, that keeps us going. You should be unspeakably proud of your VIGOROUS crew member. They are true professionals that do hard things well in a dangerous and demanding environment, and somehow make it look like just another day on the job.

And I’d like to especially recognize our Ombudsmen, Jen Matthews and Kate Atkins. Unfortunately, Jen isn’t able to join us today, but Kate, will you please join us on stage...

Kate, the Coast Guard would like to recognize you with a certificate of appreciation and give you a token of thanks for all the support you have given to your ship during your time aboard.

(XO reads citation)

It was a crazy year for most families, and knowing loved ones back home had y’all standing by ready to help gave me some comfort that we were doing what we could to support crewmember families.

A couple of shout outs to particular break outs of the crew.

-- First Class Mess: thank you for your leadership, your drive to make the hard work happen, and get sh-stuff done.

-- Chiefs Mess, and I’m going to include MPA in this group also for his wisdom and perspective: thank you for the robust discussions and for being honest with me. I absolutely value the fact that our conversations made me a better leader and helped me make better decisions for the entire ship.

-- the Junior Officers: y'all made the wardroom fun. Thanks for your positivity, energy, and dedication. I am so impressed with how far you've each come in your time onboard. You've turned your boundless enthusiasm for doing good things into so many actual good things done, learned, and shared. Thank you for being willing to learn, even when you didn't enjoy the lessons. ENS Frazer and ENS Domingo -- thanks for being such detail-oriented project officers, and doing all the hard work to make this ceremony today possible.

-- OPS and EO: I've said it before, and I'll say it always -- I won the Department Head jackpot with you two. Your expertise, your organization, your innate drive to do things the right way instead of the easy way, your friendship, your maturity, your fishing stories – though not the snake stories, and your willingness to both push back when needed, and use very small words and even crayon drawings for me to understand equipment casualties...VIGOROUS would not be where she is today...heck, the Coast Guard fleet wouldn't be where it is today without the efforts of you two gentlemen. Thank you.

-- To LCDR Tim Boettner and LCDR Chris Wildhagen -- thanks for all your hard work during our short times together. You both stepped into a tough situation and did so much more than keeping the train on the rails. Chris, thanks for jumping in the deep end feet first and making so much headway in learning all about VIGOROUS before this Change of Command. I know the ship, the crew, and CDR Waters are in good hands.

-- To Piero, if you're watching. I saw your sandstorm pictures a few days ago, and don't envy you that gritty, sweaty transit to Building 2. Thank you for all your hard work to carry out my ideas and for regularly playing devil's advocate. We made so much progress on the ship, and I'm grateful for your counsel and friendship through some incredibly challenging times.

-- Ryan, you've got a great crew. I know every outgoing CO everywhere says that, but it really is true here. They work hard, know how to have fun, and have given more to their jobs than I could have ever hoped for. I hope you can give them the awesome port calls and drug busts that I never was able to manage.

We didn’t do all we did by ourselves, of course. I’d like to thank LANT Area, LANT-37 and Cutter Forces for your support and guidance through some trying times. Tom Lowry, Jim Healy, and your team at the MEC Product Line were always there to take EO’s and my phone calls – even when you didn’t want to when our end of drydock coincided with the end of last fiscal year, and I nagged you mercilessly for money to keep the crew in hotel rooms for the last two weeks of the extension. Thanks so much to you and your team for keeping us operational and helping restore our materiel condition. Thanks to C5ISC for keeping the twidget stuff energized, and for being their every step of the way through our paperless nav prototype. CAPT Dash, your efforts to modernize the -6 world of work is paying big dividends for the fleet. Thanks very much to Base Portsmouth for your wonderful hospitality. You have always made us feel welcome. Thanks to my fellow COs – your advice and camaraderie were key in getting me through some of the darkest COVID days.

And to my family, thank you. More for y’all on Friday – for two reasons really. First today is about this wonderful crew, and second because I wanted to get through this without going through every tissue on the podium. Hugs to all of you.

And now, the inevitable...I have to read my orders...

BT

Retirement Ceremony Remarks

Rusty, CAPT Dash, thank you so much for your kind words today, your friendship over the years, and the great leadership you shared with me all those years ago on WASHINGTON. I am so grateful you were willing to take on making these remarks today, especially given how busy you are making amazing progress on C5I service throughout the Coast Guard. Danielle, it’s wonderful to have you here today also!

I had hoped by now I'd know what to say. How do I wrap up almost 22 years of service, 11 1/2 years at sea on seven ships in a reasonable amount of time so we don't have to sweat through our whites any more than absolutely necessary...and before the heavens open up and drench us.

There's so much ground to cover, so many sea stories, at least a couple of staff tour accomplishments that may leave a lasting impression, so many people to thank, so many shipmates to remember, so much goodness from my Community of Cutter(wo)men that I didn't even know was possible, so many family members and friends to choke out a thanks to when they can only marginally appreciate what their love and support meant to me through the years -- knowing that if I try to cover all this, I'll inevitably leave out someone, some very important memory, some major epicness. In light of all that, I offer this reflection in celebration of my career:

I am so grateful for all the time I was able to soak in that inexplicable alchemy of being part of something greater than myself, working with an ever-changing team doing a hard job in a demanding, dangerous, mind-blowingly beautiful environment that will rock your world while simultaneously offering a balm to the soul. We all talk about the amazing sunrises and sunsets, the sparkle of the Milky Way against that darkest of nights, the wonder of marine life, and all the physical beauty of the ocean. We talk about the wonderful people we meet and work with and the bond barely scratched by the term "shipmate." We talk about the meaningfulness of the mission, of rescuing mariners at sea, and being the responders where few people ever even get to go. We talk about the power of teams to get those dangerous missions done, the power of facing challenges with other dedicated professionals that help us all achieve more than we could alone.

When you mix all those ingredients in the bowl of a Coast Guard ship, the resultant experience is so much more than the individual parts. It becomes an experience beyond words, a quicksilver resonance that defies encapsulation in mere human expression, and vibrates in my bones making me feel indisputably alive and incandescent. Without it I will once again be a mere dirt-bound mortal.

Thanks, everyone, for coming out to share the day with VIGOROUS, her crew, and me. It means the absolute world to me. Now, let’s go eat shrimp cocktail and cake!