The Coast Tards

h/t Borepatch



USCG PO2 Garrett Brada gives the OK sign before an ice dive. -DoD photo

Make no mistake: if your ship is foundering, or you're overboard, or floating in an exposure suit or raft on the open sea, or having a heart attack 300 miles from land, or sitting on your roof after a hurricane, the Coasties of the USCG are the finest thing you'll ever want to see.
If you're smuggling dope or breaking the law on the water, they're the last thing you want to see. And when activated to federal military service in time of war, they've consistently punched far above their weight.

But the reason they'll never shake off the pejorative term "Puddle Pirates" among the actual military, and forever be regarded as little better than some third world brown-water navy, is silly PC horseshit like this:

And solely because of PC-pants-wetting hysteria spawned by a 4chan meme joke, the USCG relieved the hard-working Coastie in the hurricane center who was simply doing his job, not flashing KKK gang signs.

Coast Guard Relieves officer, accuses him of white supremacy for making OK gesture

And only monumental commissioned jackholes of the most moronic sort, with their heads shoved so far up their asses they can see out of their own throats could think, or pretend, it was ever otherwise.

It's also an open question if their parents were ever married.

But two can play at this game.

 

Alternatively, you could relieve every one in the chain of command who played any part in removing the Coastie from his position in that hurricane center, put permanent official letters of reprimand in all their files, restore the officer removed from his post back to it without any further prejudice, issue him a formal letter of apology from and signed by everyone from the Secretary of Transportation and the Coast Guard Commandant on down to his immediate OIC, and send everyone else from CPO to Rear Admiral in the USCG to mandatory "How Not To Be A Monumental Jackass" training, to ensure this kind of bullshit ceases immediately and Coast Guard-wide, NLT noon Monday.

 

But since we're talking about the Puddle Pirates' senior management, I'm not holding my breath.

 

Maybe it would be simpler to just relieve everyone in that service above a certain rank (LT or LT j.g. is probably the cut off (though I'd allow LtCmdr's with sterling records to make a good pitch for retention), and then just let common sense percolate up as normal promotions replenish the removed officer corps over future years.

 

Or, all y'all can just keep walking around with your heads up your asses, and giving me fish in the barrel to shoot from this blog.

 

You can get odds on which is likeliest.

 

And some serious history by Vox, from Kenny at Knuckledraggin:

 

 

So much for jokes pinning that to white supremacy, Coast Tards. Pry your heads loose, and come up for air, will ya?