Coast Guard

The Changing of the Guard

I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.

The sentiment is usually attributed to Groucho Marx, but as of this week it works for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, too.

The Story So Far

As of Thursday of this week, “Don’t Ask” has been dead for a month. To this point, the outreach I’ve received from peers and coworkers has been extremely positive, which appears to be the trend across all branches of the services. Contrary to all of the hullabaloo raised by those against the repeal, to my knowledge there hasn’t …

Post-“Don’t Ask” Stress, v. 2.0

Recently I caught wind of an independent study being conducted by the University of Maryland Baltimore County about the effects of DADT on the mental health of those who have been directly affected by the policy. After contacting the man responsible for the project directly, I was able to learn a thing or two about this ground-breaking …

Taking Stock: The U.S. Military a Decade After 9/11

The 10th anniversary of 9/11 closes in on us this week. Try as you might, you will not be able to avoid it. Amid the pathos and bathos, it’s time to take a knee and conduct a map check.

Just to cut to the chase: you can’t argue with success, and on 9/12 most Americans were petrified a second wave of attacks was likely. It hasn’t …

Coast Guard: Smallest Service, Biggest Opportunities for Women

National Public Radio (NPR) recently did a segment on the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and its new superintendent, Rear Admiral Sandra Stosz. The Coast Guard has been at the forefront of expanding opportunities for women since 1977 when it opened all of its jobs to women. It even decided to admit women to the Coast Guard Academy in 1975, …

Stand By to Stand By

This is all getting very confusing. Within the past few weeks there have been some major developments in the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal process, all of which I have failed to mention here. Each turn in events has had its own reason for staying out of my blog, and I’m not going to use my packed schedule as an excuse.

Earlier this …

Military Housing: Trials and Tribulation

Compared to many of my gay and lesbian colleagues, my time in service has treated me well. In general gay officers have it easier than our enlisted counterparts, and our options with housing play a large role.

Many newly enlisted troops are forced to live in small dorms with roommates. It’s usually not the barracks scene that …

Can’t Tell? Then Publish!

In buildings on military installations, it is common to see a rack of news papers and magazines as you walk in. On a few of those racks now lays a magazine put out by an independent network of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered servicemembers known as OutServe.

This is the organization’s second issue of the magazine and so …

Memorial Day in the Rearview Mirror: Soldiers as Heroes, and Victims

Elspeth Ritchie was on the front lines dealing with the military’s mental-health issues as an Army psychiatrist, including several senior positions following 9/11, for nearly a quarter century. She has studied and tended to troops’ minds on assignments around the world, including in Cuba, Iraq, Somalia, South Korea and Vietnam. She

The Few, the Proud, the Broken

There’s an easy way to figure out which military service has the toughest basic training — all you have to do is count how many recruits break their legs. Using that standard, there’s no competition: the U.S. Marine Corps crushes its recruits’ lower-leg bones far more often than the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard or Navy.

The data …

  1. Previous
  2. 1
  3. 2