Company MIKE-182

Week 01

The USO office at the Philadelphia airport received 89 young adults from all corners of the United States, aspiring to be the future Guardians. These 89 people left on a bus, not knowing what to expect, not even thinking they would become the one and only training company MIKE-182 in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard. As the bus pulled up 03 Petty Officers were already waiting to remove them from the bus, giving them 03 seconds to get off the bus, not even willing to let them waste 05 seconds. Everything here is fast and accurate no time to play around because it is here that the premier maritime guardians, talking about the world’s best and greatest Coast Guard, have their home. Anything short of the best is not tolerated, because lives are saved every second and the Coast Guard cannot afford to lose any of those lives.

Our first few days here were for medical and administrative processing, where the 89 recruits were given a bunch of shots in both arms, dental exams were given, and eye glasses were prescribed. We also received our uniforms, physical fitness clothes, and academic supplies. The opportunity to wear the blue Operational Dress Uniforms became the biggest source of motivation for us. It wasn’t until 09OCT09 that the one and only MIKE-182 was formed and history was made. Now we, 89 former civilians began our transformation into military personnel. The question still remained who would be transforming us into members of the world’s best and strongest armed forces. When the ceremony finally came, our Executive officer and Training Officer introduced to us the best company commanders in TRACEN Cape May. It was then that work truly began for us. Stand straight and look ahead!

Week 02

MIKE-182 is learning fast, not just because many of us are college graduates or former professionals, but because our company commanders have gone to work. We are responding, although sometimes reluctantly because we do not always know if our responses will be correct or not, and not responding simply makes matters worse. Drills, academics, and physical activities have begun because MIKE-182 has only 08 weeks to complete our transformation. There are issues that need to be worked on: more discipline, meeting time objectives, responding instantly to orders from our company commanders, and maintaining our military bearing. To us this can be stressful and our company commanders understand that we are all humans so that’s why we had to have a stress management and suicide awareness class with the chaplain. What a topic! At least at the end we had a chance to de-stress all of the stress we accumulated over the course of the day. If all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, then all play and no work makes a Jack even more hopeless. Does that make sense? Ok. We are talking about class work. That takes us to our first swimming test, which a few of us failed, an indication that more work needs to be done. We are failing to work together as a company and more complaints and wrong attitudes keep popping up this of course, has disciplinary actions: we call this I.T. (Incentive Training). Until we work as a company and show our Company Commanders some motivation we will continue to have even more.

Another important class dealt with communication and human awareness, it was necessary for us to know how to communicate effectively. MIKE-182 is now a week old and no longer the newest recruits on the regiment.

14 OCT.09 A day of pieces..

We call this day a day of pieces because everybody got a piece of something: one thing, the same or another.

1.0 Mile run, 45 mins Cybex till our clothes were soaked with sweat, we learned Rates, Ranks and Grades. We got our “pieces” from the marksmanship branch. That made us have some feelings that only we will ever know. The Chaplain brought some pieces of headline news and of course a piece of prayer, a piece of advice to help us be more focused and in a better spiritual shape. Of course some piece incentive training and military bearings.

A lot of us got letters from home and became home sick but with encouragements from our company commanders, we are marching on, before “our ship stops and makes no headway in the water”

15. OCT 09.

In your mind, time is money, but in the coast guard, time is lives saved, any second wasted is a life lost or a life failed to save. Today, time objective issues put a lot of performance trackers on line. Oh Boy! Mike 182 has to be more careful, louder, so we don’t disappoint our company commanders and our section commander, who are giving us all they have. Although they are already feeling disappointed, we are determined to work harder and improve on those areas…with “shipmates! Move with the sense of urgency” and sweating thereafter, we just have to “Go fix it! And not be sorry for ourselves!

17. OCT. 09.

We met our mentor, a Lieutenant from the Coast guard Academy. She answered every lingering question and addressed every misinformation we had in the past. Our mentor was so impressed of our diversity, aspirations to be officers in the Coast Guard and our enthusiasm. It was cool to get to know her too.

After chow, we had a class from our company commander: military courtesies and drills, we also learned operational uniform maintenance. Although we learn fast, we still need to apply everything we learn, if we must graduate on the estimated day.

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