Today, August 4, 2015, marks the 225th anniversary of the U.S. Coast Guard.
On this day in 1790, Congress created the Revenue Cutter Service on the recommendation of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. In 1915, the Revenue Cutter Service merged with the U.S. Life-Saving Service to form the U.S. Coast Guard.
The Coast Guard today has 11 missions spanning search and rescue, law enforcement, aids to navigation, and more. With fewer personnel than the New York Police Department, the Coast Guard does a lot in the average day.
The August 2014 issue of Proceedings contains an op-ed titled “Millennials Bring a New Mentality: Does it Fit?” written by a CDR Darcie Cunningham, USCG. She makes the argument that the Millennial generation doesn’t respect tradition and authority, is only willing to do the bare minimum required, expects constant praise and promotions on their own schedule, and generally need a course correction to fit inside the military structure. For a point-by-point analysis of her article, I suggest you read LT Matt Hipple’s fantastic post.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything Coast Guard on here, but friend and fellow Coastie Ryan Erickson sent me a piece about CG Remember, a program dedicated to remembering those Coast Guardsmen and women who have fallen in service to their country, which I felt should be shared with my readers. I won’t go into any further detail about it since Ryan covers that in his words below.
Kevin Mitnick, the infamous hacker and social engineer turned security consultant, gave a presentation at this year’s History Conference at the Naval Academy today. He gave numerous examples of extracting information from people and companies by using their own trust and knowledge against them. His demonstrations likely startled many of the audience members with the range of methodologies and, more importantly, the success rate.
Some may look at the seemingly endless list of ways attackers can obtain what they’re looking for and throw their hands up in despair.
This week is Commissioning Week at the Naval Academy here in Annapolis. As a result, the town is flooded with friends & family of the graduates from out of town, and parts of the city are closed off to traffic at certain hours. One of the major reasons for this is a favorite annual tradition: the Blue Angels show on Wednesday afternoon.
Every year, the Blue Angels put on a demonstration during Commissioning Week, over the Severn River right next to the Academy grounds.
The annual Milblogging conference is coming up, and as part of the event they have awards for military bloggers in various categories, one for each of the armed services and support categories as well. Here’s the best part: they’re reader’s choice awards, so you get to vote for your favorite in each category!
I’m not nominated so this isn’t me trying to source votes for myself. However, I have some good friends who are and keep great blogs that deserve to win, so I’m trying to help them gain some well-earned recognition.
I’m writing this at about 0130, mere hours before I will be hitting the road to go up to Boston and start my journey through boot camp and into the Coast Guard. I’m excited, and a little nervous, but I’m confident that I will be able to handle it.
I may or may not be posting through snail mail, having my mom add my posts for me. I will, however, be posting via snail mail over at AN UNOFFICIAL COAST GUARD BLOG, as I am the newest writer for that blog.
On Friday I was featured as a CG Blog Find on AN UNOFFICIAL COAST GUARD BLOG. I haven’t featured this site myself on my blog, but they’ve been in my blogroll for a while. If you haven’t visited there, definitely check it out. It’s chock-full of great information about current Coast Guard news, information, and editorials.
Thank you to Joe Coastie and CGBlog.org for featuring me!
