Photo By Lt. John Edwards | Petty Officer 1st Class Carson Russell, a company commander at Coast Guard Training...... read more read more
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CAPE MAY, N.J. - As far back as 1924, the Coast Guard has had a presence here in Cape May, New Jersey. While our mission at the time was little more than maintaining a small air facility for planes used to support the U.S. Customs Service and as a homeport to several cutters used to thwart rumrunners off the coast, we have established a deep and lasting relationship with the area that has lasted nearly 100 years!
It wasn’t until 1946 that the Navy relinquished the base to the Coast Guard and by 1948 all entry-level training on the east coast was conducted here. In 1982, Training Center Cape May became the only enlisted accession point for the service in the country. Today, it continues its mission of training and serves in a support role to the operational tenant commands assigned here.
The responsibility of training the future of our service is a privilege that we take very seriously and have a great deal of pride in. Nearly every Friday of the year, we provide the Coast Guard fleet with basically trained, physically fit and smartly disciplined Coast Guard men and women who are ready for the rigors of our service and who are ready to serve this great nation.
It doesn’t happen overnight. We have eight weeks to transform volunteers into Coast Guardsmen and it all starts with the words, “get off my bus.”
The training begins on a Tuesday night; when the bus pulls in and our newest recruits receive a traditional company commander welcome. It is the first of several “emotional” moments that our graduates rarely forget. They are hurried off the bus under a swarm of commands motivating them to move faster, stand up straight and to quit “eyeballing” everything around them. For many of them, they have never had an experience quite like it, and probably hope never to again.
Like all things done here, there is a purpose to every command, every movement, and every training evolution. The purpose for the loud, rapid-fire commands is to begin that process of simulated stress, which will help determine those recruits who can handle the stress verse those that cannot. If you can’t handle a little yelling here, what will happen when you are faced with the stress of a life or death situation in the fleet?
Tonight, we are expecting 114 people to arrive ready for training. Those that make it will have earned the right to call themselves “coasties” and will have undoubtedly proven that they are ready to live by our core values of Honor, Respect and Devotion to Duty.
To our incoming recruits, I hope you have prepared yourself mentally, physically and emotionally. Make no mistake, this is going to be tough, but anything worth doing usually is.
Welcome to Coast Guard Training Center Cape May!
| Date Taken: | 09.29.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 09.29.2015 20:39 |
| Story ID: | 177502 |
| Location: | CAPE MAY, NJ, US |
| Hometown: | CHARLESTON, SC, US |
| Hometown: | OCEAN CITY, NJ, US |
| Web Views: | 271 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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