Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class Shannon Kearney | Chief Petty Officer Miguel Resto poses for a photo in front of Sexton Hall at U.S....... read more read more
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Chief Petty Officer Miguel Resto, a dedicated company commander at U.S. Coast Guard Training Center Cape May, passed through the gates of the training center for the very first time in 2008 as a young recruit with very little understanding of the English language.
As a Spanish speaker coming from Puerto Rico, he brought an English-Spanish dictionary with him to boot camp, but it was confiscated and put into a box for him until he graduated or was disenrolled from training. He had to rely on the little English he learned when he paid out of pocket to take some English 101 courses back home in Puerto Rico.
Boot camp was rough, said Resto. He had one shipmate who helped him out with the slang that his company commanders and fellow recruits were using in training, but for everything else, it depended on him to understand what was going on and get through to graduation.
Going through a high-stress environment with the additional stressor of not knowing much of the language made it nearly impossible, but Resto’s determination, along with the confidence given to him by one of his company commanders, led him to graduate boot camp in 2008.
Now, Resto has returned to the training center as a company commander and section commander to help and inspire other Coast Guard recruits, including the Spanish speakers who are struggling to overcome a language barrier as Resto once did.
Senior Chief Petty Officer David Knapp, a section commander at Training Center Cape May, works with Resto on the regiment, overseeing basic recruit training and assessing who moves forward to graduation and who is reverted because they need more time.
However, back in 2008 when Resto was going through boot camp as a recruit, Knapp was one of Resto’s original company commanders, and he had to make a decision whether to move Seaman Recruit Resto back in training or not.
“We would tell him to do push-ups, and he would do jumping jacks,” said Knapp. “There was a really obvious language barrier there, and we could see he was just struggling. We decided that we were going to send him back in training so he could have more time to improve his language skills and get the hang of things.”
When the time had finally come to break the news, Seaman Recruit Resto was pulled from training and was brought into Knapp’s office so he could receive his reassignment to a new company.
“When we told him the news, he pleaded with us to not send him back in company,” said Knapp. “He told us, ‘I am better than this. Please, I have a wife and a daughter back home that I need to do this for. I’ll do anything. I’ll stay up late after hours to learn English, I will do anything.’”
After seeing the passion and drive that Resto demonstrated during his plea, Knapp said that he believed him, and told Resto that he’d better not fail him.
“He said, ‘I won’t let you down, and I will do this for you,’” said Knapp. “And that’s what he did. He didn’t let me down, and he graduated with the rest of his company. Now he’s back on the regiment with me as my equal, helping others.”
Resto graduated boot camp as promised on June 27, 2008, and moved to his first unit aboard Coast Guard Cutter Cormorant in Fort Pierce, Florida, with his wife and daughter.
Once there, Resto continued to improve his English proficiency. In October 2009, Resto went to his storekeeper “A” school in Petaluma, California, and became a third class petty officer. He was assigned to Sector Northern New England in South Portland, Maine, and advanced to second class petty officer in July 2011. Resto was then assigned back to Coast Guard Training Center Cape May in June 2013, where he later advanced to first class petty officer two years later.
While Resto was working as a storekeeper in the procurement shop at the training center in 2015, he was approached by Chief Petty Officer John Gallego, a section commander from the regiment, who had a recruit who did not speak English as his first language and was struggling during boot camp. The section commander asked Resto if he would be willing to talk to the recruit, and asked him to listen to the recruit’s story and share his own to inspire the recruit to get through boot camp.
Resto agreed. He sat down with the recruit and listened to him with compassion as they described their struggle to fit in and get through training.
“Growing up, my mother raised me to have good values,” said Resto. “She raised me to never give up on anything, and she raised me to value love, kindness, and having compassion for others. My dad raised me to recognize the value of dedication and hard work, and how it’ll get you places in life.”
Those values guided Resto to give the recruit tips and pointers on how to get through boot camp as efficiently as possible, without drawing extra attention from the company commanders. As more section commanders and company commanders recognized Resto as a resource to mentor recruits who were struggling and help them overcome language barriers in recruit training, Resto was asked to share the same information with more Spanish speaking recruits as the months went on.
“I told the recruits to focus on what they could control,” said Resto. “I told them to focus on having a squared-away uniform and spot-on memorization with their required knowledge. Having their items squared-away, including their uniforms, gave company commanders less of a reason to stop a recruit in the galley or yell at them.”
Resto said he also told recruits to not worry too much about getting their pronunciation perfect on the required knowledge. All the company commanders needed to see was that the effort was being made and that the knowledge was correct. It didn’t matter if they had an accent. If they met the curriculum and knew the required knowledge, then they would be good to go.
Resto was eventually approached by the first section commander that reached out to him about how well-kept his uniforms and boots were, and suggested that Resto consider applying to be a company commander.
Resto applied for Company Commander School in 2017 and was accepted into the program. He said Company Commander School was difficult, but it was one of the best moments of his life when he graduated and picked up his company commander cover.
The happiness was short-lived though, because when Resto picked up his first company, he found himself having a hard time.
“It was difficult for me to raise my voice to another person,” said Resto. “Even though they were recruits, it was still hard for me.”
The values instilled in him by his mother, having kindness and compassion toward others, made it challenging for him to create a high-stress environment for his recruits.
Resto said he had to realize that raising his voice at the recruits and putting pressure on them in a controlled environment was helping them develop professionally, so when they went out in the field, they would be able to handle the stress better.
Being a company commander put Resto in a much better position to identify and help struggling Spanish speaking recruits. He worked with other company commanders to create a network to notify him of any recruits that needed help. Resto would visit them for an initial mentorship to check-in with them, and then have a secondary visit to see what progress the recruit was making.
“I would see them go from being a struggling recruit to having outstanding performance and being a squad bay leader or a company yeoman,” said Resto. “A lot of them went on to receive awards at graduation for excellence in things like academics, physical fitness, leadership, or seamanship.”
By working in recruit training, Resto had access to all of the training documents, and it was brought to his attention that the informational pamphlets being sent home to recruit families were only being sent out in English. Resto took it upon himself to sit down and translate the documents into Spanish to provide our non-English speaking recruit families the same opportunities to get information.
However, Resto didn’t just keep his inclusion efforts on the training regiment translating documents. Resto also participated in events outside of recruit training to promote diversity and inclusion by contributing to programs both inside and outside of the Coast Guard, such as the Leadership Diversity Advisory Council (LDAC) and the Partnership in Education (PIE) program for minority families.
In September 2020, Resto led an LDAC event for Hispanic Heritage Month and coordinated a team of people to present a slideshow of prominent Hispanic Coast Guard leaders, and also facilitated a small sampling of Hispanic foods and desserts for people to try.
As the only enlisted accession point for the Coast Guard, at Training Center Cape May, Resto has made a profound impact for diversity and inclusion by helping over 40 other struggling recruits overcome language barriers, getting them through the same difficulties he himself struggled with 13 years ago.
"Chief Resto's work to empower recruits who have learned English as a second language and align our training standards with the Coast Guard's Diversity and Inclusion strategic goals has had a direct and lasting impact on Training Center Cape May,” said Capt. Kathy Felger, commanding officer of U.S. Coast Guard Training Center Cape May. “I am beyond proud of him and how he uses his example of overcoming challenges to show our future workforce what is possible in our Coast Guard. I am honored to have him as a prominent member of our recruit training team."
Since becoming a company commander in 2017, Resto has trained eight recruit companies and two companies for the Direct Entry Petty Officer Training program, which is a condensed recruit training for prior-service personnel coming through training.
Resto’s continued perseverance and empowerment of underrepresented minorities throughout the Coast Guard and in his local community was recognized in December 2020 when Resto was awarded the 2020 League of United Latin American Citizens Excellence in Service (LULAC) award. Resto is due to finish out his summer at Training Center Cape May, and will soon be reporting to his next unit to continue serving his country in the U.S. Coast Guard as a chief warrant officer.
[**Story ran at https://www.facebook.com/uscoastguardsectorsanjuan/posts/4036198776430935**]
| Date Taken: | 03.05.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 03.05.2021 13:03 |
| Story ID: | 390682 |
| Location: | CAPE MAY, NJ, US |
| Web Views: | 476 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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