1978 to 1982

Coast Guard Training Center Yorktown, VA

Back in the day...Yorktown, VA.  I taught young Coast Guardsmen how to do Search & Rescue and every facet of that role like towing, righting and pumping out capsized boats, working with a CG Helicopter, fighting boat fires, search & rescue search patterns.  30 or so in a classroom at a time and 5 on the boat, almost every day.  You name it...

"You have to go out, but you don't have to come back!"

This unofficial motto of the Coast Guard dates to an 1899 Lifesaving Service Regulation.  I was taught it in boot camp, a practice which stopped a long time ago.  I lived this motto, it was in me...

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This is us out on the Chesapeake Bay.  We would practice putting out a boat fire.  That practice would flood the boat.  I would flip it over upside down then my crew would practice putting in back upright and dewatering it (a capsized boat).  We literally practiced everything related to Search and Rescue and how to safely operate/navigate the boat.

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This is BM1 Buck Willoughby, my dearest friend, from North Carolina, when I was in Yorktown, VA.  I think he was best man at my wedding locally when I was there.  I was a QM1 back then and I left as a QMC.  Many years later I ran into his Son in Wilmington, NC, he was in the Coast Guard.  The Son told me his Father had passed away.  It was very hard for me.