cutting to the chase

I received a comment on the last post requesting information on my current unit, Patrol Forces Southwest Asia (PATFOR SWA). I was going to leave it until a later date in the interest of maintaining the timeline of the blog but I've pretty much failed at that already so here it goes.

As I already mentioned, the Coast Guard has people in the Arabian Gulf (or the "Persian Gulf" for you CNN types) in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Our service possesses unique specialities that the Navy doesn't, most importantly the ability to board and search vessels. This is the same reason that our Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDETs) often ride on board Navy ships in areas like the Caribbean to give them the ability to conduct boardings in counter narcotic missions.

In the interests on working smarter, not harder here is a link to a comprehensive article written around the time I first arrived in Bahrain.

I volunteered to join PATFOR SWA around the end of 2006. I took my fiance Katie out to dinner and we discussed the positive and negative consequences of my possible deployment and came to the conclusion it was good move for our future (more on this later). There were openings for both the shore-side potion of the unit and the cutters and I submitted a request for both spots. This request was denied, most likely because there were other people competing for the same spots that were more qualified than I was.

In March of 2008, I was off duty, sitting at home and received a call from my Commanding Officer. He asked if I was sitting down and my mind started racing. Maybe someone from the station had been hurt, it wouldn't have been the first time I got a call saying we had lost a shipmate. My CO asked if I still wanted to go to the Middle East. I asked him if I could call him back, as I wanted to talk it over with Katie first. He informed me that he had the detailer (the person in charge of issuing orders) on hold and needed an answer immediately. I said yes and told him I would be at the station in a few minutes.

When I arrived at the station, I was told to check my e-mail and I found a a copy of electronic orders to PATFOR SWA. The was also a short message from the detailer saying I had three days to report to Virginia for pre-deployment training.