How I Joined The Coast Guard; Life Lessons

 

HOW, NOT WHY, I JOINED THE
U. S. COAST GUARD
AND WHY MY LIFE-LESSON
CAN  AND PROBABLY DOES
APPLY TO YOU!

By Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, Lieutenant, U. S. Coast Guard Retired,
written on January 18, 2025

 

Warning:  This is long and may appear disjointed but it WILL come together, read on! 

It was May 1963, I had just graduated from Chaney High School in Youngstown Ohio and in September started my freshman year at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.  In addition to starting college, 1963 saw the Vietnam War ragging in the far East.  As an 18-year-old I did not understand the politics of Vietnam but even at 18, I could tell that the war was something that we should NOT be engaged in.  We were told that we had to be there because of the domino effect.  That meant that losing the war would cause the rest of the world in that area to fall like “dominos” to communism.  Most of us never questioned that premise; some did.  We were told that countries like Australia, New Zealand and South Vietnam, would become communist controlled if we lost.  One nation after another would fall – the Domino Effect; that is what we were told. 

There was not a high school student that I was aware of who was not deeply concerned about being drafted into military service for the sole purpose to fight a war in some far-off jungle.  It was NOT because we were unpatriotic, it was because we did not understand the need.  You could avoid being drafted if you had a physical ailment that prevented you from passing a military entrance physical.  Another way to avoid the draft was to enlist in a military reserve component or the State’s National Guard.  Some did just that and went to Vietnam anyway.  You could also avoid the draft if you were enrolled in a college or university as I was.  In 1963 a lot of people my age with no means of avoiding the draft, fled to Canada to avoid having to fight in the Vietnam jungles and rice paddies. 

1963 was also a time when parents would tell their children,  both boys and girls, that if you didn’t go to college, you would never amount to anything; most of us believed their parents.  This was said in good faith by parents who also believed what they had just said to us as being in our best interest.  As it turned out, at least for me, that one thought had been implanted in my head even though I did not know it at the time; after all, I was headed off to college so I was on the path to success. 

College was a bummer for me.  I attended class for two years and during those years I always felt like square peg being forced into a round hole.  The one over-riding reason I felt this way was because of a lack of interest and I’ll explain that in a bit, hold on.  It started when I was in the 6^th grade when the class was given a tour of a local U. S. Air Force Base.  I had the opportunity to sit in the cockpit of an F-101 Voodoo Fighter Jet; very impressive!  From that day forward, that is what I wanted to do with my life, become an Air Force Fighter Pilot.  It was just a seed that I never intentionally watered like learning how to fly an airplane.  No, I went to college and majored in marketing and advertising in the school of business.  Much to my surprise there was an Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at Bowling Green and I signed up and I loved it.  ROTC rekindled my 6^th grade desire to become a fighter pilot.  During my two years, I managed to pass the flight aptitude test and the flight physical examination all during my second year.  

The second reason that I did not like the college life was that for the two years I majored in marketing and advertising, I took NO courses on those subjects at all – zero!  I had zero interest in the courses I was required to take to just get to the third year where I would begin to learn about marketing and advertising; what a waste of time.  My grades reflected what I thought about the courses I was required to take; they were horrible except for my participation in ROTC.  Unbeknownst to me, I had begun to develop a deep love for the military and its organized lifestyle. 

Knowing that I was having trouble concentrating on my courses, I sat out a semester in 1965 to get my head on straight about continuing.  During this period, I obtained a job as an unskilled laborer at the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company, a steel manufacturer in Youngstown.  I was assigned to work in the company’s Open Hearth.  Let me describe it from memory.  On one side of this very tall and long building, open to the outside near the top exposing everyone inside the building to the outside environment.  It was January in Ohio and it was cold outside and cold inside the open-hearth building.  On one side of this very long building were 8 to 10 “ovens” where the steel was literally cooked into a molten type liquid at extremely high temperatures.  I was told that the ovens were typically over 2000 degrees but they were very well insulated and did not heat the inside of the building.  My fellow laborers and I would sit on one side with very little to nothing to do and freeze until we were told we needed to reinforce the inside of the hearths (ovens).  Then with hard hat on, a special fire-retardant coat and special gloves, we put very thick blue lens goggles on and approach one of the five doors on the front of the hearth.  Each door had a round open hole that you could see inside the hearths. 

It's difficult to describe but I’ll try.  The Second Helper would tell us which door we would work at and describe over all the noise approximately where on the floor or walls of the hearth we had to throw a “patch.”  A patch was simply a shovel full of heavy black looking gravel type material that I do not remember what it was called, into the damaged areas of the hearth.  There was a skill at how this was accomplished.  We would get a long skinny shovel full of the black rocks, approach the open door from the side, step directly in front of the opened door and then with one very quick movement of your arm holding the shovel, throw the gravel in the direction that we were told.  The dark blue lens enabled us to see into the hearth that glared like the sun blinding anyone who did not wear the eye protection.  Once you threw the gravel into the hearth and in one continuing motion, you would use your right arm to immediately come across your face and your eyes to protect them from both the extreme heat AND the extreme bright light coming from within the hearth.  If you did not do this perfectly, you ran the risk of getting skin burns on the uncovered portions of your face and neck.  While you did this, you got the Hell out of there in a hurry to pick up the next shovel of gravel to throw. 

Each hearth had its own team so there were eight to ten teams like mine, one for each hearth. (I say 8 to 10 because I don’t remember the exact number of hearths that were there.)  That meant that it was possible to do an eight-hour shift and have absolutely nothing to do to pass the time other than trying to stay warm.  The highlight and lowlight of the shift occurred when it was time to “tap” the hearth.  Tapping meant that the First or Second Helper along with one of the laborers (me) went behind the hearth.  The Helper would lower himself down along side of a massive trough that protruded out and away from the lower back center of the hearth.  With a long metal rod, the Helper would poke at the bottom of the hearth to break through a plug that held the molten steel within the hearth.  When the plug/seal was broken, the molten steel would gush out, proceed down the trough and into a huge ladle located on a rail road car.  If all went well, it was dangerous and exciting but not harmful.  If it did not go well, that would mean that instead of just breaking through the plug, the plug would blow out on its own and that meant trouble for the Helper standing within just feet of the plug.  Like a volcano, it would erupt, molten steel, sparks and fire would burst out and scare the crap out of the Helper and the laborer (me).  My job when this happened would be to grab the Helper by the collar of his coat and make sure he is removed from the pit beneath the trough.  It was not fun.  All while this was happening you could not help but notice that there was debris floating in the air in all directions.  The debris was graphite.  You did not realize just how much graphite was in the air until you where home and discovered that you had graphite in your pockets, the cuffs of your pants and even in your wallet.  You can only imagine what the inside of your lungs must have looked like.  This was decades before environmental protection was even a thought.  

I was promoted to operate the bell on a train that went nowhere except from one end of the open hearth to the other.  The train had a car that contained a ladle that was used to fill the hearths with the ingredients it needed to make the steel.  The train, operated by a train engineer and ONLY operated when needed, plus me on the very back of the train; I was there to ring the bell.  During an eight-hour shift, it may move two times, three max.  As long as it was moving forward, I had nothing to do but ride on the back. When it went in reverse, I stood on the back with a metal rod hitting a bell to alert everyone in the path that the train was moving in their direction and to clear a path.  Sounds exciting, right?  It wasn’t!  I would also help to direct the overhead crane operator to hook up the huge hooks onto each side of the ladle to insure it pulled it straight up and not tip it over because one hook was not secured before it was hoisted.  Here’s the upside of all of this.  I made $34.00 a day doing this work.  That equates to about $8,800 a year.  By 2024 standards, that’s poverty level income but in 1965, that was a fortune and the workers had the Steel Union to thank for that. The downside was that I made more money as an unskilled laborer than a Youngstown Ohio School Teacher did with a college degree teaching 5^th graders.  That was insane and even I could see that.  The over-the-top cost of making steel paying these high wages was the ultimate cause of steel production being shipped overseas.  If you were to go to Youngstown today, you would see the remnants of these steel plants sitting empty and decaying.  The most valuable lesson learned for this 20-year-old laborer was that there was no way I was going to do THIS the rest of my life.  In fact, it lasted about 4 months when I decided to return to Bowling Green and restart my formal education. 

I reenrolled at Bowling Green to begin the summer semester with a renewed interest in doing better.  The time I had sat out, however, reinstated my position on the military draft (lottery) and I was drafted.  I had orders to report to Fort Knox before my summer semester was completed.  I was shocked and devastated.  With the draft notice in hand, I went to talk to the local U. S. Army Recruiter.  When he discovered that I had 2 years of Air Force ROTC under my belt and had already passed the flight aptitude test and flight physical, he had me mentally flying Jolly Green Giants in Vietnam before I had a chance to sit down and he told me as much.  In fact, he said I could be sent to flight school, be promoted to Chief Warrant Officer and then fly the big helicopters in the war as if this was some great thing to strive for. 

Meanwhile, my mother managed to get the Mayor of Youngstown involved in my plight because she and I both wanted me to finish the semester I had just started.  Because of my mother, I can tell you the rest of the story as the famous Paul Harvey radio broadcaster would say.  I was granted a deferment of my deferment to finish the semester I was enrolled in.  This gave me the opportunity to talk to other recruiters.  I wanted no part of flying helicopters in Vietnam!  My ROTC instructor explained to me that because I had finished two years of ROTC training, I could enlist in the Air Force as an E-1 (Recruit) and then skip the promotion to E2 and upon graduation, go immediately to E3; sounded plausible and good to me.  At the same time, I could apply for Officer Candidate School and then apply for flight school.  It all sounded great, it was a plan!  Then I went to see the recruiter. 

It’s now late July 1965.  Vietnam was going hot and heavy and we could hear about the daily casualty count on the evening news programs.  My future seemed very bleak.  I got up early and drove from Bowling Green, Ohio to Toledo, Ohio where the recruiters were located.  I arrived about 9:00 AM and was shocked to see a line outside of the Air Force recruiting office; it was long.  There were a lot of young men trying to avoid being drafted and to them, as it did to me, the Air Force seemed like a very good alternative.  Being the impatient person I was, I knew I was not going to stand in this long line.  I thought that the U. S. Navy would be a good alternative and like the Air Force, there was a long line. When I say long, I mean like at least 20 to 25 people in each line moving nowhere very slowly.  Between the Air Force and Navy Recruiters was the U. S. Marine Corps.  There was no one in line there so I went in.  What the Hell was I thinking?  I wasn’t.  I managed to get a seat in front of a man that you could easily describe even if you never knew what a U. S. Marine Gunny Sargant would look like and you could have described him perfectly!  He was on the phone and I could hear the conversation.  He was trying to get permission to recruit a two-time felon and was asking for a waiver for his discretions.  It took me about 4 seconds to realize that I was in the wrong office for me.  I decided to go back to school and get up even earlier and come back the next day and wait until they opened. 

(As a side note about the Vietnam War, it took years but it has been proven that the United States’ entry into the war was based on a lie about an incident that supposedly took place in the Gulf of Tonkin.  Follow this link and see if you don’t come up with the same conclusion that I have, the American loss of life was unnecessary and based on a lie.  https://www.quora.com/Was-the-Gulf-of-Tonkin-incident-a-hoax-faked-by-President-LBJ-to-get-the-U-S-involved-in-the-Vietnam-War-full-scale) 

On my way out I saw this open door.  Over the door it read U. S. Coast Guard.  I am a typical mid-westerner who never lived anywhere near the water and had no clue what the Coast Guard was.  When I looked inside, there was only one person in this very small office which was about the size of a small living room in a home.  There was a wooden desk and behind the desk was a man in a U. S. Navy looking sailor uniform.  He had his feet up on the desk and was reading a Superman comic book, yes, you read that correctly, a Superman comic book.  Here is what happened next: 

ME:  “What is this?”

HIM:  “The U. S. Coast Guard recruiting office.”

ME:  “What is the U. S. Coast Guard?”

HIM:  “It is one of the branches of the U. S. Military”

ME:  “How does one get into the Coast Guard?”

HIM:  “You can’t!”

ME:  “Why not?”

HIM:  He didn’t say anything, instead he reached behind him and pulled a legal-size green binder from atop the table behind his desk.  He showed me the book and there was nothing but names and phone numbers on page after page after page.

HIM:  “You see all these names?  They are people who have signed up on our waiting list to be called when an opening occurs.  Mothers have listed the names of their sons, some as young as 10-years-old, for them to join the Coast Guard  Do you understand?”

ME:  “Yes, but I don’t understand why there are so many.”

HIM: “ That’s because we are a small outfit and there are not that many openings to fill.  In the case of the Mothers signing up their sons, they feel that the Vietnam War may go on for years.”  (Who knew in 1965 how right the Mothers were.) 

I then explained to him my problem about finishing the semester in a week and that I will be drafted.  I also told him about passing the aptitude test and physical.  I don’t know why I continued to talk to him but I did.  Apparently, he had nothing better to do other than reading a Superman comic book so he sat and listen and we just talked for a while. 

Then this is what happened next, I swear, it happened just like I am telling you. 

He paused and opened his green-ledger book, put his finger on the next name on the list.  Picked up the phone on his desk and dialed the number. 

HIM:  Hello, is this………..?  Great, we have an opening to report to Coast Guard Training Center, Cape May, NJ on August the 4^th, can you make it?”

CALLER:  He must have said something like, “Oh no, I’m sorry, I fell and broke my arm, it is in a cast.”

HIM:  “Sorry to hear that, take care.”  He then hung up. 

He looked at me and said, “Can you report to Cape May, NJ on August the 4^th?” 

And that is how I entered the U. S. Coast Guard.  I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. 

Granted the words that I typed above may not be exact but they are very close to what actually happened.  Can you imagine the call to my parents to tell them that I had just joined the U. S. Coast Guard.  My mother had the same question as I did.  What is the U. S. Coast Guard and why did I agree to join it?  When she realized that it would satisfy the requirement that I either be drafted or that I had already enlisted in another branch, she was fine with it as was my Dad. 

I worried about my Dad more than my Mother because remember it was my Dad who said that if I didn’t graduate from College, I would never amount to anything.  As I have said, it did not mean much to me at the time but subconsciously it meant a great deal that I discovered much later in life.  I am sure that both my Mother and my Father were disappointed that I was NOT going to complete my college education and become the success they had hoped I would achieve because that is the what parents were taught to believe through the media and through the public schools at the time.  I am pretty sure the same thoughts were being advanced in private schools as well.  That was 1965 and it took over 50 years for the public to realize that (1) not every high school student is cut out to attend college and (2) you do not have to complete a college education to become very successful in life. 

Now for the lessons I took from this experience and I write them as I approach the age of 80.  Remember that I said my father repeatedly told me that “you will not amount to much if you do not attend college.”  I should have known that he did not believe this and was using it as a tool but I did not connect the dots.  He was very successful at what he was doing and he did not attend college, nor did my mother.  My sister did and she became a successful school teacher.  But I joined the Coast Guard and in 1965, no one joined the military with the idea of making it a career or at least that was the prevailing thought amongst my peers at the time. 

I joined the Coast Guard because it was an alternative to being drafted into the U. S. Army and then being shipped off to Vietnam.  Everyone knew that was going to happen; there was no doubt about it.  Sometimes as one door closes, another opens and that is exactly what happened to me.  Was it by design or by accident?  Didn’t matter, it happened.  Remember, I loved what I was doing in the Air Force ROTC program and was quietly becoming very interested in the military because of it.  When I joined the Coast Guard, suddenly it became very clear to me that the Coast Guard was going to teach the importance of organization, discipline and personal responsibility which I desperately lacked in my life through 1965.  I became very aware of how important it was to become a working member of a functioning team and that every team member had to do his (much later it also included women) job, otherwise people could get hurt or even killed.  A ship could sink or a plane/helicopter could crash with loss of life or serious injuries because YOU did not do your job as best you could!  At the time, I needed to learn those lessons and those lessons have stuck with me until this very day and proved to be instrumental to any success I may have achieved in life beyond my Coast Guard career.  I will be forever indebted and grateful to the Coast Guard and the fantastic people I worked for and who worked for me during my twenty years in the Coast Guard.  Everyone should be as fortunate I as was for that on-the-job education! 

It was about 1995 when I learned just how much “words mean things” when Dr. Tom Hill, my employer and I were having breakfast as we travelled about the South visiting real estate offices and helping them to become more proficient in what they were doing.  Dr. Tom asked me what was holding me back?  I did not understand the question because I felt I was doing fine at the time.  He then said someone or something has been implanted in head to where I felt I was undeserving of the achieving the “next step” in my success.  As it turned out he was very perceptive; he was right.  I would achieve things in my real estate career and then at the very moment my career should go on to the next step I would stop and change directions.  He pointed out those times when this would occur.  He was not faulting my service or work that I had done for him only that he could see these situations and I could not.  Again, he was right.  We talked that morning for a long time and that is when I recalled what my father had told me in the early 1960s that if I did not go to college, I would not become successful.  I went to college but I never finished college so in my mind, I did not “go to college” so I had no right in my mind to achieve success.  As I approached success, that is when I would stop and change directions.  That is when I realized just how much “WORDS MEAN THINGS!”  I could not help but wonder what words I may have said my four children that impeded their march through life.  That was a scary moment because I would never consciously say anything to my children to impede them. I am positive that my father never INTENTIONALLY said what he said knowing it would impede me. 

I began reading a lot of books on success, motivation, business and personal development.  I have read almost every book Wallace C. Wattles has ever written (back in the early 1900s) and in every one of his books he recites the phrase “thinking in a certain way!”  If you want to do this or you want to do that, you will never achieve what you want to do if you do not “think in a certain way.”  He does not describe the “certain way” he simply refers to doing it.  If you want to be as successful as possible creating a Coast Guard career, you must first “think in a certain way” like having already achieved the successful Coast Guardsman you want to be and then create the path that will take you there.  It really was that simple!  

If that is your goal, you want to achieve good performance reports from your supervisor and/or your commanding officer.  Therefore, what must you do?  If you want to achieve the next promotion, what must you do?  If you want to do those things, how must you think.  YOU MUST THINK IN A CERTAIN WAY!  Then you must simply TAKE ACTION AND DO IT! 

Brian Tracy said in his book, Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life, “You become what you think about most!”  Combined with what Wallace C. Wattles has written, it might be better said: 

“If you think in a certain way,

you WILL become what you think about MOST!” 

I did not purposely think and act that way during my Coast Guard career but that is exactly what I thought and did.  I entered as a Seaman Recruit and advanced my way to Chief Petty Officer and then to Chief Warrant Officer and then to Limited Duty Lieutenant.  I was then involuntarily retired on a physical disability before I was ready to continue on my path in the Coast Guard.  I did the same thing as a Real Estate Salesman moving on to a Real Estate Broker to later become a Real Estate Trainer and a Real Estate Broker/Owner.  At one point in my real estate career, I was personally responsible for 105 real estate licensees in my company.  Therefore, contrary to the thought unintentionally implanted by my father, I was successful in my own in right without having completed a college degree. The very important lesson I have learned is that no one can set goals for you, you must set your own goals, low or high, and then create a life that will take you to achieving whatever goals YOU CHOOSE and  that you SET for YOURSELF! 

That would be a successful formula for whatever you want to do in life and a good lesson to pass on to your children and their children.