My Coast Guard News

President Joseph R. Biden Jr. delivered the keynote address at the Coast Guard Academy during the 140th Commencement Exercises May 19, 2021. The Coast Guard Academy graduated 240 new officers along with seven international students. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Matthew Thieme)

Nov. 4, 2021

BZ: Coast Guard Academy, Adm. Nimitz Pistol Competition, Coast Guard and Aviation History Month

Bravo Zulu to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy for ranking among the nation’s top institutions of higher learning. This year the academy once again ranked No. 1 in the Top Public Schools Regional Colleges North and the overall Regional Colleges North categories in the 2022 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges magazine. The academy was also ranked No.

The last known photograph of the Bear taken from a Coast Guard aircraft before it sank in March 1963. (U.S. Coast Guard)

Nov. 2, 2021

Captain Healy’s Cutter Bear—once lost, now found!

As with so many forgotten Coast Guard stories of heroism, bravery, and courage, the story of Michael Augustine Healy and his trusty cutter Bear is unknown to most Americans. Healy was born in 1839 on a plantation in Georgia to a plantation owner and a slave. His father sent Healy north with his siblings so they would escape enslavement in the South

After its service as a VOA floating transmitter, Courier became Coast Guard reserve training ship, stationed at Training Center Yorktown. (U.S. Coast Guard)

Oct. 29, 2021

The Long Blue Line: Cold War Cutter Courier—“Valiant fighter in the cause of freedom”

I am speaking to you today from a ship. It is a special kind of ship, and it will perform a very special mission. This vessel will not be armed with guns, or with any instruments of destruction. But it will be a valiant fighter in the cause of freedom. It will carry a precious cargo--and that cargo is truth. ~ President Harry S Truman, U.S. Coast

Narcotics, interdicted by the crew of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Legare, lie next to the ship at Coast Guard Base Miami Beach in Miami Beach, Florida, Oct. 15, 2021. The vessel's crew conducted an eight-week counter-narcotics patrol in the Eastern Pacific in support of Joint Interagency Task Force South and the Coast Guard 11th District. (U.S Coast Guard photo by Chief Petty Officer Charly Tautfest)

Oct. 28, 2021

Frontline Focus: The first Coast Guard Reserve Aviators have ‘landed’ at Coast Guard Aviation Training Center Mobile and more.

Frontline Focus: The first Coast Guard reserve aviators have ‘landed’ at Coast Guard Aviation Training Center, Mobile; Coast Guard Cutter Legare returns home from 61-day counter-narcotic deployment; Coast Guard medevacs man from fishing vessel, 200 miles southwest of Dutch Harbor, Alaska; and Coast Guard holds Arctic discussions in Boston aboard Coast Guard Cutter Healy.

The U.S. Coast Guard commissioned the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Emlen Tunnell, Patrol Forces Southwest Asia's fourth 154-foot Sentinel-class cutter, into service at Penn's Landing in Philadelphia on Oct. 15, 2021. Adm. Karl Schultz, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, will preside over the ceremony. Yvonne Gilmore Jordan, the eldest first cousin to Tunnell, is the ship's sponsor. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Clinton Muir)

Oct. 28, 2021

BZ: U.S. Coast Guard commissions Sentinel-class cutter named for enlisted hero, NFL great Emlen Tunnell, and more.

BZ: U.S. Coast Guard commissions Sentinel-class cutter named for enlisted hero, NFL great Emlen Tunnell; and Deadline approaching to participate in the Coast Guard Foundation’s $100,000 Matching Gift Challenge; Special sneak peak of the National Coast Guard Museum.

Lt. Thomas “Jimmy” Crotty was inurned at the Academy’s Columbarium, Oct. 15.

A 1934 graduate from the Academy, Crotty went on to lead a prestigious military career including bravely aided in the defense of Corregidor amidst a Japanese bombardment of the island. For weeks U.S. troops, including some who were under Crotty’s command, persevered against the odds, though eventually the Japanese offensive overpowered the American troops and Corregidor fell.

Crotty was taken prisoner by the Japanese and sent to Cabanatuan Prisoner of War Camp where he passed away on July 19, 1942. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Matthew Abban)

Oct. 27, 2021

Jimmy: A look into the man behind the uniform

The story of Lt. Thomas J.E. “Jimmy” Crotty is one that continues to reverberate through the Coast Guard ranks today. Crotty, a 1934 graduate of the Academy, spent his first seven years in the fleet domestically, patrolling off the coasts of Seattle, New York City, and San Diego. As U.S. war efforts mounted prior to World War II, Crotty began