In My Own Words

CMDR. FRED M. MIDGETTE
Commanding Officer
Coast Guard Cutter Forward

When I arrived at the Coast Guard Academy, other people would ask me about my name. There are not so many Midgettes in the Coast Guard today, but there were really quite a few in the World War II era. My grandfather, my dad and my uncles were all in the Coast Guard, but it did not strike me as anything out of the ordinary.

There are so many different slices of the pie in the Coast Guard. The slice that I’m in is the seagoing side; I’ve been very fortunate that in every pay grade there’s been a place for me to go and some new job for me to learn, whether it’s been on patrol boats or breaking ice.

The Forward is the sixth ship I’ve been on, and it’s the first ship I’ve been on with a mixed-gender crew. Three-quarters of the crew is 25 years old or less. Any CO is going tell you what a great crew he has. I’m saying the same thing, but I really believe it. Part of the culture is that people on this ship are very kind to each other. The Coast Guard is an incredibly good organization, good to its people. It’s got a great culture, it’s an honorable and decent living, and the camaraderie is great.

The great value of the Coast Guard is the way we can shift mission emphasis on a moment’s notice. We spend a lot of time training, but we can shift focus pretty fast: migrant ops to drug seizures to fisheries inspections. The same group of people is doing all of those things.

Our best mission — and I’ll bet if you ask anybody in the Coast Guard they’ll agree — is search and rescue. When you show up and save somebody out in the middle of the ocean, it’s a great feeling that can’t be replicated anywhere else.

The emphasis that I’ve brought here has been on the maritime law enforcement program. We don’t have a very big gun on the fo’c’sle [forecastle], so the boarding teams are our main battery. We spend a lot of time and effort making sure that those people are well trained.

I emphasize respect for each other and working as a team. I nurture them and try to keep them excited about the job that they are doing. The boarding team draws people from all divisions, and if we don’t work well as a team, we will fail. And we haven’t failed since I’ve been on here. I feel good about the things we’ve done, like stopping drugs from entering the country.

The most difficult part of my job is keeping people motivated. When you are away from home six months out of the year, you’ve got to keep people aware of the great impact on the country of what they are doing. Morale is job one.

In the Coast Guard, it’s a great time to be at the pointy end of the spear. Deepwater is on the horizon, and the next generation of people will have some great equipment. And it’s always more fun when you go out to sea to have good equipment.