You can be deployed for 250 days straight. I heard from my recruiter and coast guards on this site that the max is 70 days or 3 months at a time

Did you see any of the news reports about Nome and the ice and the cutter Healy? That's our girl Bells. She was right there in the thick of it. They had already completed their mission, the ship stayed out to help get the Renda (or Renna, please correct) into Nome. Causing the Healy to not get home as scheduled.

WG well I am Coast Guard and I am currently on my 253rd or something day straight of being deployed. We still are not home yet. We got re-integration training today because we are about to enter into society again.

Your recruiter didn't tell you about the polar class ice breakers or the HEALY. These cutters are generally out on average 6 months straight out the of the year and then 6 months inport.

You can be on your way home, and thennnn a town needs fuel so you are going to get extended a couple months for that. Then you are on your way home again, and a boat is in distress and you are the closest thing out there.

When you are in the military, it's mission first.

There are no MAX days to be underway, if there were then we would have blown it out of the water. Even with the fiscal year change in the middle of the patrol.

and don't think that if you wish hard enough that you wont get stationed to the HEALY. I knew about it and never thought in a million year out of ALL the cutters in the CG that I would get the HEALY. It wasn't anywhere on my list, but I got it.

Love the boat and the command though. Its just time to go home.

Bells i can say i would love to come to the healy but i wouldnt want any part of it as most MST i have talked to never reenlist if they started there. I might do it as a first but probably wont ever have that option

I looked up Healy and from the pics it doesnt look like a large boat or what I would expect for a ice breaking boat. Why does the healy mainly focus on MST's the description of the boat says the ship has multiple rooms for scientist.I just find it weird that marine scientist would need to study in the polar ice caps, but maybe I am over looking something or something I dont know yet cause I am still a civilian.

the MST help the scientest study the polar regions. It is really an out of rate job for an MST now but it goes back to our roots. the MST field is more about safety/security now then science. we do have a few science missions but not as much as safety. 80% of my job is keeping the public safe and prevention of pollution. the other 20% is the paperwork from doing security and safety checks.

420' cutter

WG, it's much bigger in real life.

Thanks for clearing that up. I also have some confusion on the exact work of non rates I hear manual labor, but If i want to be ME or may sound drastically different but SK or Public Affairs, could I get stationed where I will pick up experience, for example on the dream sheet can I put Id prefer a certain station that would give me Law enforcement experience or experience in the other two fields and say location doesn't matter.

Ya the MSTs are really out of rate, the thirds and seconds were having a hard time with getting quals. They basically babysit the scientists, clean the O2 and the labs, do some crane ops, supervise any science evolutions that requires anything being put over the side of the boat...

They are basically more of BMs.

The polars look small next to Healy, the 378s look smaller next to Healy. But the Healy sure as hell would look small next to a aircraft carrier. On base, it looks bigger than the buildings. Like, its just a huge obstruction just sitting there in Seattle.


Look up why we might need an arctic presence. Its not just a bunch of goofy scientists counting snow particles.

* Shell is building a fleet of ice breakers so that they can drill for oil in the bearing and chucucki seas, which is where we spent probably 50 percent of our 254 day deployment. Getting the crap kicked out of us. The US is going to make a few trillion dollars off the taxes of the oil that shell may or may not get out of there eventually. Don't even try and compare it to deepwater because what happened there was a supervisor being completely complacent and wrote off a failed pressure/stability test as "good to go" which caused the explosion.

If Shell thinks they can build rigs and a system that can handle the weather and not hire morans to run the show then by all means help the US get out of debt with the tax dollars.

* Canada and US is in a disagreement with the line that draws the waters into yours vs ours territory

* Global Warming ?

As a non-rate you are going to do nonrate work, that is what you are there for. You are trying to enter a service that is tightening it's belt. People aren't advancing, which is clogging up open spots for thirds, which isn't allowing non-rates to go to a-school, which is causing a lot less open non-rate billets to pick from continuously. So when you are in boot, you will pick your 4 districts, and then if you are like me not get any of them.

Nonrate work: cleaning, painting, sanding, toilets, cleaning spaces, cleaning boats, scrubbing nonskid, soaking up oil with diapers, soaking up oil with your hair, changing lightbulbs, MESSCOOKING, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

Healy Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APQfOLppGBo

A cooler one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGHNwKKwQAk

This video was made by one of my seaman on the way to Nome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIapbVJak4Q. lol I am just watching for the first time and the girl voice is me!
Senator Speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyuMwCNVxqI

Posted By Bells on 06 Feb 2012 11:54 PM

The polars look small next to Healy, the 378s look smaller next to Healy. But the Healy sure as hell would look small next to a aircraft carrier. On base, it looks bigger than the buildings. Like, its just a huge obstruction just sitting there in Seattle.

I had to laugh at this Bells... Colin thought his 270' was a bad ass ship.  Sitting at a Boston pier, it looked like it, too.  Then they sailed into the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville and moored up next to a couple of Navy ships.  All of a sudden his bad ass ship looked like a tub toy.  He called me laughing at the ridiculous difference in size between their ships and ours. 

When they were in dry dock in Norfolk they got a guided tour of the USS Harry S Truman.  When he saw the anchor chain his eyes almost popped out of his head.  They were all amazed.  But they were happy to go back to their little tub toy and make her as pretty as possible.