Dead in the Water: A Day in the Life of a Coast Guardsman

Chief Petty Officer Garrett Dailey, commanding officer of the Coast Guard Cutter Pendant, stands outside the main cabin in Boston, Mass., on Sep. 8, 2022. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Ryan Noel)

Commentary

Friday, Sept. 12, 2014. It was a normal day.

The event started late in the afternoon. We received a rather vague notification that a vessel of interest (VOI) may be heading through our operations area. It figured because we had just lost yet another helicopter—our fourth—to mechanical failure. On the upside, we were supposed to be getting a C-130 sometime in the evening. OPS said there was a 50/50 chance we’d see something. I finished my watch and headed up to the bridge to talk with the ensigns and have a look around. About 30 minutes into my visit, I damn near cut off the top of my right ear with a giant pair of binoculars mounted to the bridge rail. Later, after Doc glued the wound shut, I decided it would be best to lay below and go to bed.

At about 0130, maybe four or five hours later, the constant and shrill law enforcement/collision alarm sounded throughout the ship. Everyone held their breath, waiting on the announcement as to whether or not they were sounding collision or setting the law enforcement bill. Groggy, we roused ourselves, dressed out, and prepared for what was to come. I made it to CIC (Combat Information Center), also known as “combat,” or “OPCEN,” and plopped myself down in front of the COMDAC/COMARPA/COP* workstation. After reading the intel notes, I plotted our position and that of the suspect vessel our C-130 had apparently just spotted. The room was full of people: all four operations specialists, an ensign, the CO (commanding officer), XO (executive officer), and OPS (operations specialist). It quickly became a scene out of a movie. Three or four radios were going off at once; people were talking over each other: numbers, coordinates, vectors, furious note-taking, and event logging.

A buddy of mine was operating the FLIR (forward-looking infrared) thermal camera next to me. At the same time, I continuously updated our position and changed the VOI to a TOI (target of interest). In this part of the world, most VOIs are referred to as a “panga.” The C-130 overhead had issues with its radar and was reduced to strictly visual observation of us and the panga. They kept requesting to go lower to get a better fix, but that might have let the target know we were on to them. OPS was insistent that they not go to “overt” status. Honestly, the sea state was so rough for any vessel under 100 feet that I doubt the occupants would have even equated the rumble of the aircraft’s engines with a potential threat. The plane would have had to buzz the panga at tree-top height for them to hear and recognize it. OPS, however, had done this much more than I have, and being too aggressive too early can tip your hand. So, we continued the overly complex game of Battleship, with the aircraft calling out positions as we relayed that data to the small boat we’d lowered into the frothing sea. A 24-foot boat does not do well in eight-foot waves, especially in the dark.

Finally, after an hour that felt like an eternity, my friend spotted a shape in the grey-scale haze that was the FLIR image. The panga was so loaded down that her gunnels were maybe a foot out of the water. The shape blended in perfectly with the waves and was damn near impossible to see. This was what it must feel like to hunt foxes. The captain had gotten into it; he was on my left, calling out directions for the small boat. We vectored our hound in on the fox, a bobbing sliver of wood and fiberglass on the water. The panga operators must have finally heard something because they throttled up and started to run. We had them on camera and in range. They weren’t getting away. Part of me itched to go down and rip the cover off the 25mm cannon to bring the chase to an appropriate climax of thunder fire and gore.

It is difficult to understand the stress and hardship small boat operators endure in those conditions. It is absolute darkness. The only light is the dim glow of the compass bulb and radio screens. They cannot see the waves to anticipate the impact of the bow on the water, much less read the wind and ocean to smooth out the ride. With the cutter running dark and three miles behind, they may as well be three hundred miles out and alone. All they know is that there is a panga somewhere out there with them, maybe armed, maybe not. The hound doesn’t know if it is chasing a fox into an empty log or a badger’s den. The only direction they receive is over a patchy radio connection. “Twenty degrees off your port bow ... Ninety degrees to starboard, big wave coming, brace! … They’re dead ahead 20 yards! … Circle back. You just missed them ...”

The coxswain’s (pronounced cock-sun’s) eyes were a pair of boarding team members using night vision, which is like looking at the world through the cardboard tube inside a roll of paper towels. There wasn’t enough light to pick out the horizon; even if they could have, the waves would have blotted it out at forty feet. After dozens of near misses and moments when we thought we might jump the next wave and land in the panga, the coxswain sang out. “We’ve got ‘em! Closing distance! They’re DIW [dead in the water], commencing boarding!”

He began rattling off numbers, names, and descriptions of the illicit cargo and craft. The adrenaline still hammering through our veins began to run out. Now it was down to custody, paperwork, offloading the cargo, and ensuring our TACON (tactical control) was fully aware of what was happening. Making arrests in international waters can be a bureaucratically messy affair. TACON said “Good job,” and told us to file everything in triplicate and to keep them appraised. The sun wasn’t even up yet.

Navigation, tactical maneuvering, and apprehension over and done. I was hungry. Time to let the ensigns handle the case package paperwork. After a bit of bacon, eggs, and coffee, I stripped down and crawled back into bed.

*Command Display and Control/Command Automatic Radar Plotting Aids/Common Operating Picture