Coast Guardsmen reunite in Cd'A

COEUR d’ALENE — Telling tales of derring-do might satisfy some, but for around 100 Coast Guardsmen who came together Friday night at the Best Western Plus Coeur d’Alene Inn, doing the daring deeds themselves was the best part. This year’s event was the third Coast Guard reunion that Coeur d’Alene residents Ken and Darlene Amundson have organized, and it brought Coasties from as far as Arizona, California and Pennsylvania, said Darlene.

Little known but hugely impactful, the Coast Guard is the nation’s smallest military branch, with approximately 41,000 active duty servicemembers and 7,000 reservists on its rolls. In peacetime it operates under the Department of Homeland Security. During World War I and World War II, the Coast Guard served under the auspices of the Department of the Navy. Coast Guardsmen have fought in each of the nation’s wars from its creation in 1790 through the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Its small numbers rival the New York Police Department and foster a sense of brotherhood unique to the military branches, said Hayden resident Lawrence Miller.

“You always run into someone you know,” said the veteran of two tours of duty in Vietnam.

Most people don’t know that the Coast Guard took part in the Vietnam War, said Coeur d’Alene resident Terry Jones. However, the Coast Guard conducted blockade operations along the Vietnamese coast as part of Operation Market Time, as well as riverine operations with swift boats.

Phoenix resident Warren Hildebrand was a machinist’s mate 3rd class aboard the Winona during his service from 1966-69. Along with other members aboard the Winona, Hildebrand took part one night in sinking a Chinese trawler loaded with ammunition for North Vietnamese forces. The ship had received intelligence that three Chinese trawlers would be on their way. The Winona fired shots across the bow and received return fire. After a while, the Winona hit a magazine and one trawler went up in “a big ball of flame,” said Hildebrand.

That combat action aboard the Winona was not the first time members of the service had engaged with the enemy, explained Coast Guard historian and national reunion organizer Doak Walker. “People just don’t realize the Coast Guard has been in every war, and has lost personnel in just about every conflict,” he said.

Coast Guardsmen landed Marines on the shores of Guadalcanal, Guam, Okinawa, and other amphibious battlegrounds in the Pacific theater of operations during World War II. Coast Guardsman Douglas Munro posthumously earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions rescuing an ambushed Marine Corps regiment at Pt. Cruz at Guadalcanal. One of the Marines rescued that day was Lt. Col. Burwell “Chesty” Puller.

Clark Fork resident Dick Gobble enlisted in 1955 and became a commissioned officer eight years later. As an officer aboard the Winona, he served as operations officer and navigator while the ship intercepted Communist supply ships along the Vietnam coastline. Gobble started a family tradition of service in the Coast Guard that has lasted 63 years to this day. He said he just pinned his grandson, who recently became a chief petty officer.

Rescuing people at sea is one of the things the Coast Guard is known for. Ken Amundson talked about his time aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Wachusett in the Bering Sea. His ship rescued a sailor in Bristol Bay whose boat had been out of contact for nearly a week. He was laying down on the deck scared to death, said Amundson. Later Amundson and his colleagues picked up a girl from the Aleutian Islands with appendicitis and delivered her to Anchorage to get medical attention.

Decades before Captain Chesley Sullenberger’s “Miracle on the Hudson,” U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Pontchartrain was there to rescue all 31 crew and passengers when Pan Am Flight 6 had to ditch in the Pacific Ocean Oct. 16, 1956. Walker was one of the Coast Guardsmen who helped save the aviators that day. People have remarked to him how lucky it was that the cutter was there, said Walker. He smiled and explained that it was no accident that the Coast Guard was there to help. The Pontchartrain was at Ocean Station November between Honolulu and San Francisco 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, he said. When the plane began to have trouble, the Coast Guard was ready to respond.

Rathdrum resident Don Butler said it was rewarding to be able to interact with people who needed help. That didn’t happen when he had previously served as a jet fighter mechanic in the Air Force, he said. “In the Coast Guard, you do it all. You fix the plane, and then you get in it and fly in it.”

Spokane Valley resident Dan Petruso said that though troops from other branches would sometimes deride the Coast Guard, the service had a tough-as-nails philosophy. When somebody is in need of help, the Coast Guard philosophy is, “You have to go out, but you don’t have to come back.”

“You have to be half-crazy to do that,” he added.

From climbing high up to the crow’s nest in the fog-covered, rough Strait of Juan de Fuca, to rowing a boat to rescue a Coast Guardsmen who had been washed overboard in huge swells, Amundson said he “loved to do things that other guys didn’t want to do.”

The Coast Guard is “a lot of fun and a lot of damned good people,” said Butler.