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My Summer Experience

(The Cadet Experience, Class of 2013) Permanent link All Posts

This summer I was able to go on the Coast Guard’s largest cutter, the USCGC Healy. Healy is a 420 foot icebreaker home ported out of Seattle, Washington, and makes trips to the arctic to complete various scientific and icebreaking missions. It was an awesome experience. I was with 11 other people from my class and we were privileged enough to sail from Seattle to Honolulu where we were able to spend an entire week seeing the sights of Waikiki and Pearl Harbor when not standing duty. After Healy we were sent back to the Academy and re-assigned to Sector New York for a week in preparation for our C-130 flight to USCGC Eagle, the Academy’s training ship. At Sector NY we got to experience some of the Coast Guard’s ashore operations and inspections. While there, I was able to help inspect a Chinese cargo carrier that pulled into New York for its yearly safety inspection and learned about the roles of officers and enlisted that are stationed at ashore units.

After Sector, half of the class boarded two C-130 and flew to Cozumel, Mexico to meet up with Eagle, which had just finished the first part of her summer tour. I spent six weeks on Eagle and experienced sailing through a hurricane, as well as many other storms and tropical depressions. We were able to visit many cool places like Veracruz, Mexico, Corpus Christi, Texas, Tampa, and Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and were able to meet international cadets from Ecuador, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina while at a sailing festival in Veracruz.

Overall, my 3/c summer experience was awesome and completely worth the rigors of 4/c year. During my summer I learned so much more about the Coast Guard and its missions, as well as having a blast with my friends. The Academy definitely provides unmatched opportunities (compared to any other university) for cadets to travel to different places and learn real-life lessons while still in school.

More about Brandi.

Posted by Leann Strickland at 2/14/2012 10:56 AM