In the Corps they teach us no Marine gets left behind, and there’s a similar attitude in the other branches including the Coast Guard. Coasties stand into extreme danger sometimes at sea trying to find missing people. No more so than when searching for one of their own. It’s incredibly tough to find a person washed overboard in a vast swath of sea but the Coast Guard gives it their all, at least until Kristi Noem took over DHS which includes the CG. She was so hell bent on using one of their C-130s for deportation flights she ordered one taking part in a search for a missing Coast Guardsman away from the search area!
WHAT THE HELL? In the Coast Guard they tell their people ‘You have to go out. You don’t have to come back.’ It’s a message that no matter the danger they will try and rescue people. The odds of finding a person in a big patch of ocean are small but the Coast Guard gives it their all. Especially for one of their own. Imagine being a Coastie that gets washed overboard in rough seas. When you hit the water, at least before Noem came along you knew, you KNEW they’d do all that was possible to find you. Now? Not so much.
Trump derided John McCain’s heroism saying he preferred guys that didn’t get shot down. Noem it seems shares a similar attitude, one of not preferring Coasties on rescue missions in storm tossed seas. By god their are people that need deporting! In this appalling article from Raw Story we learn what the Coast Guard learned early on when Noem took over DHS. THEY don’t count for jack sh*t as far as she’s concerned. We’ve been disgusted to learn so much about her tenure, including her ordering up a $70 million jet for her use (I guess she and Corey wanted someplace extra cool for Mile High Club trysts) and so on.
However we now know the Coast Guard learned the worst about her long before the rest of us but ordering a search plane away from a search for a COAST GUARDSMAN so it could be used for deportation flights! Imagine being in the Coast Guard, being expected to sail out into conditions even the Navy tries to avoid knowing that your bosses could be ordered, ORDERED by Noem to abandon a search for YOU if you got washed overboard on a rescue mission. All so C-130s (large, prop driven planes that can be fitted out to hold/transport a lot of people) can be instead used to meet deportation quotas. But that’s exactly what Noem ordered early on. Just over a year ago on Feb. 4, 2025, when a 23-year-old Guardsman went overboard into the Pacific Ocean from the cutter Waesche:
“The Coast Guard had surged ships and aircraft to the Pacific to find the Coast Guardsman,” NBC reported. “Hours into the search, Noem learned that a Coast Guard C-130 that was supposed to fly detained migrants from California to Texas was among the aircraft over the Pacific looking for the missing Coast Guardsman, and she intervened, according to the two U.S. officials and the Coast Guard official.”
“Noem verbally instructed the Acting Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Kevin Lunday, to pull the plane off the search-and-rescue mission so it would not miss the migrant flight as part of the DHS’s so-called Alien Expulsion Operations, according to the two U.S. officials and the Coast Guard official,” the report added.
The article goes on to say the Admiral notified the National Command Center which ordered that C-130 to leave the search and head to San Diego to then fly a group of immigrants to Texas. The regional CG center in San Diego managed to find a couple of C-27s to handle the transfer flight, and the C-130 was ordered back to the search. It would go on for 190 hours and cover 19k square miles of ocean but tragically the Coastie was never found. Still, it sent a message and not a good one to those in the Coast Guard. It’s the same one the DOJ quickly learned. Under Bondi the DOJ was redirected NOT to serve the nation, but to be Trump’s personal law firm. Under Noem, the Coast Guard’s priority is NOT it’s traditional missions of search and rescue and patrolling our coastlines (and beyond) to interdict drug shipments and other things. No, it’s mission is to serve Kristi Noem and her boyfriend/lover Corey Lewindowski.
In other words, if you or even a Coast Guardsman is lost at sea your odds of being rescued (often poor to begin with) are lower than they used to be. DHS naturally claims the C-130 was never diverted (the linked article used four sources from within the Coast Guard) but at the end notes that two U.S. Officials, a Coast Guard Official and a former Coast Guard Official say otherwise and that it illustrates a culture clash between Noem and a branch of our armed forces she oversees:
“The primary mission was search-and-rescue,” the former Coast Guard official said, “and now the number one stated mission of the Coast Guard is border security, that is a cultural change that the culture hasn’t quite caught up to.”
That official complained that “you never know what’s going to happen” with Noem at the helm, and that source added that morale at Coast Guard headquarters “is terrible.”
One last thing. We are seeing wide opposition to ICE and DHS in general. All over the country, even in red states there’s pushback against creating massive detention facilities – buying old factories or warehouses and rigging them to hold thousands of people. (Including children) In addition to that, private aviation companies are succumbing to pressure to break, or not sign in the first place agreements with ICE/DHS to deport people. It makes me wonder if Hegseth will, despite the legal complications allocated DOD planes (those C-130s are venerable workhorses with lots of range. Not comfortable for troop transport but as I said they can hold a lot of people and gear) for deportation flights. It matters because it would affect training for our troops, and even affect actual missions.
Don’t let ANYONE, including and especially asshat MAGAs tell you Trump and his people care one bit about those serving this country in uniform.
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This made me literally scream. My oldest and middle uncles were in the Coast Guard. Boyne was on an icebreaker, and Dan was doing photography(he was shot at multiple times). Boyne brought the family up to Boston, where they were moored, and gave us a 2-day tour. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done. I remember the miles of gangplanks (?? not sure what they were called, sloping walkways made of metal with holes in them, I assume to drain water) and how damn BIG the thing was. I’m not sure I was even into my teens at that point.
So this hits home harder, that these assholes pulled a plane away from a search for one of their own. If it had happened years ago, it could have been one of my uncles, one of my family. Gnome should be slapped, as a start. Gods, what a bunch of horsepuckey.