Group photo: Cmdr. Paul Rooney, Lt. Cmdr. Tavis McElheny, Maj. Gen. Rafael Ribas, Lt. Cmdr. Nick Frieden, Lt. Cmdr. Will Thompson, Lt. Cmdr. Todd Salter, Capt. Matthew Wadleigh, Lt. Dennis Bradford, Lt. Al Kealy, Rear Admiral Andrew Tiongson, Lt. Cmdr. Scott Bleicken, and Chief Petty Officer Raphael Ortiz. Coast Guard Reserve Unit SOUTHCOM holds all-hands weekend event By Lt. Cmdr. Scott Bleicken and Lt. Cmdr. Todd Salter U.S. Southern Command is one of 11 unified combatant commands and is located in Doral, Fla. According to the SOUTHCOM homepage, the area of responsibility represents about one-sixth of the landmass of the world assigned to regional unified commands. Billets at combatant commands are known in the Coast Guard as a “purple tour.” SOUTHCOM is a joint unit comprising all branches of the U.S. military, numerous other governmental agencies and military representatives from our foreign government partners. Located within SOUTHCOM is a Coast Guard Reserve Unit SOUTHCOM, a unit of 20 Coast Guard reservists. Usually, the entire group only gets together twice a year during October and April all-hands weekends. During the rest of the year, the members are divided up amongst numerous SOUTHCOM directorates, drilling alongside their DOD counterparts at different times, depending on what priorities, planning, or exercises are occurring within their directorate. After more than seven months of dealing with virus-related shutdowns and missing a change of command ceremony between outgoing Capt. Steven Hill and newly arriving Capt. Matthew Wadleigh, the members of CGRU SOUTHCOM were finally able to complete an all-hands weekend in October. While attending the weekend drill, extra precautions were taken to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the 11 members in attendance; the other nine attended virtually. The weekend started with members meeting with Coast Guard Rear Adm. Andrew Tiongson, who recently arrived to SOUTHCOM as the director of operations. During his discussion, members were able to gain a broader perspective of the SOUTHCOM AOR, the dangers presented within the AOR and how each member plays a vital role in reducing dangers to 18 RESERVIST � Issue 1 • 2021 the United States. Tiongson and Wadleigh then presented Lt. Cmdr. Tavis McElheny with the Joint Service Commendation Medal. Following the admiral’s remarks, Army Maj. Gen. Rafael Ribas, the Deputy Commander for Mobilization and Reserve Affairs at SOUTHCOM shared his thoughts with the group. Ribas has served as a reserve member in the Florida National Guard, which gave him first-hand insight to the challenges and issues faced by reservists, as well as their importance and contributions. The knowledge of SOUTHCOM and other related world issues provided by these senior officers gave an amazing perspective to those in attendance. After the presentation, the general presented Chief Petty Officer Rafael Ortiz with his challenge coin in recognition of the chief’s hard work during his time at SOUTHCOM. Later in the day, the CGRU members then provided detailed briefs of the missions of their respective directorates. The briefs were very informative for the new members, and also provided deeper insight and understanding of the roles and missions across the directorates. The command cadre also took time to hold a very informative session to discuss officer evaluations and development. Thanks to Lt. Cmdr. Nick Frieden, who received the Joint Service Commendation Medal, and Lt. Al Kealy, who both did a great job setting up the virtual all hands and handling the technical details. After months of conducting numerous conference calls and virtual meetings, it was great to see our shipmates in person and personally welcome our new members. �
