From the Office of Boat Forces Submitted by Mr. Donald P. Hartmayer, Program Analyst, CG-731 Reserve training petty officers requesting seats must follow the guidance on the Coast Guard Reserve-Training Management System (CGR – TMS) portal page. AVAILABLE COURSES The following courses still have quotas available in 2023. #502420 – RB-S Reserve Boat Crew Course Start date: 9/11/2023 #502127 – RB-S Coxswain Course Start date: #502469 – RB-M Coxswain Course Start date: #502463 – RB-M Organizational Maintenance Start date: 7/10/2023 7/31/2023 9/18/2023 7/24/2023 8/21/2023 9/18/2023 7/10/2023 8/21/2023 The Office of Boat Forces encourages those that require training to register as soon as possible. Keep up the great work. qualified. Or it makes the billets (those at smaller surf stations or those in remote locations in Alaska, the northern Great Lakes, rural Louisiana, the Florida Keys and panhandle) hard to fill. We knew that a solution somewhere in the middle was probably the right answer. Another part of this was around 2010, the “contingency coxswain” role was invented—something that, while easier to obtain, didn’t require important things like search patterns. That meant the only thing they could do was come in and train on basic skills, but they didn’t benefit their home stations because they couldn’t stand by as a duty crew for rescues. Lt. Cmdr. Dave Ruhlig and I did a lot of work to correct a lot of these issues, and it became the BFRMP. I started it on active duty, but eventually transitioned to a civilian job in the same office around 2014. Q. You come from a long line of servicemen from New York— all the way back to a great-grandfather was in the Life- Saving Service. Through your continued work with the Boat Forces Memorial, you’ve collected many stories, but we’ve heard some of your own relatives have some interesting tales of their own? A. I have one grandfather, born in 1899, who fought Pancho Villa’s forces as part of the New York Army National Guard in the Mexican-American War. Later, during World War I, he was in France when he got word that his brother, a member of his same unit, had been gassed. And he said, ‘I can’t go home without him, my mother will kill me. I’ve got to find him.’ So he locates the area, and he gets told that they don’t know where his brother is, but there’s a pile of bodies of guys who got killed. So he goes over and rummages through, finds the brother, and he’s not dead! He gets him to an aid station, they get him to a hospital, and he survives, like into his 80s. His uniform and the story were part of a WWI Centennial display at the history museum in Buffalo. Q. You and your wife Anna are keeping the work going on the Boat Forces Memorial, honoring those who were killed on active duty. How can we help in the future? A. We noticed the Memorial needed to be updated as some names were missing and some listed an incorrect unit. We’re working with the Historian’s Office, the Coast Guard Enlisted Memorial Foundation, and the U.S. Life-Saving Service Heritage Association to develop an accurate list and learn the stories that go along with members who gave their final measure of devotion “so that others may live.” If anyone is aware of Life-Saving Service or Coast Guard members who died while in service and are not currently identified on the Boat Forces Memorial, please let us know at [email protected]. . 40 RESERVIST . Issue 2 • 2023 CELEBRATING CELEBRATING 70 70 YEARS OF THE RESERVIST YEARS OF THE RESERVIST
