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Pacific Northwest13th

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Coast Guard RetireeCouncil — Northwest

“They Also Serve”Coast Guard Retiree Council Northwest, Seattle, Washington Volume 7 Issue 2

Retiree Newsletter

Another way to Serve

I had the honor of carrying the Coast Guard Flag at the Ameri-can Legion/Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Day Service with Full Honors and Taps by a VFW bugler (ETCM Paul Man-ly, USCG retired) at the Salmon, Idaho Community Cemetery at 1100 and again on the Salmon River Bridge at 1200 to place a floral wreath in The River of No Return to honor Sailors lost at sea and those who served/serve.

I wasn’t around last year for the ceremony when my wifes’ (new to me on May 17th, 2007) Father was honored at roll call as having passed in Feb 2006...Nord Geordge was a GM1 in World War II serving with the US Navy in the Pacific, Purple Heart (never awarded for his wounds in combat...something for me

to work on to get it

right!!) along with several o t h e r c a m p a i g n awards.

Anyhow, it felt good to be there...my uniform was that of a USCG

- VietNam Veteran ball cap, good for you Chief Manly for maintaining your uniform! And the ability to still wear it too!

And, I finally rejoined the Amer-ican Legion and committed to joining the VFW and I encour-age you all to consider member-ship and participation as your time permits. They need you! The ‘old Guard’ is passing quick-ly...it is time to step up and take a turn...at least for this guy..

If you pass by or near Salmon, give a shout...I will be at Stanley Lake (about 90 minutes north of Sun Valley for the summer until Labor Day....Camp Host Duties... GO BEARS!!!!

Denny of Salmon and Marleen too!! THE ERLANDSON’sSalmon, Idaho

The United States Coast Guard

Pacific Veterans Memorial

Dear Friend of the Coast Guard,

We have the distinct honor to request your support for the construction of two memorials dedicated to the heroes of the United States Coast Guard who have served in the Pacific Theater.

The first memorial will be dedicated in Honiara, Solomon Islands in honor of Signalman 1/C Douglas A. Munro and the other brave Coast Guardsmen who rescued the Marines landing at Point Cruz during the brutal Guadalcanal campaign launched in 1942. This memorial will be built in Honolulu and later transported to Guadalcanal by the USCG WALNUT, which will be representing the Coast Guard at the 65th anniversary celebration of the Guadalcanal campaign. It is especially important to dedicate this memorial during this anniversary celebration, since it is unlikely that many World War II veterans will be able to travel to Guadalcanal to participate in the 70th anniversary celebration in 2012. The dedication of this memorial is planned for August 7, 2007.

Coast Guard Retiree Council Northwest Retiree Newsletter

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The Retiree Newsletter – A Coast Guard Retiree Council Northwest Publication authorized IAW COMDTINST 1800.5D & COMDTINST M5728.2C. Published at: U. S. Coast Guard Integrated Support Command Seattle, Work-Life Office, Coast Guard Retiree Council Northwest, 1519 Alaskan Way South, Seattle, WA 98134 Phone: (206) 217- 6188. Published three times yearly and circulated to retirees throughout the Pacific Northwest via mail, electronically and on web site (www.cgretirenw.org). The Retiree Newsletter contains news of general interest, suggestions, and information for Coast Guard retirees, spouses, annuitants and retired Coast Guard reservists. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Department of Homeland Security or the U. S. Coast Guard. Material is informational only and not authority for action. Editor - Patrick Wills.

Coast Guard Retiree Council Northwest USCG Integrated Support Command Worklife (Retiree Council)1519 Alaskan Way South, Bldg. 1Seattle, Washington 98134

The second memorial will be dedicated to all Coast Guard veterans of the Pacific Theater, and will be placed along the Memorial Walk at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl Crater) in Honolulu, Hawaii. CDR Campagnoni recently visited that cemetery with some family members, and was astonished to discover that while every other service and many other groups have a memorial in the cemetery, the Coast Guard does not. This is a terrible omission that doesn’t do justice to the thousands of Coast Guardsmen who played heroic roles in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War in service of their nation. This memorial will be constructed out of a rock cut from the vicinity of Point Cruz in Guadalcanal, which will be transported by the WALNUT on her return voyage to Honolulu.

Please join us in remembering and recognizing the service of Coast Guard veterans of the Pacific Theater by making a contribution to support the construction of two memorials in their honor. Donations can be made online by visiting the project website at www.cgpacificveteransmemorial.org or may be sent to the following address:

Coast Guard Pacific War Veterans Memorial Fundc/o Hawaiian Islands Chapter CPOAUSCG ISC Base400 Sand Island ParkwayHonolulu, HI 96819

Thank you for being Semper Paratus!Jerry LesperanceCaptain, U.S. Coast Guard (Retired)Co-Chair Hawaii Regional CG Retiree Council

Barry A. CompagnoniCommander, U.S. Coast GuardMemorial Coordinator

ELECTRONIC MAIL NOTIFICATION RESUMES WITH THIS ISSUE OF THE CGRETIREE RETIREE COUNCIL - NORTHWEST NEWSLETTER. TO ASSIST IN REDUCING PUBLICATION/MAILING COST, USE THE RETIREE COUNCIL WEB SITE http://www.CGRETIRENW.ORG. YOU MAY SEND NOTIFICATION TO YNCS EV BLACK, SECRETARY OR ETCM TIM LACKEY, COUNCIL MEMBER BY “clicking” the block: COUNCIL MEMBER OR CONTACT.

News from Topeka

Employee ID Numbers (EMPLID). There will be a change with the new Retired Pay System coming online at the end of the year. The new system will use employee ID numbers (EMPLID) instead of social security numbers (SSN). The EMPLID’s will be included on the RAS statement received at the end of the year. Until that time, the SSN is needed in processing work in the current system.

EVENING COLORS Magazine by Topeka

Some of us feel a name change is in order for our retiree newsletter...EVENING COLORS.... This name indicates the END of the day, its done its finished...We read TAPS, and that’s the END as some feel.

How about in the early days of the 40’s & 50’s, there was a lot of good old, SEMPER PARATUS, words to lift our spirits-morale...Myself and others like it better than the END. Nothing else, plain old “Retiree”.

Think about it, if you come up with a suggestion for a name. Fred has published a blurb on Fred’s Place - Front Page & Retiree’s webpage - soliciting name change ideas. He’ll tabulate and will keep all informed as to any suggestions that may be submitted.

Fredfred@fredsplace.orghttp://www.fredsplace.org

July 2007

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Coalition Stands Firm Against HIGHER Tricare Fees

By Tom Philpott Members of the Task Force on the Future of Military Healthcare learned why The Military Coalition (TMC) may be the most formidable lobbying force ever to fight on behalf of service members, retirees and families.

Representing more than 30 service associations, TMC leaders appeared before the congressionally created task force like a steel wall of opposition to plans to raise TRICARE fees, co-payments or deductibles.

TRICARE rates haven’t been adjusted since they were set in 1995. But rather than concede a single point to panel economists that an increase is past due, coalition representatives attacked on multiple fronts.

Their new theme for deflecting higher fees, expressed often during the March 7 meeting and in a glossy brochure from the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), is that retiree premiums have been “paid in full” by retirees “through decades of arduous service and sacrifice.”

Five coalition witnesses presented now familiar arguments for rejecting higher fees, including that Defense officials have failed to act on a host of alternative cost-saving moves. Also, it’s not right to raise fees in wartime and the treatment of outpatients at Walter Reed is fresh evidence of the strain on members and families. But the coalition also had new arguments.

If Defense officials are so worried about flat fees, said retired Air Force Col. Steve Strobridge, TMC’s co-chairman and director of government relations for MOAA, why haven’t they raised the 15-cents-a-mile reimbursement rate that has been paid since 1985 to service members moving personal vehicles during stateside change-of-station moves?

Also, given DoD’s call to raise TRICARE fees on retirees under age 65, Strobridge asked the task force to consider the financial impact that population felt from active duty pay caps imposed in the 1980s and ‘90s.

“People who retired in 1995, the year that the current

TRICARE fees went into effect, lost 12.6 percent of their retired pay,” Strobridge argued. A senior enlisted (E-8) who left after 26 years is “forfeiting $3700 a year this year and that will grow every year for the rest of his life. The government has no plans to make up those years of pay losses.”

Joseph L. Barnes, the other TMC co-chairman and National Executive Secretary of the Fleet Reserve Association (FRA), presented five healthcare cost “principles” the coalition supports:

-- Active duty members and families should be charged no fees except retail pharmacy co-pays and to the extent they make the choice to participate in TRICARE Standard, the fee-for-service option, or use out-of-network providers under TRICARE Prime.

-- Any annual adjustment to fees, deductibles and co-payments for retirees and survivors should not exceed inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index.

-- The TRICARE Standard co-pay should not be increased.

-- No enrollment fee should be attached to TRICARE Standard because it does not assure access to participating TRICARE health care providers.

-- There should be one TRICARE fee schedule for all retiree and not vary by rank as DoD proposed. Any adjustment should still leave fees well below the lowest tier DoD official’s recommended last year.

Barnes complained that Defense officials chose a holiday weekend late last year to request nominees to fill the lone task force slot designated for a beneficiary advocate. Officials chose Army Reserve Maj. Gen. Robert Smith, past president and current board member of the Reserve Officers Association. At the meeting, ROA national president, retired Navy Reserve Capt. Michael P. Smith, affirmed ROA’s conditional support for raising TRICARE fee increases “as needed.”

But Rick Jones, legislative director of the National Association for Uniformed Services put the task force itself on the defensive, citing widespread concern that it had been “hand selected” by Defense officials to endorse steep TRICARE fee increases.

Jones referred to remarks made by some task force members that suggest they favor fee hikes. He also noted that the fiscal 2008 defense budget request assumes $1.9 billion in TRICARE savings on the basis of recommendations expect from the task force later this year.

TRICARE Continued page 4

Coast Guard Retiree Council Northwest Retiree Newsletter

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Gail R. Wilensky, task force co-chair, reminded Jones that it was Congress that directed Defense officials to select task force members. It set some specific selection criteria regarding health and management expertise.

As to the $1.9 billion in assumed budget savings linked to the task force, Wilensky said, “that was done without our knowledge or advice. I look on that as [DoD’s] problem, not our problem.”

Larry Lewin, a health efficiency consultant, was one of several task force members to assure the coalition they are looking for ways to control defense health costs with an open mind. But Lewin challenged coalition arguments that military people should have only positive incentives to make cost-effective health choices such as eliminating co-payments on mail-order drugs. The coalition testified against disincentives like a sharp rise in co-payments for drugs dispensed in the TRICARE retail network

“We’re saying why use the stick before you use the carrot,” said Strobridge.

“In reality you need both,” said Lewin. Experience “with both Medicare and commercial insurance will bear that out,” he said.

Robert Hale, another task force member, challenged the coalition’s call to index TRICARE fees, if at all, only to the Consumer Price Index rather than to changes in health care premiums nationwide.

“I think that guarantees a continuing, declining cost share” for beneficiaries, Hale said. Coalition witnesses weren’t too concerned.

Mark Your CalendarsEastern D13 Retirees

This year’s Coast Guard Picnic for Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho and Montana will be on Saturday, 18 August. It will be at the same location as always, the USAF Rec Facility at Clear Lake (a few miles west of Spokane). It’s a very nice spot, plenty of parking and there are RV sites that can be reserved. We’ll try to send out reminders and more details from time to time, but please mark your calendars now to be there if you can. They’re always a lot of fun. I expect this year’s event will be very much like our previous Coast Guard picnics:

+ Plenty of good food. Bring a dish to share and bring your own beer, if you like. There’ll be hamburgers, hot dogs and BBQ chicken provided.

+ Expect anywhere from 75 to 150 people (but we’d love to have even more), who want to hear your sea stories and, in turn, have sea stories of their own they’d like to tell.

+ You’re bound to run into people you’ve been stationed with and you’re certain to meet people who’ve known a lot of the same people you’ve known and shared common experiences.

+ Del Clark, the chairman, organizer, coordinator, and Grand Marshall of these annual picnics (Del and his wife Paula do a super job every year) always manages to bring a ton of great prizes for the raffle. Everyone has very high chances for winning a prize.

+ If you’d like to help, Del can always use volunteers to help him arrange for raffle prizes, assist with cooking, set-up, clean-up and transporting.

+ Most of all, it’s just great to be around a bunch of Coasties again - even if its only one day per year.

Hope to see you there! Saturday, 18 August 2007 at Clear Lake USAF Recrecreation Facility, Fairchild AFB Spokane, WA.

CAPT Paul Luppert, USCG, Retired

Member, CGRetiree Council - NW (Eastern Washington Rep)

TRICARE Continued from page �

Map to Clear Lake Rec Area

July 2007

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MENU

Hamburgers/CheeseburgerHot DogsMesquite Grilled Chicken BreastMacaroni SaladPotato SaladColeslawCorn on the CobAssorted Potato ChipsRelish TrayOrangesCondimentsFrosted CakeSoda

AGENDA

Captain’s Cup 5K 0900Opening Ceremony 1130Lunch Line Opens 1200Activities Open 1200Adult Games Begin 13005K Winners Announced 1300Captain’s Cup Winners 1300

The Integrated Support Command, Kodiak, sincerely thanks and appreciates the sponsors of Coast Guard Day. However, neither the

Coast Guard nor any other part of the Federal Government officially endorses any company, sponsor, or their products or services.

Active Duty Military Member – FREEActive Duty Military Dependants - $2MWR Eligible/Retiree’s/Guests - $4

(Includes 1 FREE drink ticket)

Activity booth wristbands - $2 per person.Proceeds benefit unit morale funds!

Coast Guard Day in Astoria

Coast Guard Group Astoria will be holding our Coast Guard Day festivities on Friday 03 August at Cullaby Lake in Warrenton, OR. Retirees and Auxiliarists are more than welcome to attend, and should contact me at the below listed number for more information. Our ticket prices are still being negotiated, and I will pass you amplifying information as soon as I get it.

Respectfully, LT Brooks CrawfordUSCG Group/Air Station Astoria(503) 861-6328

Unreported Celebrations

ISC Ketchikan, CG Sector Portland, Oregon, CG Sector Coos Bay CGAS/Group, CCGD17 Juneau, CGAS/Group Port Angeles. May have CG Day celebrations scheduled and retirees need to call for information.

Seattle CG DayGood day. I would like to send out a preliminary notification for everyone to mark their calendars for the D13 CG Day Celebration Picnic. We will conduct this year’s affair at the same venue as last year; Lord Hill Farms in Snohomish, WA. http://www.lordhillfarms.com/. The date/time will be Monday, 6 August 2007, 1100 - 1500 hours.

Hope to see you there.Art GraddyPACNORWEST MWR Director

Lord Hill Farms is located in beautiful Snohomish, Washington, just a short drive northeast of Seattle.DIRECTIONS FROM THE SOUTHTake 405 North to Exit 23 (Woodinville/Wenatchee) to Hwy 522 East. Head East for 11.5 miles to the Monroe/West Main Street Exit. Follow the roundabout and go under the overpass. Continue West past the gas station for approximately 3 miles. Lord Hill Farms will be on the right.

DIRECTIONS FROM THE NORTHTake I-5 South to Exit 194 (Hwy 2 East/Wenatchee). Take the 88th Street SE Exit to Snohomish. Turn right on 92nd Street towards Snohomish (turns into 2nd St.). Follow through the first light and turn left on Lincoln Avenue, which becomes Old Snohomish-Monroe Road (First Heritage Bank is on the corner). Follow for approximately 3 miles and Lord Hill Farms will be on the left.ADDRESS | 12525 Old Snohomish-Monroe Road Snohomish, WA 98290

Coast Guard Retiree Council Northwest Retiree Newsletter

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Greenland PatrolsReprinted from Ken Laesser’s “Old Guard”

http://www.laesser.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=492&Itemid=49

Greenland was on the edge of the Battle of the North Atlantic, the fight to the death between the German U-boat force and the American shipbuilding industry. American and British designers developed an arsenal of weaponry that eventually would help turn the tide - radar, improved sound-detection equipment, more powerful depth charges, and improved depth charge-throwing equipment. The first ships equipped with the new gear were the big Navy destroyers; the Coast Guard cutters were given low priority. The 327-foot Treasury-class cutters, with their roomy hulls and hospital facilities, turned out to be good escorts and were put on the transatlantic runs. The duty of escorting the convoys to and from Greenland fell to the older, smaller cutters that had been built in the 1920s and ‘30s for search-and-rescue work and law enforcement. As the Coast Guard prepared for war, the navy yards loaded them down with additional guns, depth charges, sound gear and men in the hope that the cutters could function as miniature destroyers. At best they made adequate escorts.

The North Atlantic slammed the little ships around like corks, spilling gear out of lockers and men out of bunks. When the weather conditions were right, freezing spray could coat the superstructure of a rolling ship with tons of ice, creating stability problems the naval architects had never envisioned. Below decks, steam heating systems made ships and crews sweat; men found themselves sliding across decks that were soaked with condensation. Arthur Turek, a machinist’s mate on board the MODOC, swore he saw footprints on the ship’s engine room bulkheads.

Breaking ice in the paths of the convoys had its special set of hazards. A “lead” that seemed to stretch for miles could close up in minutes, suddenly subjecting the cutter’s hull to tons of pressure from shifting ice. When the ice did crack, it got sucked into propellers, bending and breaking blades. A ship with a damaged screw could head to Boston for repairs only when time and duty allowed; more than one crew had to tolerate a nerve-fraying pattern of hull vibrations that lasted for weeks.

Nervous tension, seasickness and lack of sleep were combined with a rarely-mentioned but always present sense of fear, for every Coast Guardsman knew how vulnerable his ship would be to a German torpedo. At the beginning of the war most of the cutters had the portholes in their hulls welded shut, but their designers had not bothered with watertight

compartmentation.

The escorts were fighting an ominous, rarely seen enemy who usually announced his presence by blasting the bottom out of an unsuspecting merchant ship — and could only be detected in the form of vague sounds in the earphones of a sonar operator. The defects of 1940s sound detection gear were exacerbated by the murky arctic water, with icebergs, temperature layers, whales, and schools of fish complicating the echoes.

The convoy fights came to follow a depressing pattern: A merchantman would suddenly explode, the escorts would dash to the scene and rescue a few waterlogged survivors, the sonar operators would pick up an echo that they hoped represented a U-boat, the cutters would drop depth charges, and all hands would try to convince themselves that the echo’s disappearance meant the submarine had been sunk. Occasionally someone saw or smelled an oil slick that might have come from a damaged U-boat, but no one could be sure. No vessel of the Greenland Patrol was ever officially credited with sinking a U-boat.

In water whose temperature often actually dropped below 32 degrees, a human being’s limbs began to go numb in a matter of minutes. The crew of a cutter that arrived at the scene of a sinking with ropes and cargo nets trailing in the water would watch helplessly as men drowned and froze to death, unable to grab the lines that were waiting to pull them to safety. When the Army transport DORCHESTER was torpedoed, Feb. 3, 1943, the escorting cutters COMANCHE and ESCANABA thought themselves lucky to save 299 of the 904 men on board.

On June 13, 1943, the CGCs MOJAVE, TAMPA, STORIS, and ESCANABA and the tug RARITAN were escorting a convoy from BLUIE West I to Newfoundland. At 5:10 a.m. the men on the STORIS’ bridge saw a cloud of yellow and black smoke gush up from the ESCANABA There were no sonar contacts and no radio signals from the ESCANABA, but the 165-foot cutter sank in three minutes. The STORIS and RARITAN picked up two survivors, neither of whom had any idea what had happened. The rest of the ESCANABA’s crew of 103, including its commanding officer, CDR Carl Peterson, were lost.

Eventually the Coast Guard worked out the “retriever system,” whereby a volunteer in a rubber suit would jump overboard with a rope and tie it around the survivor’s torso. When the Army freighter NEVADA was sunk Dec. 16, 1943, the COMANCHE was able to rescue 29 men — about half of its crew.

In the autumn of 1944 the new ice breakers, CGCs Greenland Patrols Continued page 7

July 2007

Page 7 Coast Guard Retiree Council Northwest Retiree Newsletter

Navy League of the United States Lake Washington Council

Cordially Invites you to the Inaugural Pacific Northwest Coast Guard Ball

Recognizing 217 years of Distinguished Service Saturday, September 8, 2007

Westin Hotel-Bellevue (across from Bellevue Square)

Honoring the Region’s over 1,700 men and women of “Team Coast Guard”

and saluting our other armed forces; Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, Navy

Dinner, Ceremony & Dancing

No-Host Cocktails: 1700-1800 Dinner: 1800

Entrée: Grilled Beef Tenderloin & Tiger Shrimp or

Vegetarian Attire: Military: Dinner Dress Blue Civilian: Black Tie (Optional)

EASTWIND and SOUTHWIND, designed by the famous naval architecture firm of Gibbs and Cox, joined the Greenland Patrol. The “Wind’’-class vessels represented the latest icebreaker technology. They were relatively small, tubby ships, with a length of 269 feet and a beam of 63 feet 6 inches, but their diesel power plants generated a respectable 12,000 horsepower. A removable propeller at the bow was intended to clear ice, though that innovation proved impractical in service. “Heeling tanks,” equipped with powerful pumps, could rock the hull back and forth. Their wide beam enabled the ships to carry a substantial armament: two twin 5-inch dual-purpose gun mounts, three quadruple 40mm anti-aircraft mounts, six 20mm anti-aircraft guns, two depth-charge tracks, six Y-guns and a Hedgehog anti-submarine weapon.

The designers also found room for a J2F aircraft and a pair of derricks to handle it. The EASTWIND, SOUTHWIND, STORIS, and NORTHLAND, with the designation Task Unit 24.8.5 and the EASTWIND’s CAPT Charles W. Thomas in command, were ordered to destroy the German weather stations on the east coast.

On Oct. 2 the EASTWIND’s aircraft sighted what its observer called “a big ship” about a 100 miles north of Shannon Island. A day later the same plane, flying on patrol over North Little Koldewey Island, spotted a pile of what appeared to be building materials on the beach. The EASTWIND headed for the latter site and, having broken through 12 miles of pack ice under cover of darkness, put a landing party under LTJG Alden Lewis ashore. The Coast Guardsmen captured a dozen German military personnel, several tons of food and munitions, some elaborate radio and meteorological equipment, and several

kerosene-soaked secret documents that the German commander was about to burn.

Thomas then turned his attention to the ship his plane had spotted. The vessel, a 183-foot trawler named EXTERNSTEINE, was finally located, frozen solid in the ice off Shannon Island, Oct. 14. The EASTWIND, with the SOUTHWIND providing support, rammed through the ice until its 5-inch guns were within

range. After three salvoes from the EASTWINDS’s forward gun mount landed alongside the trawler, a blinker signal flashed, “we give up.” The EASTWIND proceeded to within 200 yards of the German ship and sent over a prize crew of 32 men. They took the EXTERNSTEINE, which they unofficially renamed EASTBREEZE, to Iceland. The Navy gave the ship — the only German surface vessel taken at sea by American forces during the war — the more prosaic name CALLAO.The German Navy auxillary EXTENSTEINE, the onlyGerman surface vessel

taken at sea by American Forces during WWII. She surrendered after cutter EASTWIND landed a salvo of 5” shells along side her.

Greenland Patrols Continued from page �

13th Coast Guard District Coat of Arms

PRSRT STDPOSTAGE & FEES PAID

U. S. COAST GUARDPERMIT NO. G-157

c/o COMMANDING OFFICERUSCG Integrated Support CommandAttn: Work Life (Retiree Council)1519 Alaskan Way South, Bldg. 1Seattle, Washington 98134

Coast Guard Retiree Council Northwest Newsletter

How We Served...Yesterday in The U. S. Coast Guard

The cutters STORIS, NORTHLAND, and EVERGREEN, of the Greenland Patrol during the Battle of the North Atlantic at base BLUIE West 1 in November 1944. Northland had suffered ice damage and Storis and Evergreen

towed her back