In 1976, I enlisted in the Coast Guard Reserve as a Yeoman Third Class. In six years, I advanced to Yeoman First Class, then I competed for and won a commission as an Ensign. I advanced to Lieutenant (junior grade) before I was forced to stand down due to having developed arthritis. In 1991 I received my honorable discharge. My husband, at the time of my original enlistment, was a Lieutenant in the Coast Guard Reserve. Part of the reason I joined was seeing how much he had enjoyed his time on active duty aboard the USCGC INGHAM and ashore at Coast Guard Base St. Petersburg, FL. Another part of the reason I enlisted is that I admired the humanitarian missions of the Coast Guard. My father had been a Naval Academy graduate and Naval aviator. My brother had been a U.S. Marine. I was the first woman in the family to enter military service.

One of the places I most enjoyed while serving in the Coast Guard Reserve was the Coast Guard Reserve Training Center at Yorktown, VA. The location can't be beat: on the York River and Chesapeake Bay just past the picturesque and historic Yorktown Battlefield and at the other end of the Colonial Parkway from Williamsburg, one of my favorite places in all the world.

While I was a Yeoman First Class, I served two summers as Household Goods Inspector for Coast Guard Base Mayport, responsible for ensuring that Coast Guard Personnel from St. Simons Is., GA to Cape Canaveral, FL, who were being moved in or out on Permanent Change of Station (PCS) orders were being properly served by civilian moving companies and that their housing was up to standards. The fun part of that duty was the traveling, and getting to write the occasional "bad boy" letter when a mover goofed up. <grin>

Most of my Active Duty for Training, when not served at Yorktown, was at the Coast Guard Marine Safety Office, Jacksonville, FL (MSO Jax). That's also where I did my weekend drills for a while after I got my commission. The duties were many and varied. One that I enjoyed was rewriting contingency plans. My last term of active duty, 8 months, was at MSO Jax as project officer for the Coast Guard's supervision of the onloading and offloading of explosives at the Port of Jacksonville. Talk about a huge responsibility. I was one of a group of reservists serving on this project who were awarded the Coast Guard Special Operations Service Ribbon.

The ribbon is a link to read the citation that accompanied the award of the ribbon, if you'd like to.

Check out these Coast Guard and other military sites:

	This logo will take you to the U.S. Coast Guard home page. Learn about the history and missions of the nation's smallest and busiest armed service.
	Visit Fred's Place, where active, retired, or separated Coasties and Coast Guard Auxiliarists can find information, news, and link up with old shipmates.
	Link up through this logo with the Military Network and find news and information on topics from web page design to geopolitics, and darn near everything in between.

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