Reservist

ISS2 2015

Reservist Magazine is the award-winning official publication of the United States Coast Guard Reserve. Quarterly issues include news and feature articles about the men and women who comprise America's premier national maritime safety and security

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Looking Back: How 'Now or Never" Turned into 19 Years of Meaningful Memories As I stared out the terminal windows at Clearwater Airport in October, 1995, waiting for my plane back to Chicago, I watched as a Coast Guard C130 taxied for take off, and shortly thereafter, as an HH60 Jayhawk came in for a gentle landing. The activity at Air Station Clearwater, Florida, successfully drew me into another world. My interest in the Coast Guard had piqued again. "I would love to be part of the Coast Guard," I said to myself for the umpteenth time since graduating college. I believed in the missions and I wanted to be part of a service that makes a difference every single day. I knew it was now or never. The next day after I arrived back home, I contacted a recruiter to find out how I could become a part of the Coast Guard. "Well, we have a PA billet open in Chicago," the recruiter said. "What's a PA?" I asked. "PA is short for Public Affairs Specialist. They work with the media, write press releases, take photos, and help tell the Coast Guard story," he said. This is too good to be true, I thought. That's what I do in my civilian job. What a match. It must be an omen. It was most definitely now or never. In the weeks ahead, I started the process, signed the papers, took the oath and was in the Coast Guard: a PA3. I then did the two-week reserve boot camp and the rest is history, as they say. I spent my first eight years in the Coast Guard's 9th District doing my inactive duty for training (drills) and active duty for training (typically 2 weeks) at the old Marine Safety Office Chicago helping to tell the Coast Guard story locally. But in 2004, I volunteered for an assignment that turned out to be one of the best opportunities ever presented to me, the chance to do eight months of short-term active duty (ADSW as it was known back then) in Alameda, Calif., in the 11th District Public Affairs office on Coast Guard Island. The learning curve was mighty steep when this Reserve PA1 arrived on the west coast. I never realized just how much I didn't know about the Coast Guard. But with the help and patience of the great staffs at district and Pacific Area, I was able to grow personally and professionally and help tell the Coast Guard story on a much larger scale. And what stories there were. Eight months eventually turned into six years during which time I was involved in some amazing assignments doing photography, writing, videography, crisis communications and media relations on a scale unparalleled to any civilian job. Some of those assignments included: • An offload of more than 40,000 pounds of cocaine at Coast Guard Island, • Marine protection as two humpback whales traveled through the San Francisco Bay and inland up the Sacramento Delta and back, • Shadowing the Coast Guard TRACEN Petaluma firefighting team during forest fires in the Santa Cruz mountains, • Meeting Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher on Coast Guard Island during their promotional tour for "The Guardian." • Traveling to Honolulu to help on a Super Ferry case, • Working a major oil spill in the San Francisco Bay, • Security for the 2007 Major League Baseball All-Star game in San Francisco, • Hurricane Ike in Galveston, Texas in 2008, • Transiting with, and photographing, Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, from Oakland to San Francisco aboard an 87-foot patrol boat, in 2007, then Petty Offcer 1st Class Alan Haraf, USCGR (far right) at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, Calif., with a crew from Air Station Sacramento. This was one of the many opportunities for Haraf to document the Coast Guard while a member of the Coast Guard Reserve. 16 RESERVIST � Issue 2 • 2015

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