Reader Encourages us to Research Story on Secret Coast Guard Program
Coast Guard announced the recipients of the 2009 Blacks in Government Meritorious Awards winners on 2 July 2009. One of our readers suggested that we had overlooked this announcement. Actually, we had included release in our next edition of Civil Rights on Deck scheduled for release on Tuesday morning the 7th of July at 0600. That said, this readers comment on one recipient of the award led us to do some research. Lieutenant Commander Wilborne Watson, assigned to the Coast Guard Congressional Affairs Office was recognized for his work on a program not many people inside Coast Guard including Flag leadership knew existed.
Back on 1 April 2009, Rear Admiral Jody Breckenridge was asked by Congress when she appeared before the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard about her diversity programs, she knew of none. Surprisingly Breckenridge didn’t even know about the one program that is advertised on her own website at the time, COMPASS. Rep. Elijah Cummings, Chairman of the Committee asked Breckenridge if she could give him a rough idea of how many HBCU’s we have the U.S. Breckenridge declined to even guess.
Submitted on 2009/07/06 at 6:10pmAnother internet released ALCOAST that you seem to have missed. This one is 381/09 which is about this year’s BIG award recipients.
The truly confusing thing is that LCDR Watson of Coast Guard Congressional Affairs is receiving an award due to his outreach to HBCU’s and developing the Coast Guard Ambassador program….
Wait a second… I thought there was no Coast Guard outreach to speak of to HBCU’s… Could CGR be wrong?
I guess he should stop his extracurricular activities and focus the Congressional Affairs Office on prepping better for Ms. Dickerson’s meetings with Elijah Cummings about the BAH report.
I didn’t know that there was a requirement for every single thing the Coast Guard did to have a website. In fact, that would be a stupid requirement, because every website added requires people/time/money to maintain, and that just means trolls like you can make a ridiculously big deal of a really small thing the first time a site link breaks or it isn’t absolutely current.
Since you are revamping the site, can you please do two things:
– Change the title to reflect your true purpose: Smearing the Coast Guard OCR and any other senior leadership.
– Change your comment policy to state that you will only enforce it against people who are not agreeing completely with your opinion, since that is what you do.
One – Don’t pin this all on Jody Breckenridge… 5 years ago, when the decline of enrollment started at the Academy, she was just a one star over at MLC PAC, followed by a very successful stint as District Eleven Commander. She didn’t get involved with CG-1 until May 2008.
Two – If you’re surprised at the third star, you clearly haven’t been watching careers closely. You may want to take another unofficial poll on who the next Commandant is going to be. Throw Breckenridge’s name in the mix this time.
Retort,
Again we’re the only Blog we know of that actually encourages some of our reader simply to “not read.” We will stay focused on Civil Rights and Diversity for as long as it is newsworthy. At the rate Admiral Allen is actually moving forward on this issue, we’ll be covering at least up to his retirement. No Coast Guard does not need a website for every issue. But there are should be some mention in an ALCOAST, a white paper, a website, or something of a nationwide program that wins a Coastie a BIG award. There isn’t. Lastly we have posted all of your comments that didn’t violate our comment policy. It has nothing to do with our opinion. In fact, many of you comments generate traffic so we have everything to gain. Your co-workers a HQ indicate that you’re usually happier at work when you’re posting here. That makes them happy, so we’re happy. Keep posting.
That reader is a bone head. Your sarcasim caused these guys to post another story.
The award of a presidential citation to Terri Dickerson is what has created the perception that civil rights awards are bogus. The CG Academy EEO director also recently received a civil rights award … furthering that perception. An HBCU initiative, if it existed, would have come under the auspices of OCR. Seems like Terri Dickerson would have advertised and marketed the HBCU initiative in her newsletter, long before having it recognized for an award.
Totally off the subject, but did “CGRetort” actually leave his CG contact information and did you actually call someone in his office to do that poll? Or did you just check the logs, figure out his IP, call an IT friend who identified him for you through that IP (who also gave you his PII), and then called someone you knew in his office? And did you just go through this drill to point out to CGRetort that he’s not anonymous? Hey, either way I don’t care. People should be more careful if they want to remain anonymous. Just curious…
Don,
None of the above. Its a bit more complicated than that or maybe not as complicated. If you want to remain anonymous we completely support that but be careful who you joke with at work about your comments … you might be talking to a CGR Contact. Employees all over the federal government use Social Media to effect change where agency transparency has failed. We have some cynics who think most of our contacts are junior disgruntled employees, they’re wrong. We have have a pretty even mix of employees. Some are disgruntled, many just want to do the right thing done, or correct the record and some just shine light. We have more steady contacts at the O-5 GS-12/13 level than we do below that. We count one active and one Flag Officer among that group as well.
So in answer to your question, no we didn’t use covert ops to learn that info. One of our contributors has a background in HUMINT and yes that comes in handy.
If this isn’t an official CG program, then what authority do these individuals have to “officially” represent the Coast Guard? Surely a good volunteer effort isn’t being touted as a DHS/CG program?
Anon the better question is what is the program, what are the details and where is it being promoted.
Bone head? Really? That was 2nd grade level.
The way I see it is there are two outcomes:
1. There is an existing HCBU outreach program. Negates half the stuff on this blog. Granted the Congressional Affairs program did a terrible job prepping Dickerson/Breckenridge… but that’s another story.
2. This HCBU program is imaginary or recently created due to political pressures and some guy is getting an award because of it. Well, frankly that’s bullsh*t… and every person serving in the Coast Guard – civilian or military – should be pissed off because of it.
I’m really rooting for number 1.
Bone Head,
Can you tell us how you know about the program? What document can you point to, what website, what ALCOAST. We appreciate your thoughts, but would ask you back them up with fact. If you can point us to where this program has been discussed, we’ll post it. We don’t have any HBCU’s in the Bay area, so what exactly is your frame of reference?
One day while flipping through the message board I saw ALCOAST 381. I read it – and I thought it was quite interesting given the issue with HBCU’s and the lack of outreach that has been reported on this site. This is the only time I had heard of this outreach program. I frankly know very little about HBCUs and started reading this website because of Deepwater but found the Civil Rights thing interesting.
I don’t know if this program really exists or not. But a reasonable person would come up with two conclusions:
1. Program exists… Well good for the Coast Guard. Bad for Coast Guard Congressional Affairs… If this program existed during the time of the hearings – why the hell didn’t they bring it up? It would have been at least one point in their favor – vice not knowing how many HBCU’s there are. If this LCDR was really engaged in this outreach at that time – then he sucks at his day job… and should have done a hell of a lot better to prep those two.
2. Program doesn’t exist or was recently created to appease the interest in CG Civil Rights program. Okay… I will admit, the Coast Guard hands out awards for some pretty bullsh*t things… I find it odd that no one before this ALCOAST has heard about this program before. If they just created this to say – see look what we’re doing – fine, that’s politics, and at least they’re trying something (may be a little too late but hey give them credit). But if this was recently created within the past few months – then you give the guy an award for it? That’s crap. If the program is all together made up… then that’s beyond stupid and frankly insulting to a whole bunch of people.
There is no inside knowledge here – this is just me watching this website for awhile and thinking to myself – why does this ALCOAST contradict a huge issue CGR has with the Civil Rights Program? And why is this the first time this outreach program is being touted? And finally, this person was in the office that is designed to prepare people for hearings on the hill and it never was mentioned as a talking point to use? I’m not into conspiracies – but it just doesn’t add up.
Staff,
Interesting statements: …”you might be talking to a CGR Contact”. That implies that your supporters wish to remain anonymous and fill the role of covert collector. That is interesting.
“Using social media to effect change where transparency has failed”. With anonymous posts, innuendo, conjecture, and the simple ‘throw **** on the wall and see if it sticks’ approach, that’s going to create greater transparency? Interesting methods, very “National Enquirer’esque.
“One of our contributors has a background in HUMINT and yes that comes in handy.” That is nice to know, but that is not how you said you get information. A bit of a contradiction.
I read all of your current articles this afternoon, and again, 30 minutes of my life that I won’t get back. I have been here eight times now and have yet to see anything that is insightful. Just accusations claiming to be facts and demanding that others do the homework you won’t do yourselves. You do write well, but so do most of the writers for the tabloids.
I think I won’t be back.
Don,
You must be a new yet hooked reader. We have readers like you in past that wanted to push the idea of “conjecture, and throwing shit to see if it sticks.”
Admiral Allen allowed Terri Dickerson to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to prove you right and those before you right. What happened instead was that Booz Allen Hamilton came back substantiated what we have written here and then some. Congress then convened two hearings on the issues this Blog forced into transparency and then released even more documents showing that “we got it right.”
Our supporters wish to remain anonymous because they have seen and many already lived first and the type of reprisal that comes with living up to Core Values, and using the chain of command to report fraud, waste and abuse. It’s that simple. We have asked for two years now that readers who want to challenge what we write do so with facts. But for readers to write blanket statements that what we just reported (with links) are just accusations sounds like pot calling the kettle black. Tell us what you think we got wrong, and why.
Yes we’ll go back and see if we have a contact in that area and validate, and then again give the reader a chance to rebuttal with facts. That’s all we ask for. We’re again working with congressional staffers on another issue that has caught their attention, and my guess is we’ll get and gain additional press and readers when that is released.
We are in the midst of change here at CGR again and will be announcing those changes soon. “Here we grow again!”