Admiral Thad Allen Accepts “Admiral Of The Ocean Sea Award” Visits Station Eastport, Maine
On Friday night in New York, the United States Coast Guard was awarded the Admiral Of The Ocean Sea (AOTOS) Award by the United Seamen?s Service at their 40th Annual Awards. Admiral Thad Allen was on hand to accepted the award on behalf of the men and women of the Coast Guard.
Before dinner Friday night, Allen made a few other stops including Station Eastport, Maine. It’s great to see the Admiral include the men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard on his farewell tour around the world. Allen took a group shot with the Station, during his visit. This picture like many on Coast Guards Visual Information Gallery are indicative of a service lacking diversity. The photo below was taken by Allen’s African-American Military Aide, LCDR Jo’ Cousins. We inserted a shot of Cousins flying a HU-25A Falcon Jet.
EASTPORT, Maine. Senator Collins and Admiral Allen visit USCG Station Eastport Maine. Photo taken Friday, November 13th, 2009. U.S. Coast Guard photo by LCDR Jo' Cousins (picture insert bottom right), Military Aide.
Admiral Allen has done little more than pay lip service to diversity since he left the Academy. The next Commandant needs to have a proven record of working towards diversity. That would leave Vice Admiral Breckenridge out from the get go.
Pretty racist post — the only diversity that matters to you is skin color?
We’re publishing this comment by this anonymous reader. But we want to make it clear that statements like this one run contrary to the direction that Coast Guard needs to be moving. Our push along with members of Congress for a more diverse Coast Guard is not without reason. At two congressional hearings this year on the 1st of April and again on the 19th of June 2009, members of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Transportation demanded answers to this issue.
Coast Guard has a long ways to go in achieving any measure of diversity. Only this year and since the two hearings has Admiral Allen placed any emphasis on diversity. We will continue to draw attention to this pressing issue and pressing need. There is no doubt that some people may not like our focus on Coast Guards diversity. Nonetheless, we’ll fight for equal civil rights.
Oceanus Hopkins,
What is that all about. Maybe I’m missing your point, but how to you get to calling people who want a more diverse workforce racists.
Joe Cousins, I’ve heard he isn’t a full Commander/O5, but he likes to play one on the telephone to his fellow O4s.
Q2, Diversity is supposed to be about more than counting shades of skin color in a photograph. We don’t know anything about the people in that meeting and what their backgrounds are. All CGR cares about is the skin color…which should be a clue that the goal isn’t “diversity” or “inclusiveness” — it’s quotas. The minorities I’ve served with just gag over it because it creates a perception that they’re at a certain rank or received recognition for reasons other than competence.
And this is the sort of thing that happens when the only thing that matters is skin color: http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2009/11/potemkin-color-guard.html
It IS Maine… People go where they want to go. I’d bet the balance might be a bit better if the picture were taken somewhere else.
I can understand the reaction of the second comment. The article vibe could be taken as:
‘look at all the white guys, it must be their fault that there isn’t more diversity in that picture’
And as much as there might be a grain of truth to that there is as much truth to the contrary. I’d love it if this site would spend as much time explicating those units and people that go the extra mile embracing their shipmates (and others) no matter who they are as they do shining the light in places where it appears not to be.
There’s something to be said for model behavior. After awhile, too much negative attention just starts to sound like whining. And I don’t think anybody wants the pendulum to swing in that direction.
Balance it with some positive. Give Guardians the benefit of the doubt. There are problems. There are also a lot of good about, and good people in, the organization.
Shaggy,
You’re right and nothing in our post should be taken as placing the blame on the men and women who make it happen every day. The blame rests squarely with the guy in the center of the picture on the back row. Admiral Thad Allen is responsible for ensuring his service is reflective of society. This blog may have been one of the first to point that out in such a blatant manner, but congress confirmed it, Vice Admiral Pearson admitted to and Admiral Thad Allen has promised to work harder.
Please know this, history has shown that society (and the media, new media, social media, etc.) stop covering and issue like this … those responsible for ensuring it happens stop working on it.
Rep. Cummings (like him or hate him) made it clear in both 1 April and 19 June 2009 hearings on this, that he and congress would not leave this to chance. They would insist in regular and continual updates from Allen on his progress. Cummings took it one step further and asked the GAO monitor Allen’s program for the 12 months.
Guardians are doing the hard job each and every day. It’s time for the Commandant to end his farewell tour and concentrate on the one thing he can fix before next June.
Thanks for the link to the cdrsalamander post. We’ll probably rerun that later today. You hit the nail on the head too. Diversity comes from having enough people of color to have clubs like the color guards comprised of a representative population. USNA has that, and bad on them.
The problem is when your service does not have enough people of color to be representative or form clubs and color guards with a representative population. More on this later … thanks.
Reading through the cdrsalamander posts. Really interesting reads – more about the integrity of leadership, culture, and core values than diversity -using diversity faux pas as a lens to describe integrity fumbles. Good reads and another perspective to consider.
I’m one of more than a dozen employees who have lived the Commandant’s dream. For us it was a nightmare. Reporting to our supervisors that our EO program was broke costs us a huge price. When we voiced our concerns about being forced to operate our EO program outside of regulations, we faced reprisal.
When no one would listen to us up the chain of command, we spoke out here. We faced increased acts of reprisal. The Commandant had direct knowledge of our plight and did nothing. He watched and read the reports as many of left Coast Guard, and yet he still nothing.
Admiral Crea debriefed him on her resolution of one formal complaint against Ms. Dickerson, and yet he did nothing.
Ms. Dickerson ordered a program review at a cost in hundreds of thousands of dollars to prove we were the problem and it backfired. The BAH report showed everything we said was true.
Congress held hearings, uncovered more issues than many of us knew and yet Admiral Allen to this day has done nothing to make us whole. Not one word of apology, not even a hint that he cared about what we had been put through.
The employees who wanted nothing more than for our Coast Guard to be Semper Paratus paid a price in terms of careers, standing and persistent acts of reprisal. I have not decided if I’ll join the forming class, but it’s certainly an option.
CDR Salamander’s blog is not only intellectually stimulating, but entertaining as well. I am surprised that my fellow retired SWO, Mr. Jackson never linked to it when he owned this site.
SWO Daddy,
We still have SWO or two contributing and we will be linking to the site.
Most American’s and Coasties (Guardians) will never be able to fully understand why the Commandant of the Coast Guard abandoned these employees.
Shaggy,
Great post, thanks for sharing.
Great. Just don’t follow the lead of that blog whose name I will not mention here and link to that diaper-clad Auxiliarist.
“I didn’t come here to play the game, I came here to take care of business.”
-Unnamed DD Commanding Officer to his wardroom circa 1989 right after his change of command