My Cousin - The Coastie

[kenimpzoom]

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/good_day_philadelphia/032509_Rescue_Swimmers_Interview

Jason is my cousin. Great kid, known him since he was little. Me and my brother always called him "killer" much to his chagrin. He is one of the nicer guys I know. Jason never meets a stranger. Last time he was in town, I was stuck working offshore and couldnt see him, but he came over and visited with my wife and kids.

Jason had many many opportunities in life and choose to become a coast guard helo winch operator. It made us all very proud.

For those who know my older posts, it was Jason's father (my fathers brother) that died piloting a small plane.

Ken

 

[eaglejim]

Re: My Cousin - The Coastie

Looks and sounds like a great guy, very professional we need more young men like him

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: My Cousin - The Coastie

Great story.

Ken, you're cousin is a great young man. Getting into the Coast Guard isn't easy in the first place, and becoming an aircrewman is even harder. I'm not sure what the total compliment for aviators in the Guard is now, but I don't think it has ever been over the low thousands in number. In short, you don't get to be an aircrewmember, unless you are a pretty exceptional person.

One little bit of trivia about the swimmer program is that it actually had a predecessor. The funny thing is that the folks in the Guard now, seem to be unaware of this fact. What is now recognised as the the swimmer program was started in the middle 80s, but there was a previous program call "SARWET." I don't know how many air stations were involved, but we had a team at USCGAS San Francisco, in the early 70s.

Admittedly, the current swimmer program is much more elaborate than what we were doing. There was no specific rating (specialty) for it and the training was no where near as rigorous. In fact, at least one SARWET member that I know of, wasn't even in an aviation rating - he was a corpsman. The program did work well, though. Our guys made some pretty impressive saves.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: My Cousin - The Coastie

you should be very pround that you cousin, is serving all of us. give him a big thanks, from all iboaters. hopefully he will never have to come after one of us.

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: My Cousin - The Coastie

thanks for sharing that story KIZ. I have full respect for the aircrews of the Navy and CG. It is a very rigorous swim course. Just ask him how or if he liked the Dilbert Dunker Many crewman has passed through that apparatus