DoD authorizes use of social media in the workplace... but what about the Coast Guard?

This past Thursday (25 February 2010) the Department of Defense, the parent command of the other four Armed Services, finally released its highly anticipated memorandum (DTM 09-026 also available below) covering the use of social media tools/websites on/from the unclassified computer networks (NIPRNET). Effective immediately the use of social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, [...]

Change to the Coast Guard tattoo policy to appease the workforce? Nope.

[tweetmeme][fbshare]On the 3rd of September, that would be way back in 2009, the Coast Guard shook up the workforce with a revised tattoo policy basically bringing us back to the previous standard. ALCOAST 505/09: RELEASE OF UPDATED TATTOO, BODY MARKING, BODY PIERCING, AND MUTILATION POLICY, COMDTINST 1000.1B was/is a welcome policy change. In fact my [...]

Boo-Hoo the Coast Guard's losing assets and funding... what would you do to fix it?

The Queen: Coast Guard Cutter Acushnet

There is no shortage of people and/or organizations out there who are calling the proposed budget cuts to the Coast Guard for FY11 outright wrong. As an Active Duty member of said service I don’t want to see funding of jobs going to the wayside; however, as an Active [...]

New Coast Guard award being introduced for some Haitian Earthquake Ops personnel

Click to enlarge

Recognizing the need for an award for Guardians assigned to headquarters and staff units during the recent emergent humanitarian operations in Haiti the Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Thad Allen, today announced the approval of the Situational Briefing Badge, or SBB.

“People don’t realize that being a Senior Officer at [...]

Coast Guard Ban on Thumb-Drives to be lifted soon?

The last time we visited the issue of not being able to use thumb-drives on DoD (or Coast Guard) computers was back in October ‘09. You’ll also recall that it was noted then that the news out of U.S. Strategic Command (StratCom) was gleaming with hope as it was stated that the use of thumb-dives [...]

The State of the Coast Guard 2010; by the numbers

As I noted in the post prior to this I wasn’t able to watch the State of the Coast Guard address; however, I was able to read (just finished) the transcript from the address and found myself happy with what I read. I’ll admit there wasn’t anything in it I wasn’t expecting the Commandant to [...]

USCG's FY11 budget: Let the Congressional quesitoning begin

Rep. Peter King (R-NY)

This week the Coast Guard shared with us its proposed budget request and its cutbacks for FY11 which made us sound like a very fiscally responsible organization as we were to request $75 million less then we did last year. Well, as expected, with the decommissioning of some of our MSST [...]