First Volunteer, Andrew Shook reports in from Alaska

 That would be Seaman (Cutterman)Andrew Shook USCG to you.   

A fresh set of books for the ship's forecastle library arrived yesterday, donated by Andrew marking the Final Patrol of his Cutter,  USCGC Douglas Munro, out of Dutch Harbor, Kodiak, Alaska.  The titles are appropriate given his line of work.  When on board you might want to take a browse;  they look like real page turners. 

Mate, Charlie checks Andrew's harness
 before hauling him aloft
to scrape the main mast.

Back in late 2018, Before Volunteers, Before the Volunteer Log and Volunteer Days, There was Andrew Shook.  Andrew was the first deckhand volunteer to come on board since 2015.  Still in High School, and  no doubt armed with advice from his uncle, past skipper,  Capt Ben Hall, Andrew signed on to do anything that needed to be done. 

Which he did, including becoming the first volunteer to go aloft to scrape the mainmast.  If there had been any other volunteers aboard, he would've been the example setter. In addition to the maintenance work we all have done,  he taught himself the knots, fashioned his own fid, learned the schooner's history and was usually first to greet visiting tourists at the dock and tell them all about her.  

USCGC Douglas Munro departing
 Dutch Harbor on Final Patrol.
Tiny figure on the flybridge
is Andrew standing lookout.

But time passes, and after graduation, Andrew enlisted in the Coast Guard, with first assignment in a spot as about as opposite from the low country as you could get,  Kodiak, Alaska. For the past two years, Andrew has been on patrol aboard  the USCGC Douglas Munro, one of the larger cutters in the fleet, with a very interesting story line,  which Andrew will relate to you further below.

At my request, he sent a few photos, which I've included. 

Andrew (back row, partially hidden)
 with his shipmates on Deck Force

Steering the ship on the bridge
 of Douglas Munro

I also asked Andrew to send something about his experience.  Below is some good background on his cutter, which, as we speak is in the process of decommissioning., and some insight into the perspectives of a young sailor waayy out there.

Andrew Shook	1:12 AM (20 hours ago)
to me

Dear Bryan,

Thank you very much for your email. Amongst our Dutch Harbor port calls and shenanigans, I knew I couldn't leave this place without bringing something back for the Spirit. That and my parents were getting tired of me always sending back boat books, so I'm very glad my contributions to her forecastle library helped from afar. I'm sorry to hear about Captain Dan leaving and the lightning strike (Uncle Ben had mentioned it beforehand, but I didn't want to ask anything of it until I saw the blog post.). Even after a year here, I miss home greatly, and Spirit along with my city. Congrats on working out y'all's arrangement with Gamage. The blog, to see y'all's passionate updates, means a great deal to me. 

Here's an update/ something for the blog/ bit of background if you'd like...please note; the views expressed herein are explicitly my own and in no way represent the official positions of the Coast Guard. 

Although he was born in Vancouver, Canada, before becoming the sole US Coast Guardsman to earn the Medal of Honor, the service Douglas Albert Munro enlisted into was far different than the one today. Instead of even reporting for basic training, after a brief TDY period at Base Los Angeles, Munro reported straight to his ship, USCGC Spencer (who's equally historic sister ship, the Ingham was once moored across the Cooper river from Spirit at Patriot's Point.) and quickly struck (shadowing into rate.) Signalman. This was on the eve of American entry into WW2, and shortly after war was declared he transferred an attack transport, and took on the duties of Coxswain for the small boats/ landing craft Tragically, Munro's life was cut short on Guadalcanal, 27 September 1942. When serving as Coxswain/ OIC of a group of 8 Higgins boats in charge of rescuing Marines trapped behind Japanese lines, he signaled and maneuvered his craft into the line of fire and provided cover. Up to 500+ were saved, and as he lay dying from the bullet in his neck, his last words were "Did we get them off?". 

This was basically the run down of Douglas Munro that a paper thin, threadbare and worn book of paintings originally published for the bicentennial belonging to my grandfather, Moments in History offered. Mentioning that, at the time one of the Coast Guard's new cutters being built to replace the 327's such as the Ingham and Spencer, would soon be named for this hero. In reading and re-reading that little yellowed book over the years to come, first as child when I didn't even know how to read only admire the paintings of treacherous seas, white caps, wooden ships, iron men and eventually steam engines that didn't explode, to the eve of my enlistment and the night before I shipped out for basic, I never, not in years and even the slightest background knowledge that this class of ships was on its way out, having been slowly reduced in both arms and compliment since the end of the Cold War (when these ships originally carried a 5in gun, Active sonar, Air-surface search radar, CIWS systems that worked post late 80s FRAM, depth charge racks, torpedo tubes, a towed sonar array, and even at one harpoon missiles.) imagined that would be my first boat. (Actually, for a while I did call second, but then the BMs yelled at me for that.). 

A very wise man once said, "war is mostly waiting.". And although the days of the 378s setting sail for Vietnam (where they were allegedly prefered over other Naval vessels for gunfire support, due to their shallower draft allowing in closer access and movement, resulting in greater accuracy.) and the Persian gulf (where this ship at one point set sail for.) up here, that's only half true. In looking at the charts in the QMOW (quartermaster of the watch.) corner or even in CIC on occasion, one can see spots marked "unexploded ordnance", left over from the brutal Aluetian campaign of WW2 when the Japanese occupied the nearby islands of Attu and Kiska (Unalaska's port of Dutch Harbor was bombed, and despite the increased military presence on island, our homeport Kodiak saw no action). Old quonset huts and bunkers line the side of Ballyhoo take sight almost as soon as we pull in. There's a small history museum just by the airport (since closed due to COVID during all of our port calls.). The other up here 24/7, it's a war against the cold, on look out late at night and into the early morning hours. The wind in your face when you're scraping rust to try and prep for a good paint job whenever it gets warm enough to paint...eventually (although a steel cutter and a replica pilot schooner are worlds apart, somethings still never change.) or just trying to light a cigarette on the fantail, and fatigue from. Against the failures of equipment and machinery dating back to the Cold War. A sharp eye out on all vessels, Russians getting too close to the maritime boundary (they're out there, we just haven't seen any yet.) or domestic fishing boats, anything from small trawlers and longliners, to factory processing vessels for the season from Seattle. Neither The Guardian nor Deadliest Catch (or as some grizzled personnel on the ship refer to it, "enemy propaganda".). Since the early 2000's, when Mark Bayne was meeting with friends over beer to discuss building a tall ship, Douglas Munro, in keeping with her tradition of excellence coming on close to 50 years, beginning ocean station patrols out Boston during the early 70s, stood the watch up here, leaving the presumably more temperate climates of EASTPAC counter drug & migrant interdiction patrols behind for a presence out on the last frontier (as all the license plates put it.). These past two patrols I've been on, much to the ire of the OS's...thankfully nothing's happened. Although a framed newspaper clipping from 2007 posted just outside the XO's stateroom provides a stark reminder of the last time something did. The case of the FV Alaska Ranger, in which coordinating with various helicopter assets and at flank speed, the Munro (when it was still just the Munro before the new National Security Cutters, one of which they just commissioned in Charleston, took our name and forced us to rename the ship to Douglas Munro.) helped save 42 out of the 47 personnel. 

In keeping with the sometimes boring routine life underway, the only real personal updates I can give are that I mess cooked up forward (wiping down tables and setting up plates, silverware, food and condiments for the wardroom and chief's mess.), at one point broke in for helo tie-down (wound up changing my mind though but still.), and made temporary Cutterman (award for six months of sea time and completing necessary qualifications.). We pulled in about 10 days ago, and after a short week of stand down, this dockside promises to be busy. Right now, we're in the process of painting the ship in preparation for the 24 April decommissioning ceremony, to which the Commandant, the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard, both Alaska state senators as well family of Douglas Munro will be the principal guests of honor. Shortly after that, we get "underway" if you can even call it that with our status for Seattle, with an ammo/ SAR pyrotechnics offload along the way. The original plan was for the People's Republic of Sri Lanka to purchase the ship and several crew members stay for training phases, but due to political reasons concerning their standing with the Chinese Government, that's no longer happening and is currently making a lot of people's PCSing quite difficult. 

And amidst the flurry of Ospho and white paint (PSX700 to be exact.), that's where I'm at, and rather frustrated. I've been here for a little more than a year, and still haven't the faintest idea of what I want to do. Last summer, when I was TDY after I broke my foot, and the Chief asked me which rates I'd be interested in shadowing so as to get out of the office, it was easier to pick what I didn't want to do (not aviation, nor BM, nor support rate.) than what I did. Right now, despite the bravado we in deck department give them, I've been really thinking about the engineering side of things, particularly EM or MK (machinery technician.) After spending a while in deck, it's time for me to do something different. The thing is either one would be a shot in the dark, and they're both subjects where I've little background. A top that, I've already got orders to my next ship for after deccomm, USCGC Anacapa. She's 110 foot island class patrol boat out of Petersburg (a destination highly recommended by Uncle Ben and others aboard the ship.), and was the one that sank that Japanese squid jigger that had drifted abandoned across the Pacific for a year after that one earthquake & tsunami. My sort of "plan" (truth be told I'm making this up as I go along.) is to coast (pun intended.) through decomm, Seattle, and through to Petersburg before trying to get slowly more engrained in the engineering side of this things, which ideally would go smoother than on here since she's a smaller ship. 

Beyond that and COVID, that's pretty much it.

I know that was more that a brief update, but I hope that answers your questions. Thanks as always for your time reading this. 

Talk soon, and say hi to everyone back on Spirit for me!  

-A. Shook