Image Up Advertising & Design

Larry Workman — U.S. Coast Guard The various branches of the military gave an enlistment presentation while I was in high school. I chose the United States Coast Guard for my military service because I didn't want to be drafted. I reported to "boot camp" after graduation and at the end of summer vacation. My enlistment included some fantastic locations and duties. Being assigned to a 327-foot cutter was the first adventure. Our mission was to sail from San Francisco to Los Angeles and then to Honolulu, Hawaii, to accompany a 95-foot cutter. This was during the winter months, and we were confined to the ship's interior for the duration of the 13-day voyage due to rough seas and the risk of being washed overboard. During the trip, the seas were so rough that we could see "green water" crashing over the ship's bridge and hear the screws (propellers) spinning out of the water. Because the 95-footer couldn't produce fresh water and had insufficient fuel for the journey, we made a ship-to-ship transfer between the two cutters every afternoon. One day it's for water, the next day it's for fuel. This was the only time we could be topside for a few hours! Furthermore, because I was an Engineman, my workspace was in the lower "bowels" of the ship during the voyage, so that is when I got to see the sunlight. Finally, we arrived in Honolulu and saw the famous Aloha Tower, then we spent about five days there before returning to San Francisco. The return trip was only five days long, and it was so much smoother and more enjoyable. Later on, while patrolling the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports as a Coast Guard function, I would be stationed on a 38-foot patrol boat or cruising in a vehicle conducting warehouse and facility security checks of the ports. The patrol boat duty was way more interesting, rescuing burning and sinking personal craft, and even sometimes the "day trip" fishing boats. We received a call one night about two young men stranded on the rock breakwater between the two harbors. I'm still not sure how they got there! But we needed to get them back without crashing our cutter into the rocks. Needless to say, we succeeded in our mission. "You have to go out, but you don't have to come back," is the Coast Guard's selfless epitome. We received a call one morning after an all-night patrol shift that an oil tanker that already had previously grounded off the Palos Verdes Peninsula and was being salvaged had caught fire. As a necessary consequence, we were immediately redirected to the fire scene to help extinguish it. After several hours, we were able to put out the flames with the support of several other cutters. We also received accommodations from the "Captain of the Port" (the ranking officer overseeing the two ports) as a side effect of our efforts. I rose through the ranks of the Coast Guard and achieved the rating of Engineman, 2nd Class Petty Officer with a Port Security specialty, which required additional training for atomic, biological, and chemical disasters. Veterans Day occurs on November 11 every year in honor of the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918 that signaled the end of the World War I. Originally known as Armistice Day, it became a national federal holiday in 1938, to honor the Veterans of WWI. In 1954, Congress changed the day to Veterans Day to honor American Veterans of all wars. It continues today as a day to honor Veterans "for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice for the common good." Board of Directors Veterans - In their own words… Larry Workman in uniform 14 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | NOVEMBER 2021

• Cover