http://www.uscg.mil/announcements/alcoast/ALCOAST36708.txt
The Coast Guard wants to get a bit more “hooyah” by jumping on the special operations forces bandwagon with a new program that could put as many as 28 of its personnel into elite Navy SEAL teams by 2016.
Under an agreement signed in early August among the Navy, Coast Guard and U.S. Special Operations Command, as many as four Coastguardsmen from across the service will be selected each year to undergo the rigorous SEAL training, including Basic Underwater Demolition School and follow-on instruction. Eventually they would become full-fledged members of SEAL commando teams deployed to terrorist war zones.
Coast Guard officials say this limited number of Coasties-turned-SEALs re-entering their ranks after a tour in the special warfare community — which could last as many as seven years — will be a boon for morale, training and job skills in a service that bridges the worlds of counter-terrorism operations and law enforcement.
“What this does is it provides us better capability, increased competencies, more experience and greater knowledge to do the things that we are already doing today,” said Rear Adm. Thomas Atkin, commander of the Coast Guard’s Deployable Operations Group which deals with specialized counter-terrorism and military missions.
“They’re going to be able to bring back an esprit de corps that you learn within the SEAL community. We don’t always have that,” Atkin added during an Aug. 15 interview with military bloggers. “We have a great service, I’m very proud to wear the blue, but the esprit de corps that comes out of the folks that go to BUDS [and] members of SEAL teams … those experiences, that knowledge, that mindset are all things that are going to benefit the Coast Guard in the long term.”