Lou sent on this update about his grandson.
“Chris is one of my grandsons who is serving on the Coast Guard Cutter James. Chris is the senior enlisted member of the crew(E-8). In fact, I think that he is the youngest E-8 in the Coast Guard.“
Below is a recent email from Chris:
What an amazing couple of weeks. I'm writing a quick email between watches because I want to share something pretty awesome with you.
We were conducting gunnery exercises off of Hampton Roads, VA when we were tasked to cancel that and make best speed to the Grand Bahama Islands.
After 2 days of steaming through Dorian's 15+ foot waves, we arrived on the tail end of the storm. We were the first surface asset to arrive on scene and we immediately began humanitarian aid operations by fueling helicopters almost constantly. We nearly ran out of gas until other assets arrived.
We had a reporter come aboard on day three and she wrote an article that is linked below that I wanted to share. I don't usually like embedding reporters into operations like this. They distract from the mission mainly because the crew is on egg shells when they are around. However, it has dawned on me that they are necessary to get the story out on what we do during times like this. So many people have no idea what the Coast Guard does and that's disheartening.
This time I seized the opportunity and made it a point to talk to Ms. Maria as much as I could so she had the best information for her article. I was extremely cautious to what I told her and how I told her the JAMES' story. I didn't want to be quoted because I'd rather not detract from the ship, the ship speaks through her actions and reputation. It wasn't all rainbows and sunshine and this was incredibly mentally and emotionally draining.
However, on a lighter note, Maria did a pretty good job and when she writes about the white board and the medevacs, that was me talking her through how the Operations Specialists work and some of our accomplishments. That's my team and my "shop". I'm very proud of what they have accomplished. I think the article came out pretty well.
'Everything I have is gone': Crews race to rescue survivors of Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas
September 6 With time running out to save stranded survivors of Hurricane Dorian, Bahamian and U.S. rescue crews combed through rubble in the hardest-hit areas Friday and braced for the death toll to rise.