Washington, D.C.—Coast Guard Vice Commandant, Vice Adm. Charlie Ray and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard, Master Chief Jason M. Vanderhaden speak during a Memorial Day observance at the Douglas A. Munro Coast Guard Headquarters building in Washington, D.C., May 21, 2020. U.S. Coast Guard video by Telfair Brown
Transcript
[Edward] Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I am Lieutenant Edward Sandlin your master of ceremony for today’s event. Thank you for joining us as we honor those who have died in service to their country, and to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second World War. The official party for today’s event is the 31st Vice Commandant of the United States Coast Guard, Admiral Charles Ray. and the 13th Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Master Chief Jason Vander Heiden. Our distinguished guests include deputy Commandant for Operation Vice Admiral Daniel Abel, and Deputy Commandant for Mission Support Vice Admiral Michael McAllister. We would like to recognize the woman and men at Coast Guard headquarters who took time from their work to pause and reflect on our services history. Thank you for attending. Please rise for the arrival of the official party and remain standing for the national anthem and invocation. Now, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard arriving. Now Vice Commandant arriving.
Hands salute
♪ Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light ♪ ♪ What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming ♪ ♪ Whose broad stripes and bright stars, ♪ ♪ Through the perilous fight ♪ ♪ O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming ♪ ♪ And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air ♪ ♪ Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there ♪ ♪ O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave ♪ ♪ O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave ♪
Parade drop. Commander Cynthia Cain, Deputy Chaplain of the Coast Guard will now deliver the invocation.
Let us pray. God who each of us knows in our own way, yet similarly in each of our hearts, we turn our thoughts on this memorial day to the past sacrifices of those who died in the name of our nation, and in service of its ideas, including the more than 2122 members of our coast guard, whose lives have been lost since the Quasi-War with France in 1798. On this the 75th anniversary of this Second World Wars end. We hear places like Normandy and Halloway, Saipan, Pololu and Iwo Jima, and today we remember not only the Coast Guard being the first in that fight, and its missions on such high seas and at home, but also we turn our hearts and our minds to our shipmates who lived and died in places like the Hamilton and Iceland, the Wakefield and Singapore and the Serpens of the coast of the Guadalcanal. Yes, God we commemorate our fallen of distant and recent conflicts. Even more so though God, our hearts and souls are heavy with the sacrifice borne by their families. May our tribute to them today symbolized by the laying of a wreath in their memory, be a reminder that even more important than how long we live is how well we live. Living Well is especially poignant for us today as we fight an unseen enemy. Bless all of us here and around the globe, with such courage and strength, to face the perils that beset our world and a sense of your abiding presence as we navigate our way through this uncharted sea. We humbly pray. Amen. Thank you, chaplain, please be seated. It is now my pleasure to introduce Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard, Master Chief Jason Vander Heiden.
Good morning. Memorial Day is the day we remember all those who have come before us and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. The Coast Guard workforces has exemplified our current core values in every battle since 1790, without fail, largely due to the leadership, courage and strength of our people. This year is an extra special year for remembering our chief petty officers. It marks the 100th anniversary of the Chief Petty Officer, the backbone and foundation of the enlisted workforce, the Deckplate leaders. Often, I say the chiefs run the ship so the officers can fight the ship. And leadership like that is never been truer than with our first Masters Chief here at the Coast Guard Charles Calhoun. He is a man who served in two services and in two wars. He began his career in the US Navy in 1943 aboard the USS Lunga point, he experienced firsthand the toughest battles fought in the Pacific theater, Leyte Golf, Lausanne, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. After being honorably discharged as a Torpedoman 2nd class February of 1946. Calhoun enlisted as Boatswain’s mate second class in US Coast Guard on September 20, and also 1946. During his 30 years of service, Calhoun served 14 years at sea, including a tour aboard the USS Orient in Vietnam. On their first patrol the crew started an exchange fire with an enemy company of soldiers ashore, becoming the first Coast Guard cutter to fire a shot in that war. On August 27th, of 1969, in a monumental moment in our services history, Calhoun assumed the watch as the first Master Chief Petty officer of the Coast Guard. He crossed the bar in 2002. And soon we will name the 10th National Security Cutter after Charles Calhoun. Today we remember those service members like Signalman first class Douglas Monroe, Lieutenant Jim Crotty, Senior Chief Terrell Horne, DC3 Nathan Bruckenthal, and all who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. But also let us not forget the bravery of GM3 Frank DeVito, Master Chief Calhoun himself, whose leadership courage and strength continue to set the bar for exemplary service throughout the coast guard as we combat today’s difficult and uncertain times. May we never forget their tremendous accomplishments.
Thank you, Master Chief Vander Heiden. It is now my distinct pleasure to introduce Vice Commandant of the Coast Guard Admiral Charles Ray.
Good morning, everybody. Welcome.
I thank all of you that are here today in person. And there are those that will watch this ceremony on their computer on however they received the technology these days, I think it is all together fitting and important that we adapt and be innovative to continue to recognize those in our service, and in all the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, who have served and made the ultimate sacrifice. What we’ve done to prioritizes ceremonies is altogether fitting. We won’t have parades or many big ceremonies this year in our nation, but I do find solace and I think I am certain that the families of our fallen will find comfort and they will find a degree of solace and comforted by the fact that we are gathered in small groups like this and the citizens of our nation, all across this nation will gather to honor their loved ones. I think it’s especially important that we as coast guards gather on this Memorial Day as we do on all Memorial Days. Because we are connected to the names that the Mass Chief talked about, we are connected to that long blue line,. We share a common oath with Douglas Monroe and Nathan Bruckenthal, we understand what it means to raise your right hand and take the oath as Jimmy Crotty did. And while we have not, nor would I say that anywhere near reached the sacrifice of these folks made, we have a common bond, we are Coast Guardsmen. So as we have been all the way back to 1790, in every battle that this nation has fought, Coast Guardsmen have fought and some have died and we are connected to them in a way that is unique and so it’s important that we’re here. As the chaplain mentioned, this is very an important Memorial Day because this is the 75th anniversary of the victory in World War II. And suffice it to say that every Coastie and every other servicemen that served in that conflict, this was not the results, the stakes of that conflict will achieve the future of the world. Whether we would live in tyranny or whether we live in democracies. And while today we have our challenges as a country and many countries do, what we have in America is a free democracy. And we have that right. We earned that right. That right was earned by the blood of those that fell in that battle that ended 75 years ago this year. In the course of my career, I’ve had the opportunity to go where these coasties served and where they fell. I’ve stood on the water’s edge of Normandy and looked up at those cliffs and just tried to imagine what it would be like to be in a Higgins Boat coming ashore and I was just altogether humble. And Words cannot describe if you just kinda put yourself in their shoes and their boondockers, if you will in their Mae West, and that Higgins Boat. I’ve had the chance to visit Saipan and Guam where we came ashore and put Marines ashore, been out to the Aleutians in the wintertime, where the Battle of Kiska and Attu and where folks served in some of the roughest weather was in all together, I’m just humbled by the service of those that have gone before us and I think anyone would be that had the chance to observe that I know you all hold them in the high regard that I do. What I thought I would do just briefly is kinda make this a little more personal because in this past year, had the chance to reflect on Memorial Day to reflect on the fallen with some families. This past 29th of January, on a ceremony put on by the CPOA we gathered around the Serpens Memorial which the chaplain mentioned. The USS Serpens was the Liberty ship in service in the South Pacific and she ran cargo from you name it, everywhere from Auckland, New Zealand to the Solomons to Samoa and everywhere in between. In the course of that duty when on the 29th of January 1945, massive explosion, all hands on board except for two coasters were lost. Greatest loss of life, single loss of life in coastguard history in one time. As I gathered with a small crew of coasties around the Serpens Memorial this past January, there were some people there and we knew they were family members. We kinda knew some folks made that trip. And I was drawn to this group of people that were obviously connected there was about a half dozen, or probably about a dozen, ranging from little kids all the way up to the grand daddies. After the ceremony, which was relatively short, less than half hour, I went up to talk to them And these people were from Indiana. It was the Crow family, they were the relatives of seaman 1st class Renard Mason Crow, who was assigned Serpens and died on 29th of January 1945. And they had been coming to this ceremony, some portion that family ever since he was interred with his shipmates in Arlington, in the late 40s. And I was drawn to this one particular gentleman, he’s a kinda obviously the patriarchs grandfather. He was the little brother of seaman 1st class Renard Crow, and he talked about his brother as if he just seen him yesterday. He talked about him when he left and he talked about the letters they got, he talked about his mom expecting him to home, this is in 45, the war was almost over. And he talked about his brother ’cause I’ve been thinking this family they drove in two cars all the way from Indiana, thousand miles for about a 15 minutes ceremony. And I thought this is so important to this family and the remembrance of their loved one. I could tell from that Grandpa, the little brother, that every day he thought about what it would have been like if his brother was still around. So remembering those people to those families that have fallen is really important, Memorial Day matters. It matters to those as it does to us. And then I recall this pet about a year ago, a little over a year ago, May 19th. In San Diego, we commissioned Coast Guard Cutter Benjamin Bottoms, and I will be forever thankful for Master Chief Skip Bowen for his push to name these cutters after Coast Guard enlisted heroes and I’m particularly drawn to the Benjamin Bottoms and I’ll tell you why. As we commissioned Benjamin Bottoms, you’ve been one of these commissioning ceremonies. They have people that are from the family that participate in the ceremony. And in this case, we had some members of the Bottoms’ family, Radioman 1st class Benjamin Bottoms was in a Grumman Duck assigned to the Coast Guard Cutter Northland, settling the waters off of Greenland, when he lost his life along with Lieutenant Pritchard, but the guy who was in the ceremony, his name wasn’t Bottoms, his name was Tucheron. He was the grandson of airman Al Tucheron. So not to get too long of a story here. But the reason that Bottoms and Pritchard were on that glacier, by greenland is because there was a crash of a B17. They received word of it on the 28th of November. And so they went to recount it they flew up where they lost off in Northen it was just a little bit before dark and they got up there and they landed, first time anybody had ever landed on a glacier and they landed this seaplane on a glacier. They had to track about three miles cross country of northern Alaska stick to keep them from falling in cravasus And they went there and they kinda gathered around this crew the B17 and pretty hard to figured out who was in the worship and they took two of them off. One of them was airman Al Tucheron. The other gentlemen Worley was his last name, he was an Army soldier and he just lived a short while after the war and passed but Tucheron lived a long and productive life. So we’ll know what happened the next day Pritchard and Benjamin Bottoms flew back in their Grumman duck off the off the Northland. And landed again picked up one other survivor. And as they launched to go back to the ship, they were never seen or heard from again. Made the ultimate sacrifice in an effort to save this crew of the B17. But what was remarkable to me when I talk to Frank Tucheron the grandson of admiral Al Tucheron was his grandfather was the patriarch of a large family. And they had many kids that had done great things and done service to the country and had been very successful. And he said that on every family occasion, when the grandfather gathered them around, he said, he talked them about Benjamin Bottoms, Lieutenant John Pritchard and he said, “don’t you ever forget, none of you would be here, “if it were not for the courage and sacrifice of airman, or excuse me, Radioman 1st class, Benjamin Bottoms.” So Memorial Day matters to the Tucheron family, as it does to us and when I tell these stories, because I think well, I know that… You serve in the coast guard not because you wanna make a living, you serving a coast guard ’cause you wanna make a difference and I don’t, for a minute I’m always awed by the dedication and patriotism of our Coast Guardsmen. I’ll tell you, I think it is proper that we take time to pause and reflect on those that have made the ultimate sacrifice. Because as we stay in the watch, as we go about our duties, by thinking about them, taking time to think about them, it increases our resolve to be worthy, to be part of this long blue line and to wear the same uniform, that Seaman 1st class, Renard Crow wore, and then Radioman 1st class Benjamin Bottoms wore and thousands of other Coastie Senses. So, thank you all for being here. God bless y’all Semper Paratus.
Thank you, Admiral Ray. At this time, please rise and remain standing for the wreath presentation.
Hand salute. (Trumpet sounding) Parade put.
[Edward] At ease. Commander Kane will now deliver the benediction.
Let us pray. God as we go from this place, we pray that you look mercifully upon the unrest in this world. May all people be drawn to you and to one another in the bonds of peace. And we pray for all nations, that we might be united in a compassionate community. So, one day an event like this will instead be a celebration of carrying out justice. Loving mercy and walking humbly with you. So, we pray. Amen. Now please Vice Commandant departing. (loud orchestral music playing) Now, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guards departing.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our ceremony. We would like to thank the Coast Guard Band for their contributions to our music programming, the Ceremony Honor Guard, and the Flags Mass for the light refreshments. Thank you for being here with us today. And we wish you and your families a safe and meaningful Memorial Day weekend. Semper Paratus.