Bloggers Roundtable with Admiral Blore

I was invited to participate in today’s DODLive Blogger’s Roundtable, with USCG Rear Admiral Gary T. Blore, assistant commandant for Acquisition.

This was essentially a blogger “press conference” following up on new developments revealed in the March edition of the Acquisition newsletter Delivering the Goods.

Suffice to say that the Coast Guard continues to modernize its fleet, particularly its aircraft. As Ryan Erickson of the Unofficial Coast Guard Blog put it, “So what’s inside this issue? Aircraft, lots and lots of aircraft… oh and my old Command Center in Sector Seattle… the JHOC. And that’s pretty much it other than the Icebreaker question.”

Actually, this newsletter includes the first photograph I’ve seen of the Joint Harbor Operations Center (JHOC) in Seattle. I certainly wasn’t allowed to take pictures during my visit!

Anyway, back to today’s topic. The DODLive Blogger’s Roundtable, my first, was an opportunity for bloggers to ask questions of Rear Admiral Blore directly.

I was curious about plans to arm some Coast Guard helicopters. Had any been armed up to this point? Yes, it turns out a drug enforcement unit, the Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) based in Jacksonville, Florida, was armed starting in the late 1990s.

There was some discussion of the airborne use-of-force guidelines that apply to the Coast Guard, and Lieutenant Tony Migliorini was kind enough to send me a link to some Coast Guard video of offshore weapons training. Very interesting.

If I understand correctly, USCG helicopters will capable of mounting these weapons, but they won’t all be armed all the time. During a search and rescue operation, for instance, the weapons would remain back at base.

The podcast is available here.