Episode 78: Steve Denning - BMC (Ret) - Station OIC - Motor Lifeboats - PACTACLET - Black Hulls

They Had to Go Out

Chief Boatswains Mate Steve Denning (Ret.) talks the nighttime race to rescue nineteen people, fourteen of them children, from a capsized boat at the entrance to the port of Los Angeles/Long Beach, the struggle to conduct a search beneath an overturned hull, commanding a Coast Guard station as its Officer in Charge, rescuing and repatriating dozens of Haitian migrants after weeks at sea, breaking in coxswain at Station Barnegat Light and signing his letter as the crew runs to the sound of a SAR alarm, lessons in boat handling and seamanship from a Surfman mentor at Tillamook Bay, balancing risk to a boat crews with the demands of missions at sea, stopping a boat in a high speed and uncontrolled spin in one of his first cases, crewing black hulls and working CG-6P lanterns, deploying for counter drug patrols on more than forty naval ships with PACTACLET, managing the demands of family with those of military service, applying officer discretion during a boarding that didn’t feel right, meeting Davey Jones and Neptune’s court at the equator, and intercepting arms, munitions, and suspected mercenaries aboard a boat bound for South America. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theyhadtogoout/support