Coast Guard taking heat for training

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/11/coast-guarg-fires-boat-potomac-river/

Found another story that got my attention on Fox. Apparently the Coast Guard is getting all sorts of heat because they conducted a training exercise on the Potomac at the same time the president was at the 9/11 Memorial Ceremony. The story says that the White House is demanding an apology but the Coast Guard is refusing claiming they done nothing wrong. Apparently this training exercise made the news causing major interruptions because it was reported that shots were fired on a vessel. The scare escalated to the Federal Aviation Administration holding flights out of Reagan International Airport. Now because of this story they are further degrading the Coast Guard claiming they shouldn’t have even been conducting training on September 11 as it is a day of remembrance of the terrible tragedy in 2001.

Overall I think this is a big load of crap. The Coast Guard said there were no suspicious boats in the area and there were no shots that were fired during the training exercise. The Coast Guard said this was a typical training exercise as they conduct every other day. And all the interruptions such as the FAA grounding flights was a result of a news story from the Cable News Network (CNN). This story was uninformed and a perfect example of the scare that journalism can produce when reporters don’t bother to fact-check and just air whatever in case it is happening so they can be first. Journalism overall puts more impact on being first rather than being correct and it shouldn’t. This reporter believed that there were shots fired because they heard, “Bang, bang, bang,” over the radio. The Coast Guard stated they used this transmission, and this transmission alone, to simulate shots being fired during their training exercise. How many professional agencies do you think would use the words, “Bang, bang, bang” if they were taking fire? Not to mention the Coast Guard uses encrypted radio transmissions for normal operations. The only reason this radio traffic was not encrypted was because they were training. This being another clue that this wasn’t an actual situation. And even the White House is questioning the timing saying that this is a day of remembrance. Does the White House actually expect everyone to do nothing on this day? I don’t get off work for 9/11. Do any of you? And the White House would be the first to point fingers if something happened and their training was not up to standard because they were sitting around all day.

The fact of the matter is no one would have even been aware of the Coast Guard’s activities if this crumby reporter hadn’t put out a bogus story. This reporter put out this story even after calling the Coast Guard themselves and being told that nothing was taking place. I thank the men and women of the Coast Guard, as well as the other services, for their sacrifice and their commitment to this great country. Please do not let a little bit of stupidity inhibit you from doing your jobs.