Glenn Gallup EM3 2048-815 USCGR 1959-1967

 

 

Kathleen has asked me to blog about growing up in Texas. My plan is to crawl up to the subject sideways like a crab. But when I’m done it should be a good series of posts. People who know me well know I was in the Coast Guard. The U.S.C.G. was founded in 1790, the Coasties and Marines have had a longstanding dispute about who came first. I’m not too worried about this, it was a long time ago. As was my service. Why the Coast Guard? Here’s where we get to Texas. After WW2 we moved to a subdivision South of downtown Houston. One of our neighbors was a fisherman and he had two sons a little younger than me. I had a fishing pole so I got to go along. His favorite spot was on the mainland just across from the Coast Guard Lifesaving Station on the inland side of Galveston Island. It was right on the East end, shielded from the Gulf and was probably good duty excluding Hurricane season. There was a crew quarters and a boat house on the highest part of the property. The boathouse had an elevated track that went into the water, inside the boathouse was a 26 foot a self righting motorized lifesaving boat  like this one.

Most of the time while we were fishing nothing much went on. An enlisted man might be tending the yard or sunbathing. Then a siren would sound and all hell would break loose. Guys would come running out of the crew quarters into the boat house, the doors would swing open and the boat would start rolling down the tracks with some guys pushing the cart it was cradled on.  About halfway down the engine would fire and by the time they hit the water the Coasties were mission ready. The coxswain was the only one you could see. He stuck his head out of a rubberized watertight gasket around his neck. The boat could roll over 360 degrees and he was the only guy who got wet. .And it was only his head.

So fast forward to 1953.  I moved to California, I forgot about fishing, I forgot about baseball, there were hotrods and California girls,  by 1959 I had my first aborted run at College. Vietnam was a blip on the horizon. Military service made a good bridge. One of my HS friends told me about the Coast Guard Reserve program designed for students and I signed up. I can’t say watching that boat head down the tracks and disappear into the Gulf of Mexico to save somebody was the deciding factor but it was a factor.