“The Chain of Command is the Problem”
A Long Past-Due History and Reconsideration of the Coast Guard’s Current ‘Overstory’
The public was shocked when CNN first reported on the US Coast Guard’s cover up of the disgraceful Operation Fouled Anchor report in 2023. Commissioned and enlisted Coasties alike were not, however. We knew that our reports of sexual assault, harassment, and retaliation had been mishandled. We knew that our careers would be jeopardized if we were to report the crimes committed against us. Reality does not match the current Overstory. Coasties know this because our careers exist below the forest’s canopy deep within the Understory. The Overstory that the Coast Guard ultimately sold to the public is best summarized in three words; its own proclaimed core values of Honor, Respect and Devotion to Duty. Yet this Overstory is a carefully crafted facade meant to blur its true foundation of dishonor, disrespect, and disregard for responsibility.
In a service that was rife with abuse of women, minorities, and others deemed “less than” for decades, it was imperative that a fail-safe Overstory overwrite the unsavory Understory in the new millennium. After all, given the formation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, the Coast Guard had a new and highly visible mission in an age where information disseminated over the internet within seconds. The media battlefield had shifted since the Gulf War and the powers that be knew that they’d need an Overstory if they were to pin stars on their -and their friends’- shoulders in the Post 9/11 landscape. Reality couldn’t get in the way of making it to Admiral.
In 2006, the US Coast Guard ushered in their new Era of Paralogizomai. This would be an era in which, despite decades of adverse internal reports, lawmakers and the media would revere the Coast Guard as the nation’s saviors and bastions of virtue. Whistleblower accounts that ran counter to this new Overstory could easily be discredited - and not by the Coast Guard Public Affairs Office - but by lawmakers and the media alike. The Coast Guard PAO simply needed to release occasional stories of Academy sports successes or pictures of kittens being saved in the latest hurricane. The maintenance of this Overstory, once established, was simple because the public was wholly beguiled - victim of biblical paralogizomai. The Coast Guard would have the media doing its dirty work for it. It was a genius move: whistleblowers wouldn’t stand a chance at being heard.
In order to understand how the Coast Guard used paralogizomai to fool the American media at the turn of the last century, we need to examine what detritus exists below the understory and on the Coast Guard’s forest floor. After all, it is the forest floor that determines the health of the forest itself. Here lies the account of former Academy cadet Webster Smith - the case upon which the Coast Guard took the opportunity to rewrite decades of truth and reality. Webster Smith, a young black cadet who in 2006 endured the first General Court Martial a cadet has ever faced, was used to write the Coast Guard’s new Overstory. The very Overstory that ultimately fooled Congress, the media, and you.
The timing and circumstances of Webster Smith’s General Court Martial are too precise to be coincidental - it very well may be the reason why Operation Fouled Anchor is still a Coast Guard secret. His story is one of a spiteful ex-girlfriend that stopped at nothing to save her career at another’s expense, sordid cadet-command relationships, and the abortion of a child consensually conceived between the ex-girlfriend in question and an Enlisted man. That very pregnancy was later used as evidence of rape against cadet Webster Smith. Then there’s the abuse of Military Rule of Evidence 412 by the prosecution team, illegal detainment on a US Navy base without charges, and eventual collusion committed by that same ex-girlfriend on Coast Guard email servers to talk about. Is it any wonder why this story exists amongst rotting debris on this forest floor?
Yet, Webster Smith’s story, in all of its convolution and relative inconceivability, is not complete without being put into the broader context of the US Coast Guard Academy, circa 2003-2007.
The Academy Command in the 2000s was composed of white male Academy graduates of the 1970s - a decade in which women were finally permitted to enter the service thanks to the work of Admiral John Briggs Hayes (Ret.). Hayes was ultimately responsible for the full, nearly-unrestricted integration of women into the Corps of Cadets in 1976. How did that ultimately work out? Hayes himself states,
[B]y the time I retired [in 1985], I couldn't point to a single major factor that suggested the decision [to integrate women without restriction] adversely affected the performance of the Coast Guard. I awarded Coast Guard medals to female coxswains, reviewed outstanding fitness reports on female commanding officers of patrol boats, and found nothing to suggest a change.
Yet, Hayes admits in the same interview that the Academy is a “complex society” and that, in hindsight, “clearly the man’s world felt threatened” by women’s successes. No where else is this resentment more apparent than inside the US Coast Guard Academy class of 1979’s class rings themselves - which are rumored to be inscribed with the letters “L.C.W.B”. Self-declared as the “Last Class With Balls”, the class of 1979 was the last class of all men to graduate. Several men in the class of 1979 and their predecessors, took this attitude of hubris and resentment into the fleet with them.
Fast forwarding to 1990 - 11 years into the Last Class With Balls’ careers - an internal USCG report highlighted known service concerns regarding Sexual Assault/Sexual Harassment (SA/SH) and reported the following:
Interviews revealed another reason for not reporting [SA/SH]. When interview groups were asked if the chain of command worked in redress of grievances, a frequent reply was, “the chain of command is the problem.”
The Coast Guard had a critical leadership problem and they knew it.
Interestingly, the word “Respect” wasn’t added to the service’s core values until 1994 - 4 years after critical leadership failures were identified within the ranks in 1990:
“In 1993-1994, the Coast Guard as an organization was focusing on issues of diversity in its work force. The Service completed a "Women in the Coast Guard Study" in 1990, which indicated a number of leadership issues that needed attention to insure the fair treatment of women (Women in the Coast Guard Study). In 1992 the Coast Guard Academy completed an institutional Climate Assessment and Cultural Audit, which indicated a number of problems regarding the professional treatment of women and minorities (Culture and Climate Assessment). The military and civilian work force of the Coast Guard was becoming more diverse and the Coast Guard needed to place organizational emphasis on "respect" issues.”
The Last Class With Balls was leaving a mark within the US Coast Guard and it clearly wasn’t one of Honor, Respect and Devotion to Duty.
The class president of the Last Class With Balls was Commandant of Cadets at the Academy when the need for a new Overstory became critical in 2006. Now armed with Four Stripes on his shoulder, this CAPT used his power and influence to oppress the Corps of Cadets - unsuspecting and malleable 18 year-old kids with a sincere wish to serve their country, and a heart for the core values. This CAPT was faced with three SA/SH cases within a 12 month period from January 2005-January 2006. Two were handled in the typical Coast Guard fashion of victim-blaming, intimidation and botched administrative investigations. The other, Webster Smith’s, was not only used to manipulate the media and resulted in Smith’s incarceration, it had an immeasurably adverse effect on today’s current leadership.
Webster Smith presented the Academy’s Command with the perfect opportunity to preserve the Coast Guard’s status quo and create a reputation that was palatable to lawmakers and the media. The public’s general fear of black men could be provoked by releasing Smith’s steely-faced football photo instead of his smiling cadet portrait to the media outlets. It was a shrewd move that capitalized on the public’s historical fear of black men and distaste for interracial relationships. Both of which are further amplified within the Coast Guard itself.
Smith’s (white) ex-girlfriend had no physical evidence, no eyewitnesses, or a confession as in the case of Cadet X. The Article 32 Investigating Officer in the Smith case ultimately recommended against taking the case to General Court Martial due to this lack of evidence, but the Superintendent and Commandant of Cadets didn’t care. They ended up finding another JAG that would take Smith’s ex-girlfriend’s accusations to court martial anyway. In order to ensure a conviction once in the courtroom, the Command and Smith’s ex-girlfriend went mining for evidence. Some evidence was twisted to fit the narrative they needed for a conviction. Most was manufactured. The ex-girlfriend went so far as to collude with other Cadets and a Navy Midshipman on Coast Guard email servers in hopes of straightening out their stories for court. All played along save for one brave cadet.
The Academy Command showed extraordinary deference to Smith’s ex-girlfriend and not other victims for one of two main reasons. First and foremost was the immediate need for an Overstory as Cadet X’s family was threatening legal action against the Coast Guard. Going to the media first with news of the Webster Smith General Court Martial on February 16, 2006 under the guise of transparency ensured that any conflicting story would be unbelievable. Why wouldn’t local Connecticut media outlets like The Day, or the Hartford Courant believe a Coast Guard Admiral or Captain over a young, black cadet?
Why wasn’t Cadet X’s assailant’s face published on the front page of the national press outlets like Webster Smith’s? Why wasn’t my assailant punished, much less sent to General Court Martial? Operation Fouled Anchor victims never had the ears of their commands quite like Webster Smith’s ex-girlfriend had with Academy Command in 2005. What sort of relationship will get you the ear of your command as a cadet? What sort of motive drives grown men to pursue a General Court Martial against sound legal judgment, due process, and discretion?
Webster Smith’s civil rights were violated, he was court-martialed against legal judgment, and incarcerated on manufactured evidence in the spring of 2006. The manipulation of Military Rule of Evidence 412 prevented Webster Smith from presenting evidence in court that proved his innocence on the charges of sodomy and extortion. The recruited victim pleaded her 5th Amendment right to remain silent in the pretrial hearing, but then later testified at trial. What happened between the pretrial hearing and the trial itself? Was she granted immunity?
The media wasn’t ever proactively fed a SA/SH story like they did in Webster Smith’s case. And when ultimately questioned about my case after I came forward to tell my story in the midst of Smith’s Court Martial, the Academy spokesman accused me of “hiding behind the Privacy Act”, and conspired to cover my story with paralogizomai in an effort to silence me. I’ll demonstrate how this happened in Part II of this essay series. Cadet X and her family faced threats from the Command after they threatened to report what happened to authorities. “You can’t sue me, I have governmental immunity,” and “what if you ended up dead in a ditch?” may have been thrown around.
My assailant is still serving in the Coast Guard as an O5-select in Charleston and Cadet X’s assailant is a Senior Vice President in NYC. Webster Smith ended up incarcerated and on the sex offender registry. My and Cadet X’s cases were handled in a historically typical fashion. The victims in the Smith case were handled like prized unicorns. His case is highly irregular; the likes of which we haven’t seen since. Ultimately, his case coincided with the firing of the Superintendent - also the only time that has ever happened. That is not a coincidence.
This essay is the first of a 4-part series on the Coast Guard’s use of paralogizomai to rewrite decades of abuse, leadership failures, and retaliation in 2005 and 2006. I am not a writer or journalist, but what happened at the Academy under the 2006 Command needs reconsideration and a new Overstory to be written. I was there, and I know what happened. Sunlight is not only the best disinfectant, it is an essential source of energy for the germination of seeds on the forest floor. It is my hope that this series sheds enough light to start this process.
Comments will be turned off for all entries. Caitlin can be reached at cesmaro@protonmail.com