Mouse, The Alumni Bulletin is okay but it very limited in scope and circulation. A local historian, an Army major and Ph. D, had a recent article about Randolph Ridgely. It took months to get published.

In the same way "social media" is limited and it does not carry the academic and professional creditability as the more traditional means of publication. The written word will carry the Coast Guard to the future. I am currently working on an article that will describe some of the reasons for a lack of concise Coast Guard history. The trick will find someone who will publish a 10,000+ word essay on the topic. Most popular journals only allow 2,500-3,000 words. This limitation causes an article to return to the skeletal premise unless it is a very narrow topic. Many editors will not accept articles of this depth. They know their readership.

Knowing readership is another key. Getting books published about the Coast Guard is very difficult because the public will not buy them. Without some motivation for publishers the Coast Guard's history will languish on the hard drives of many for years.

As for the Coast Guard lacking forums does not prevent the Coast Guard from supporting the research in its history. I am not the only one to note the Coast Guard is not researcher friendly. The Historian's Office is helpful to the extent that it can be from a staffing and funding point of view. An example of staffing was made apparent in 1990 when the Historian's office had two full time people for 200 years of history (the Coast Guard did not even request a commemorative postage stamp). In contrast, the U. S. Air Force hired 100 professional historians for its 50th anniversary. I realize the difference is budgets, but there was also a difference in attitude. Visit any university library that is a government documents repository and view the great numbers of publications on the USAF. For the purposes of this discussion we will not broach the question about historical honesty done by an organization.

However, even FOIA requests are met with suspicion and wonder. I had a FOIA request for information about Vietnam with the Coast Guard for six years only to be denied largely from a lack of knowledge and records management. I will admit, as I did in a letter to the FOIA office, that my approach was of the shotgun variety, but this was necessary because the Coast Guard possess no indexes, no list, no way of finding documents.

Better access would be one way to improve the interest in writing Coast Guard history. Nevertheless, the Coast Guard has been a "closed" service for so long that it reacts badly at times to inquires.

Mr. Jackson do not throw your books away. I have not. I have shelves full of all manner of Coast Guard history (and not so history) books. I suggest rereading them and look at the themes that are repeated in them. I do not know what books you have but more may be found in some libraries. Then again there is some good historical information on the early service at Google books.

I would like to see a step made to write more professional history of the Coast Guard in World War II. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of historical topics from WWII alone. Why WWII? Because it sells and could be the springboard to getting the public used to reading about the Coast Guard just as the "heroic rescue" genre of fact and fiction did in the 1930s. The Coast Guard was very popular in the 1930s and 1940s. There have been a number of privately published books about the Coast Guard in WWII, but these are not professional nor critical surveys of the events of that era. They are still important adjunct pieces because the convey a personal, if not slanted, viewpoint.

I suppose what is really needed are more topic specialists like Dr. Dennis Noble. He has made a post-service career of writing career. Perhaps the CGA could actually begin a History Major Program. It would every bit as useful as a management program.

Thanks for all the comments. This is an important discussion.

Books such as the the one by my friend, and historical sounding board, Dr. Dennis Noble do more for the Coast Guard than the Service will admit. The reason is by writing such books, or sole subject monographs, the author is able to delve deeply into the subject. We do not find this in past publications. Most are broad outlines of key points and do not actually inform the public nor the members of the Coast Guard. Even to the present these "big" book histories are what Dr. Walter C. Richardson wrote of Captain Stephen Evans now classic 1949, and so called "Definitive", history of the Coast Guard.

Richardson, who was the only Ph.D. historian to work on the Coast Guard's WWII monographs, noted, in his review in The Journal of Southern History, the book was not definitive nor was it about the Coast Guard. He wrote Evans' book was a "skeletal outline." One 2004 MA Thesis by, then Commander, T. G. Nelson, referred to Evans as "one of the foremost Coast Guard Historians." He simply does not know all the other history that is yet to be written. In 1880, 1st Lt. Horatio Smith wrote the Revenue Cutter Service yet to "boast a historian.' I would say that Dennis Noble is one historian to be recognized with Nelson's tribute.

The major problem is the Coast Guard regulating history to public information. History is no more public information that a bit is to a bollard. History is operational material and should be considered. History like the U. S. Army Training Command (TRADOC) mentions is "to produce leaders to use critical thinking, grounded in military history, as a basis for decision making. . .to develop and sustain historically minded soldiers capable of bringing historical perspective to contemporary military problems." Of course, the Coast Guard has more than military problems, but the principle remains the same. Deepwater is one example of where history could help.

As for producing leaders, the Coast Guard Academy has yet to develop a formal Coast Guard History Course. Considering the Coast Guard, and its predecessor services, have been around since the inception of the nation, this could be a valuable addition. The question is why not? The answer is the Coast Guard appears satisfied with its skeletal outlines that produce no disagreement or discussion. It may be simply be easier to remember outlines than know, and be responsible to, detailed history.

The real question about Coast Guard history should be the lack of volume or the lack of depth of inquiry and research.

The Coast Guard seems satisfied with it consensus historiographical outlook toward history. The knowledge of history makes its leadership accountable to history.

Since 1880 the Service had used history exclusively for public (and congressional) information purposes and not to learn from past experiences. Adm. Allen has noted more than once that the Coast Guard remembers its history but does not live in it.

However, how may the Coast Guard remember its history if it does not know it?