First, NO SHOTS WERE FIRED. This was a training excercise. Something we do every day. As part of the excercise, the boat was autorized, over the radio, to fire 10 warning shots. The boat operator acknowledged and responded ‘bang, bang, bang’ simulating warning shots. Some dimwit listening to the radio called CNN and they over reacted.

For those of you who think we should not train on 9/11. The CG does not have the luxury of entire armies in reserve. We are staffed as if everyone of us reports to work every day and puts in a full work day. There is no allowance in additional personnel for training, sickness, transfer, family emergencies, etc… we take advantage of time when it is available. We are there to protect you, we must train when the opportunity presents itself.

As for the communication thing. If some idiot screams he/she heard gunfire, everyone comes running regardless of what we told them. This was routine training of one boat crew. No one was interested in knowing with the possible exception of the bad guys. Had this been a major drill, not only would everyone know that needs to know, they would have most likely been involved. We routinely train with other entities.

And, for those of you unaware. The U. S. Coast Guard maintains the protected air space over Washington DC. Our helos are a regular fixture in DC skies.

Again, this is just an example of people over reacting to a non event based on a single report from an idiot.

Have a great day all

It was a scheduled training exercise, no shots were fired.

The only thing that will come out of this is some poor guy with the Coast Guard will have his head handed to him, all for the cause of gravitas to dear leader.

JamieD said:

This is just a prelude to soften the public’s reaction when the WH directs its independent “training exercise” in a neighborhood near you.

Won’t go with you that far, JamieD, but I do believe this does help those who would attempt a terrorist attack. In the event of a real attack we’ll lose precious time (and likely lives) as political leadership & top brass, media and citizenry recall the “cries of wolf” such as this and AF One buzzing of NYC.

TEMA …

IMHO this was an intentional effort to distract all the attention away from the “Inconvenient Truth” that there is a war on terror … soon the troops will be carrying a pocket full of cards in many languages … printed on the card? … Miranda Rights …

I’ve been traveling all day but I just heard Obama mouthpiece Ed Rendell on Cavuto calling it a law enforcement issue again …

Sounds like it.

If that’s the case, then most of this criticism seems unfair.

’nuff said….

Why don’t they just perform reenactments of the whole thing so they can get their jollies out of scaring people.

Morons.

“oh…ignore it, they didn’t really just take away that nice guy and his family. It was just a training exercise” /sarc

It would seem to me that any “training exercise” would have notification of local law enforcement as SOP. Particularly in the nation’s capitol.

Maybe Jamie ‘the Wall Gurellick’ is the new interagency communications CZAR?