By Jasper Campbell and James Martin*
As the U.S. Coast Guard undergoes a period of “prolific” acquisitions, the service must resolve a lurking specter: How to fill all of these ships with qualified personnel? At a time when the U.S. Coast Guard afloat community, known as cuttermen, are set to receive the largest influx of cutter classes since the Vietnam War, the Coast Guard is struggling to fill critical billets at the O-3 and O-4 levels, despite projecting having 10,000 afloat billets service wide by 2030, the Center for International Maritime Security reports.
