I found this post over on rpg.net
Now is a pretty shitty time to be a coast guard in the gulf.
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I have a good friend from college who's a warrant officer in the US Coast Guard who was tasked over to the gulf to assist the cleanup.
We've been chatting frequently over the past few weeks and I think he's slowly turning into a ball of frustration and rage.
He spends 16 hours a day on a boat in the middle of what is essentially a giant vat of oil. He's seen more dead animals and oil covered critters than he'd ever wanted to. The coast guard is completely under-manned for the amount of area that needs to be covered, and so every boat is expected to do two or three patrols every day.
It's become a common thing for he and his crew to spend the night in the boat, in the darkness, in the middle of a giant field of oil. The worst part is, there's no end in sight. He complained about the situation to his commanding officer, who complained to his commanding officer, who complained to BP, who just shrugged.
A few BP boats somehow got the idea that they could order him around, sometimes demanding him and his crew to deviate from their patrol routes so that BP can "work without being spied on".
His commanding officer blew a gasket when he heard this.
He's tired of the smell, the bleakness, and the general shitty way this whole thing has been handled. The beach is like a mix of a war zone and a refugee camp. People are pissed, and there's not much he or anyone else can do except grind it out. "Fuck BP" is now his favorite expletive.
So those of you in the coast guard, we appreciate what you're doing, and thanks for sticking it out.
I think this pretty much sums up the situation in the gulf. Oh and some judge in New Orleans thinks we should start drilling more deep water wells before we get this mess cleaned up. If a offshore well blows out in Alaska are we going to have anyone to respond? It sure doesn't sound like it.