My father was in the Coast
Guard for 26 years and
retired as a captain. During his time,
we spent a lot of time up and down
the Eastern Seaboard at different
units, and as I started to get older I
really appreciated everything my
dad and the people I met along the
way did and I enjoyed the ability
they had to travel.
I had a lot of Coast Guard friends
and getting to interact with them
helped make me see the amazing
humanitarian mission the service
has. I realized that joining the service and being part of that could be
something I was proud of. It also
felt like I was carrying on a pseudo
family tradition.
I was accepted into the Coast
Guard Academy in 2003 and
graduated in 2007 as a commissioned ensign.
My first stop was a deck watch
officer in Key West, Fla., at the
Coast Guard Cutter Mohawk. From
there, I went to Portland, Ore., and
was the intelligence officer as well
as a command duty officer. I then
went to flight school in 2011, graduated in 2012, and came to my current assignment at Barbers Point.
I’ve spent the last few years
learning the aircraft, participating
in training exercises and conducting various missions. In January,
my helicopter was one of the first
on scene after two Marine Corps
helicopters crashed off the coast of
Hawaii.
We got the call at 11: 30 p.m.,
and heading out there, it was one
of those you never like hearing,
that there’s potential aircraft in the
water. But it was the adrenaline
rush and you wanted to get out
there and do your best to find
something.
I was thinking, ‘this is what we
train for every day.’ In the mo-
ment, I was driven by this and
tried not to focus on the other out-
side factors. But I also was think-
ing about something else. I had
friends in that squadron. I went to
flight school with a number of
them, and when I saw the report
my heart immediately sank. The
Coast Guard, Navy and Marine
Corps all go to the same flight
school, so you make a lot of close
friends there.
Getting on the scene, you could
smell the gas in the air, you could see
debris in the water and you could see
a lifeboat floating in the water. I had
a lot of feelings out there, and when
we were done I immediately called
my friends at that squadron. They
responded and said they were safe.
They also thanked me for the mission I was doing.
That search-and-rescue case,
along with my first rescue two
months after I got to this assignment, have been my most memorable moments in the Coast Guard
so far.
Since joining, I always knew I
wanted to fly helicopters. My father
was a career cutterman, but for me,
I wanted to fly.
At my first assignment, each
time I heard an aircraft fly overhead
I raced outside to look at it. I knew
that’s where I wanted to be, in the
air, conducting drug interdiction or
search-and-rescue missions, and
doing that amazing and
rewarding mission.
Lt. Kristine Rice
MH- 65 DOLPHIN SCHEDULING OFFICER
U.S. COAST GUARD AIR STATION BARBERS POINT, HAWAII
PROFILES IN SERVICE
WWW.SEAPOWERMAGAZINE.ORG 48 SEAPOWER / FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016
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