John A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis. Cold War Oral History Project Interview with Captain Lloyd Burger USCG (Ret.) by Cadet Anthony T. Bradley, April 7, 2006
©Adams Center, Virginia Military Institute
About the interviewer:
Cadet Anthony T. Bradley ('07), International Studies Major, History Minor from Queens, NY, will be
commissioning in the U.S. Navy, pursuing a career in naval aviation.
Bradley: Good day, sir. Today, 7 April 2006, I, Cadet Anthony T. Bradley of the Virginia Military Institute, will be interviewing Captain Lloyd Burger of the United States Coast Guard for the John A. Adams Class of 1971 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis as part of the requirements for History 391—
History of Sea Power in the 20th Century. The captain now lives in Raphine, Virginia and is enjoying his retirement from military service with his family. Thank you for being here sir.
Burger: Thank you for inviting me.
Bradley: First I would like to give a brief overview of the United States Coast Guard because many people are not aware of its rich history and important mission. Established 4 August 1790, the United
States Coast Guard is one of the United States’ five armed services. The first Congress authorized the construction of 10 vessels to enforce tariff and trade laws, prevent smuggling and protect the collection of the federal revenue. Known variously as the Revenue Marines and the Revenue Cutter Service, it expanded in size and responsibilities as the nation grew. These added responsibilities which included humanitarian duties such as aiding mariners in distress and law enforcement functions also continued to expand. Congress tasked the service with enforcing laws against slavery, piracy and greatly enlarged their responsibilities to prevent smuggling. They were also given the responsibility to protect the marine environment, explore and police Alaska and chart our nation’s growing coast lines, all well before the turn of the 20th century. The service received its present name in 1915 under an act of Congress when the
Revenue Cutter Service merged with the Life Saving Service. The nation now had a single maritime 2
service dedicated to saving life at sea and enforcing the nation’s maritime laws. The Coast Guard is one
of the nation’s oldest organizations of the federal government and until the Department of the Navy was
established in 1798, served as the nation’s only armed force afloat. It has continued to protect the nation
throughout her long history and has served proudly in every one of the nation’s armed conflicts. Today
their national defense responsibility remains one of their most important functions. Due to the passing of
the Department of Homeland Security Act of 2002, the Coast Guard operates, in times of peace, as part of the Department of Homeland Security as of March 1, 2003, serving as the nation’s frontline agency for enforcing laws at sea, protecting our coastline and ports and saving human life. In times of war or under direction of the President of the United States, the Coast Guard then serves under the Department of the
Navy but, as stated, it is currently acting independently.
Welcome, sir. We’re going to get right into it. We’re going to learn about Captain Lloyd Burger, but first we’re going to learn about your previous history – things you’ve done as a cadet, I should say. So can you please start by describing your reasons for going into the service and where did you go to receive an education and commission?
Burger: First, I’d like to thank VMI, Col. Muir and yourself for putting together this program and inviting me to participate in it. I am truly honored and grateful that you included us – the Coast Guard and me – in this program. As a young man or a young person, I lived only 40 miles from West Point and I visited
West Point many times as a high school student. My desire and dreams were to go to West Point. The best I could do, however, was a second alternate appointment and I took the Coast Guard Academy entrance exam to study up or brush up, for the West Point entrance exam. Needless to say I didn’t make
West Point. I went to the Coast Guard Academy and I fell in love with the sea and the water and I enjoyed a Coast Guard career. I graduated in 1960 from the Academy and went to my first ship as all cadets did. At that time, everyone that graduated, their first duty assignment was stationed aboard ship.
Bradley: Now, sir, you did get accepted into Annapolis, right?
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Burger: No, I didn’t get accepted. I was offered a principal appointment to Annapolis which I declined. I never applied to Annapolis. The congressman had two appointments that year to Annapolis and he offered me a principal appointment which I declined. A friend of mine also had a principal appointment to
Annapolis and he went and I don’t know who the other one was that went in my place.
Bradley: Now the Coast Guard Academy, as it is in present day, is by far one of the most competitive
schools in the nation. Can you please go into your training curriculum as a cadet at the Coast Guard
Academy?
Burger: When I first went to the Academy in 1956 the cadets – approximately 600 cadets – were, at that time, divided into five companies in one battalion. Everyone in the class, of which there were 272, had to take the same subjects. We had no electives. It was basically an engineering course: lots of math, lots of science, lots of engineering. A little English, a little history were the other subjects that we took. We carried a load of about 24 credits per semester. You got up at 6:00 in the morning and went to bed at
10:00 at night, no late lights. Your day was pretty packed full. In the mornings, in the good weather, we had to run down to the docks at 6:00 a.m. in the morning, put the surf boats in the Themes River and row up to the sub base and back. Each company, one day a week, rowed while the other ones did physical exercises.
My second year at the Academy we made a cadet cruise. We went to Europe, to Norway, to London, to
Spain aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle which is a tall sailing ship. Two cutters accompanied us. We split up and 50 percent of your time was on Eagle and the other 50 percent of your time was on a Coast
Guard cutter. There we learned our seamanship skills and practiced what we learned in the classroom, navigation-wise and gunnery-wise and engineering-wise as well as standing watch. It was pretty packed full as far as training went.
Third class year you went back to the books and you were pretty much left on your own in that you didn’t have much involvement with the underclass. You didn’t have much involvement with the upperclasses, 4
and the study load was harder. Again, it was basically engineering – a lot of engineering – and math, science with a little bit of history and English thrown in.
The summer of second class year we did various things with the other services. We went to the Navy in
Newport, Rhode Island for a month’s training with regards to ASW, ship handling, and aspects of damage control and other things that were ship related and that the Navy had schools for. We spent a month at the Coast Guard Air Station, Elizabeth City, North Carolina where we learned about flying and avionics and how the aircraft are used in search and rescue.
Bradley: Sir, you were never interested in search and rescue aircraft, were you?
Burger: Yes, I had thought about it for a time, to become a pilot, however, my thoughts changed later on during my career. The last part of the training we went to the U.S. Marine Base at Quantico, Virginia where the Marines taught us to shoot small arms. We spent three weeks with them. At 4:00 in the morning out on the range until 6:00 at night, every day. We had quite a training experience with the
Marines. Then back to the Academy for our junior year – second class year – and we were involved with the “swabs” or fourth classmen. We were responsible for their training, for their military bearing and their military training as well as etiquette and the amenities. We had a great deal of involvement with them in the barracks and at the dinner table.
Then, the summer of my first class year, we made a long cruise. We took the new third class cadets out on a long cruise with two cutters and the Eagle, again, and went to various ports in the Caribbean and back to the Academy for our first class year. Now, my first class, or senior year, if you were an honors student, they had introduced electives for the first time and if you were on high honors you could take two electives plus your regular courses and if you were on honors you could take one elective. The only electives were a language – French – and then there was a higher math class for the additional credit.
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We graduated in June 1960. All my classmates were assigned to a Coast Guard cutter where we served
as a junior officer on deck, to begin with, and then some of us went to the engine room. On deck, when
we served as deck officers, we became qualified as underway watch officers plus first lieutenants and
gunnery officers with other duties such as exchange officer or morale officer or whatever collateral jobs
they had on the vessel.
Bradley: Just to jump back to the Academy, you guys had a tremendously high washout rate, right? It
was over 75%.
Burger: It was 50% for my class.
Bradley: Fifty percent, O.K. Fifty percent of the people that went in didn’t graduate. Did they drop early or was it during this long, really rigorous, curriculum?
Burger: It was over a period of time. We started with 272 and we graduated 136, which was exactly
50%, which was the highest percentage to graduate. I don’t know if that’s still true today, but up until
1960, 50% was the highest percentage ever to graduate and 136 was one of the largest classes ever to graduate. So, yes, it was spread over the time. They made you stay. If you accepted the appointment, they made you stay the summer and then you could drop if you weren’t adapted to the military life, and a good number of them dropped at that time. However, it was quite a washout rate from academics alone.
I know I had to take a re-exam my fourth class year. I got into problems, academically, and the exams counted 50% of your grade. There were 22 of us who failed English our first semester, fourth class year, at the Academy. A high school classmate and myself were the only two out of the 22 who passed the re- examination and they dismissed the other 20. That was the time I decided to make the Coast Guard a career rather than try to go to West Point.
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Bradley: I see sir. O.K. So you graduated, you commissioned, you’re now in the fleet. Now the mission
of the Coast Guard has evolved tremendously over its 200 year history. At that time, as a junior officer,
what was, as you saw it, the mission of the United States Coast Guard?
Burger: The mission of the Coast Guard – it’s a multi-mission organization to begin with. I’ll just go over a few of the missions that the Coast Guard did have at that time. Merchant Marine safety, Captain of the
Port, aids to navigation, search and rescue, law enforcement – which included enforcing treaties and the fisheries – and our military aspect of the Coast Guard. They all blended together. Our units were multi- mission designed and equipped so that most vessels and aircraft could perform any one of the missions that was given to the Coast Guard. Later on, we added the drugs and the environmental protection to our missions in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Bradley: O.K. sir. You said that you went to the engine room as a junior officer. Can you go into your first, say, year and a half or so as a JO in the Coast Guard?
Burger: The first year and a half I spent on deck as a qualified deck watch officer. After that year and a half I went into the engine room and became a student engineer where I stood watches, had bookwork to do and learned damage control and also how the plants operate and to take care of the auxiliary equipment in the engine room. The first ship I was on was quite modern. It was a turbo-electric vessel designed with one boiler, top-fired, and a massive steam generator that turned a massive motor to propel the vessel. It was single-screw. They said it was a Navy vessel originally designed for two engine rooms.
Supposedly, the service ran out of money and couldn’t add the other engine room and fire room so that’s why it ended up with one boiler and one main generator and motor.
Bradley: So money was a problem at this time, would you say?
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Burger: Well, that was back in the ‘40s during the war. I don’t know whether money was the problem or
time was the problem but, supposedly, it was going to be another 100 foot longer than it was and have
another boiler room and motor room and engine room.
Bradley: Now, this is around ’61, going into ’62?
Burger: That was over from ’60 to ’63.
Bradley: O.K., sir. Now in ’62, the Cuban Missile Crisis took place. This was probably one of the most dangerous events, maybe, even in human history, let alone the Cold War. Can you tell us about where you were and what you were doing around this time?
Burger: I was assigned to the engine room at the time and when the Missile Crisis happened, all Coast
Guard vessels and personnel were put on immediate alert, which meant we had to be able to get underway within four hours. Our liberties were very short and we couldn’t go outside a 25 mile radius from the vessel without letting the ship know where we were at all times, so that we could get back in time. Right after the Cuban Missile Crisis ended, our vessel was sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for underway training, at which time the base commander at Guantanamo Bay cut the water line between
Cuba and the base. We were assigned anti-submarine warfare patrols at night from about 1800 until 0600 in the morning. During those three weeks we patrolled the harbor and monitored all vessels in and out, including having an active sonar watch and sonar gear going the entire time.
Bradley: Was it done with the Navy?
Burger: The Navy ordered us to do this and we were operating at the naval base, so I take it we were operating under naval orders. I know, as an engineer, instead of standing engine room watches at night,
I would be standing deck watches with another deck officer. They had two deck officers on watch and we 8
would alternate between the bridge and combat information center. We had ASW equipment on the
vessel. It was a pretty tight schedule and pretty long days.
Bradley: I see, sir. Now, what is interesting is you said that shortly after it ended – that was when you went there and were conducting ASW – but if it ended, was this ASW simply for training purposes or did the U.S. fear, maybe, that the Soviets were sending subs over there still?
Burger: No, this wasn’t training. These were actually watches in Gitmo Harbor.
Bradley: And this was for Soviet subs in case they still tried to pull something after the official ending of the crisis?
Burger: Right. This was during that time. Of course, being a junior officer, I wasn’t privileged to know everything that was going on.
Bradley: Well, we’re going to get into that too – how much information goes up the chain of command and maybe how that has changed in the Coast Guard. Can you now go into your assignments after ’63 and after the Cuban Missile Crisis, leading up to Vietnam?
Burger: In 1963 I went into the Merchant Marine training program for the inspection of U.S. merchant vessels and foreign vessels carrying U.S. passengers for hire and carrying dangerous cargo into the
United States. From that schooling in Yorktown, Virginia I was assigned to the Marine Inspection Office in New York City where I spent four years being a boiler inspector, working in the shipyard repairing vessels as well as becoming a marine investigator in the casualties and misconduct on the U.S. merchant vessels.
Bradley: Now, sir, you said that you had some training as for looking out for the transportation of, maybe, violent people and also hazardous materials. During this time, was the Coast Guard really looking for 9
biological and chemical weapons or just weapons in general? Anything like that? Was there a lot of
emphasis on that coming into the country?
Burger: No, not like there is today. Our main concerns were that the cargoes were handled and stored safely aboard the vessels so that the vessel wouldn’t be a problem in our ports. It wasn’t so much looking
for smuggled dirty devices or any kind of biological or chemical weapons. This wasn’t the main job that we performed at that time.
Bradley: Concerning these boilers. These are merchant boilers, right?
Burger: Merchant Marine, right.
Bradley: So, two questions. How did they come up to par in terms of regulation? Well, actually, we’ll just start with that one. Were these boilers in good condition or did you often run across boilers that weren’t able to be used?
Burger: We’d inspect the boilers. We’d put a pressure test on them, hydrostatic test on them, we’d test their safety valves, and we’d make sure there were no leaks and that the turbines and boiler were satisfactory by a visual inspection and that the brickwork and that the casing of the boilers were satisfactory to operate for another year, or for the period of their certificate. We would check their CO2 fire extinguishing systems. We would check the overspeed trips on generators and all the safety equipment that’s in the engine room – their fire hoses, their CO2 bottles and all the rest of the auxiliary equipment in the engine room.
Bradley: I know this may be a rough number to get, but how many boilers and things like that would you say you’ve inspected over that four year time? Hundreds maybe?
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Burger: Definitely. Most of the merchant ships had two boilers and I would say that it was only a very few days out of the four years where I didn’t have a job where I would be crawling a boiler. I would say that
100 a year would be very close to accurate.
Bradley: A hundred a year – for four years. WOW! So, after this assignment, the Vietnam War is now in
effect – 1965 – and you were in Thailand at the time.
Burger: No, when the Vietnamese war started I was in the Marine Inspection Office in New York where we brought merchant vessels out of the “mothball” fleet and brought them on line for the U.S. Merchant
Marine to supply cargo, munitions and everything else in support of the war effort. We did quite a few of those vessels. I’d say during my time there we probably did six – brought six vessels out of mothballs – during the last year at Marine Inspection at New York, which was 1967. In 1967, I was transferred from
New York to Udorn, Thailand as commanding officer of the Loran Monitor Station for the Loran-C chain for Southeast Asia.
Bradley: During this time, what can you remember the most – that stands out in your mind, as far as events at this particular duty station?
Burger: It was pretty active. The base I was at operated mainly RF-4s. They are a reconnaissance aircraft, the F-4 modified to be a reconnaissance plane. We provided a long-range aid to navigation system that covered Southeast Asia. We had three stations – the monitor plus three transmitter stations that had 1,200 foot towers. We advertised an accuracy of one foot per mile. We were 240 miles from downtown Hanoi, so the accuracy was within 240 feet. We don’t know who the users were. We have an idea but I don’t know who the users were.
Bradley: Now, Vietnam has a 1,200 mile coastline and they had to bring the Coast Guard over to patrol these waters because there was definitely North Vietnamese activity as far as bringing materials back and forth for supplies. From my research, there were two main squadrons, the 1st and the 3rd. The 1st 11
were patrol boats and the 3rd were the cutters. Which one would you say that you supported the most, being over there? Squadron 1 or Squadron 3?
Burger: Probably 3. I don’t think the small boats needed the Loran, if you’re talking about Loran and the aids to navigation. The Loran-C was set up for both surface and aircraft navigation. The cutters that
were there were on Market Time patrol. They interdicted quite a few small vessels trying to smuggle
equipment, guns and munitions, food, and everything else to the North Vietnamese troops that were in
southern Vietnam.
Bradley: Now, speaking of Operation Market Time. This was the primary operation of the Coast Guard in
conjunction with the Navy, but it had a strong Coast Guard presence. Would you consider it a success?
Burger: I understand that it was pretty successful from the number of interdictions that they made and
the amount of munitions that they captured and destroyed. It was quite significant. Of course, you don’t
know exactly how much got through and how much was stopped, percentage-wise, but there was a great
deal of it stopped, and I do believe that it did help the effort in South Vietnam.
Bradley: I would have to agree. The Coast Guard inspected 60,000 vessels during its stay there and
many people say – and I want your opinion on this – because of this tight blockade around North
Vietnam, it just put a lot of pressure on the North Vietnamese to really pursue the Ho Chi Minh Trail to supply South Vietnam. Would you say that’s accurate, as far as its effectiveness?
Burger: I would think that’s what happened. Not being a historian on the Vietnam War, I would venture to say that, yes, they would have to find another means to get their supplies and munitions and everything else into the south, so I would think that the Ho Chi Minh Trail was quite useful for that.
Bradley: Just to go back over my notes again, it was 60,000 junks inspected by the patrols. It was actually a quarter million vessels that were inspected by the Coast Guard during this time. Now, like I 12
said, 1,200 miles is a huge coastline and I’m sure it drew forces away from the U.S. to Vietnam. During
this era, was the Coast Guard under the control of the United States Navy, and, if so, has it ever been
under the control of the U.S. Navy on another occasion?
Burger: No, not during the Vietnam War. Certain aspects – the two squadrons and the captains of the port units that were there were under Navy control. They were just placed under the Navy rather than moving the entire Coast Guard. The only time that I know that the Coast Guard was moved, and it was by executive order from Treasury Department to the Department of Defense, was back at the beginning of World War II. I believe that it was under the Navy during World War I, but I’m not sure.
Bradley: So it was acting independently, still, for the most part. It was an independent service at the time.
Burger: The Coast Guard, in the conflicts since World War II, have operated units under Navy control.
Certain units have been put under operational control of the Navy in support of their mission rather than moving the entire service out of the Department of Treasury or Transportation or Homeland Security.
They would probably just move those units that they need under Navy operational control.
Bradley: Now, this is an interesting point that we discussed in our many meetings together, that, even though forces were drawn away from the U.S. coast, that the mission of the Coast Guard isn’t necessarily coastal defense is what you were saying. Definitely, during this period, it was – how would you put it, sir?
More coastal security. How did you explain it? As not being a coastal defense service but more of a service in that sense. How did you describe it?
Burger: The Coast Guard’s missions, even search and rescue, all contribute to the security aspect of coastal surveillance. It wasn’t until 1982 or 1983 that the actual assignment for coastal defense was given to anyone and it was broken up into, I believe, seven maritime defense zones: three on the East
Coast, three on the West Coast, including Hawaii, and one on the Great Lakes. These maritime defense 13
zone commands – I know three were under Navy control with a Navy flag officer and a Coast Guard flag officer as his vice or assistant, and three Coast Guard with Navy as the number two person. The one on the Great Lakes was a Coast Guard command with Navy assistance. The ones on the East Coast – the one in Norfolk – was a Navy flag in charge with a Coast Guard flag as assistant. But that wasn’t until
1982 or 1983, where the actual assignment and responsibility was given for coastal defense.
Bradley: A lot of people really don’t know that. They always thought that the Coast Guard’s primary mission was coastal defense but, like you said, not until 1982 was this effective. In the ‘60s and ‘70s the
Vietnam War was drawing all American resources. Understandably. It was a long war and it was a rough war, but were there a lot of exercises geared towards conflict with Communist nations? Say, if the Cold
War with Russia got really hot. What would you say the Coast Guard’s role in defense of America would be?
Burger: The Coast Guard in the ‘60s and ‘70s trained with the Navy quite often and, of course, the enemy was Communist countries. We were trained for atomic, biological, chemical warfare and I guess, what you could say, other than conventional warfare. Our vessels were armed with naval weapons and were maintained by Coast Guard but the money was supplied by the Navy.
Bradley: Oh, really? So you would say that, during this time, there was not a lot of training with the Navy but a good amount, in your opinion?
Burger: There was some. You went to Gitmo every two years for underway training for three weeks to a month with the Navy. Total naval involvement. We would go on exercises out of Newport, Rhode Island because we were stationed in New Bedford, Mass and Portland, Maine. We would conduct exercises with the Navy off the East Coast on scheduled times when we didn’t have other Coast Guard assignments.
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Bradley: Now you mentioned earlier that there was attention paid to biological and chemical warfare, and
conventional. Given the world we live in today, post September 11th, was there a lot of attention paid to possible terrorism or guerilla warfare?
Burger: No, terrorism wasn’t in the vocabulary at that time.
Bradley: What about training with foreign coast guards and foreign navies? Was that done often, or often enough?
Burger: I don’t know. I do know that the Coast Guard trained foreign navies and foreign coast guards.
They helped them set their coast guard or small navy up and assisted them with some logistics but with people, mainly to help establish their service. I know, today, and for the last couple of decades anyway, these foreign countries do send cadets to the Coast Guard Academy for training.
Bradley: Now lifesaving, safety, inspections – these are all well-known missions of the Coast Guard.
During this time, around the Vietnam era – ‘60s and ‘70s – how much rescuing of refugees was there?
Was there really a problem with people trying to cross the Caribbean Sea or the Atlantic? Did you have to rescue a lot of these people or was it not as big a problem at that time?
Burger: I don’t believe it was a problem at that time. I wasn’t involved in that aspect because most of that was handled by our southern offices and southern platforms that were stationed in Florida and the
Gulf Coast.
Bradley: Going back to Vietnam, you were there from what years?
Burger: June 1967 to June 1968.
Bradley: And, during that time, you were in Thailand. Did you lose any personnel? 15
Burger: No. Not at the stations. We were in a pretty safe zone. We were in a friendly country.
Bradley: How was the vision of the war seen by the people in Thailand – the Americans in Thailand?
Burger: The Americans in Thailand?
Bradley: Yes – was it going well, was it going bad? I mean, the Tet Offensive was in ’68, so how did that play on you and your men – and women, if they were there?
Burger: No, there weren’t any women at that time. We really weren’t involved in the station I was at. I guess more aircraft were going out. You could tell on the bombing missions because the planes would fly more often than they had been flying. It was a pretty busy airbase that I was at. As far as from the
United States’ aspect, yeah, it did step up during that period with regards to activity at the airbase, but as far as the Coast Guard was concerned in the Loran stations, we didn’t notice any difference.
Bradley: Was this a naval base?
Burger: It was an Air Force base.
Bradley: But it had all personnel from all five branches there? Maybe no Marines?
Burger: Well, there weren’t any Navy personnel assigned there full time. But while I was there, they came in TAD with equipment and the Marines to guard that equipment. So, yeah, there were Marines there and there were Navy personnel there, but they were there on temporary duty for short periods of time.
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Bradley: So what mission did you remember the most? I know you were there with the maintenance
side, but what was, say, the major buzz on the base during that time span that you were there? I mean,
what really was everyone talking about in the chow hall, that you remember?
Burger: I think the biggest thing was the talk regarding the bombing missions. The pilots felt very tightly
controlled and restrained. They felt that their hands were tied behind their backs because they could not
take targets of opportunity. They were given special targets and no matter what they came across on the
way to those targets, they couldn’t engage them. All they could do would be take pictures. I think that
was the main feeling at the base. That their hands were tied; that this wasn’t right. That they should be able to take targets of opportunity and other targets that presented a problem to them. From what I understand, they weren’t allowed to take out missile sites that protected Hanoi or protected certain bridges or whatever. That was at the beginning. Towards the end they were allowed to do it, but at the beginning they weren’t allowed to and they really felt constrained.
Bradley: Did you lose any pilots from that base?
Burger: Lots.
Bradley: Lots? How did that affect morale?
Burger: The base morale was pretty good, but they did lose quite a few pilots. The Jolly Greens were stationed at the base I was at to begin with, for about the first six months, and they lost even one of those after making a rescue and going down with the people they rescued, so, yes, it was pretty active from the
Air Force’s standpoint and, of course, vibes were felt all over the base. It was a busy time.
Bradley: Now when you left Thailand, did you go back to the States?
Burger: Yes, I went to the Marine Inspection Office in Boston. 17
Bradley: So what was the feeling of the war in ’68, as you saw it, in the United States? Was it turning at
this time?
Burger: I remember that there were a good number of demonstrations against the war and that the feelings ran pretty strong about the war because of the draft and people being drafted. The sentiment of the military was kind of at a low ebb.
Bradley: I see, sir. Can you go to your next assignment after you got to the States?
Burger: I was assigned to the Marine Inspection Office in Boston where I started out as the senior inspector of personnel and then moved to General Dynamics Shipyard where Lykes Brothers, a civilian commercial company, started to build vessels – three of them – that would take barges. The barges would be floated into the vessel and then lifted by elevator to their storage place in the vessel. The construction of these vessels was state of the art in that they were being built in modules. The modules were being transported down to the dry dock and placed in the dry dock and welded to other modules.
The modules were in the neighborhood of 90% completed when they went down into the dock. And when they were welded up, they just had to be connected to the other module systems that connected to that system.
Bradley: What years were these, sir, when you were in Boston?
Burger: 1968 to 1970.
Bradley: So modular design is not new then?
Burger: No, it’s been going for some time. We were also at the cutting edge of inspections with ultrasound rather than just x-rays. The previous means of inspections of welds and joints was using x- 18
rays. General Dynamics was at the beginning stages of using ultrasonics to prove that the welds were properly made or the connections were made properly.
Bradley: This was up to 1970. Now I’m going to ask you about your feelings towards what you’ve seen out there in the fleet in the United States, because, during this time, the Civil Rights movement is now coming to an end. It’s now 1970. So, how were racial and ethnic relations in the Coast Guard? How was morale? How was the acceptance of women going? How were all these changes that came about from the Civil Rights movement affecting the Coast Guard, from what you’ve seen?
Burger: I think the Coast Guard has been at the cutting edge of most of this with regards to ethnic issues and also to gender. I think that the Coast Guard tried to – I know for a fact that the Coast Guard
Academy was the first military academy to admit women. This was in 1976. They were the first service to put women on their combatant vessels and I think that program has gone fairly well. There’s been some glitches, but for the most part I think that the women have fit in and integrated into the Coast Guard and its field of missions today very well. I think it was a really good step forward. I can remember, when I was in Chicago, I paid a courtesy call on the commander of the Great Lakes Naval Training Center who was a female admiral. She was the first female admiral in the Navy to fly a blue flag, which meant she could command a battle group.
Bradley: When was this, sir?
Burger: 1983.
Bradley: O.K.
Burger: Anyway, I was sitting, having a nice discussion with her as a courtesy call and she asked me what I thought about women on Coast Guard vessels. The Navy hadn’t gotten there yet on their combatant vessels. I wasn’t sure how I was going to answer her because we had had some minor 19
problems at first. I wasn’t familiar with all that went on. All I knew was that there were a few problems.
At that point, her executive officer came in and told her she had an important phone call from the
Pentagon, so I was excused.
Bradley: Now, like you said, the Coast Guard was the first to start these implementations. How was the
Navy doing at this time from what you saw? I mean, you said they were pretty slow to go?
Burger: I think the Navy was slow to go. I think they were reluctant to go. Of course, they operate under different laws than the Coast Guard does and different policies for the most part. They are under the
Department of Defense and the Coast Guard, at that time, was under the Department of Transportation.
The Coast Guard was not constrained by the same regulations that the Navy was.
Bradley: Did they go to the Coast Guard, maybe, for advice on how to integrate women?
Burger: I have no idea. I know that the admiral that I spoke to – Admiral Hazzard – was assigned as deputy chief of military personnel.
Bradley: So you’re speaking of the admiral at the Pentagon?
Burger: I know she went from Great Lakes Naval Training Center to assistant chief of personnel of the armed forces at the Pentagon. I don’t know the exact title, but that’s where she went. I don’t know what happened after that but I know before that the Navy started putting women on their auxiliary vessels and now they’re on their combatant vessels.
Bradley: Yes they are, sir. Concerning rumors about the Vietnam War in terms of drug abuse – was that a problem in the Coast Guard in the ‘70s when you left?
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Burger: Drug abuse started to become a problem in the ‘70s. Up until that time, I don’t believe drug abuse was a problem. I think that the Vietnam era brought about a lot of drug use in the service. We had ours in the Coast Guard. The policy was one puff and you were out if they caught you. We had random drug testing routinely, including the commanding officers and the executive officers. All the officers were included in the drug testing.
Bradley: I’ll probably ask you again, later on, but was corruption a problem at all? I mean, with all these drugs and money from all these foreign countries – was that ever an issue?
Burger: Not that I know of. I don’t know of any problems that the Coast Guard had with regard with its personnel in stealing drugs or stealing money or whatever. I don’t know of any problems.
Bradley: That’s fine, sir. But, back to you. O.K., it’s 1970. From there, where were you stationed and what were your assignments?
Burger: In 1970 I was assigned as engineering officer aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Campbell in
Portland, Maine. My duties were to run the plant and take care of the maintenance of the vessel with regards to the equipment on the vessel, other than the electronic equipment.
Bradley: And what rank were you at this time, sir? Lieutenant commander, maybe?
Burger: Lieutenant commander. At Marine Inspection Office in Boston I was promoted to lieutenant commander from lieutenant.
Bradley: How were the officers doing at this time? Did you see any change in the quality of officer, from the ‘60s to the ‘70s?
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Burger: The quality started to increase. I think that the education at the Academy had gotten much better because of electives. They started to offer degrees in areas other than marine engineering. When
I graduated it was marine engineering and now they offer other types of degree fields that you can study.
Bradley: How long were you on the cutter, sir – up in Maine?
Burger: I spent two years in Maine. My first assignment was on the Cook Inlet and when the Cook Inlet got orders to go to Vietnam and I was taken off and put on the Campbell because I had just returned from
Thailand 18 months earlier.
Bradley: Did you have a family at this time?
Burger: Yes, I had a wife and two small children.
Bradley: You’re a sailor so I know you are away a good amount of the time. How was that going – family life and being a sailor?
Burger: It put a real strain on the family. It put a real strain on my wife. We would be out for six weeks at a time and then we’d be in for six weeks. Of course, when the vessel was in, you had to report every day for duty, except the weekends. As an engineering officer I didn’t have to stand watch as such, but I was responsible for a lot of equipment and making sure that the vessel was ready to get underway and do its mission. So, yes, it was tough on the family. It was hard on my wife.
Bradley: Now from ’73, where did you go?
Burger: In 1973 I was sent to Cleveland, Ohio to the Marine Safety Office there. I was the executive officer and just prior to assuming the job as executive officer, I was assigned industry training for six months on the Great Lakes. I went out to industry – U.S. Steel, Inland Steel, Ford Motor Company, and 22
some other smaller ones and to the shipyards. I was the first one to be assigned to the shipping unions
and was given a month’s indoctrination. This was so that I could better handle the personnel
management on the merchant vessels and understand their problems.
Bradley: How long were you there, sir?
Burger: I was there three years and then I was assigned to Coast Guard headquarters in 1975 and I was there for seven years. I was in the Merchant Vessel Personnel branch. I was there for three years and then I went into the Marine Vessel Inspection branch of Coast Guard Headquarters.
Bradley: In ’75, ’76, and ’77, there was a lot going on in the U.S. The economy wasn’t doing too well, the war was now dying down, and then you had this situation with President Nixon and the whole Watergate scandal. Now, with all that going on, how was funding for the Coast Guard at this time – the mid-‘70s going into the ‘80s?
Burger: Funding for the Coast Guard, up until recently, has always been a problem. Their budgets have been cut, cut and cut. I can remember one year our budget and pay was tacked on an abortion bill and we didn’t get paid for three months.
Bradley: So, how was recruiting with all that?
Burger: Recruiting wasn’t my field. The Coast Guard in the ‘70s – at the beginning of the ‘70s – didn’t have a problem with recruiting. Of course, they never had a draft. They had quite a long line of good candidates to choose from and they still do. The personnel, I think, are top drawer for the most part.
They really are.
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Bradley: Now, when President Carter came into office, he’s a Navy man. You could say that he did start
funneling money into the services. He was the initial person that started giving more money to the
services. How did the Coast Guard do under Carter?
Burger: I think we fared a little bit better than earlier. They started some design projects which came to fruition in the ‘80s under Reagan, with regards to building vessels. I think those vessels were planned and somewhat funded prior to that. So, yeah, things started to pick up, but under President Reagan things got a lot better with regard to the Coast Guard and monies.
Bradley: President Reagan is well known for his strong stance against Communism, against the Soviet
Union, and for rebuilding the armed services for the country. You say that the Coast Guard did much better compared to how it had been in the past, in terms of funding, and you were speaking of coastal defense. That wasn’t a mission of the Coast Guard until this time period. Was Reagan the spearhead of that – making the Coast Guard a coastal defense service, as opposed to just a coastal surveillance service?
Burger: I take it that he was. It was his initiative that finally gave the responsibility for coastal defense to the Navy and the Coast Guard. Then the Navy and the Coast Guard got together and came up with these maritime defense zones and set those up. We had lots of training exercises in that responsibility and it was quite active.
Bradley: So, sir, in 1980 – let’s say 1980 to keep it simple. Twenty years in the Coast Guard fleet, you’ve seen a lot. How has the mission changed from ’60 to ’80, from what you saw? Were there any big changes during this time period?
Burger: I think the maritime defense zone was one of the bigger changes. In 1967 we went from
Treasury, where we had been since 1790, into the Department of Transportation. While we were in the
Department of Transportation in the ‘70s and later, it received a great deal of funding for highways and 24
federal aviation. These all were vying for more money and usually the Coast Guard didn’t fare too well. It
got, maybe, its small share, but not the lion’s share and yet there were still a lot of demands placed on the
Coast Guard, especially with regards to Haitian immigration and drug trafficking which ate up a lot of
resources.
Bradley: How was drug trafficking in the ‘80s? Did it really pick up?
Burger: It really picked up. The Coast Guard was given the responsibility to stop it when it came in by
water. We’ve got lots of coast out there and it was a difficult job. It doesn’t come cheap when you start
pushing a vessel around out there.
Bradley: Just to give the audience some scope of how big a job it is, it is said that roughly the Coast
Guard is responsible for 91,000 miles of coastline and with funding being as short as it was or
unavailable, that, to say the least, is a very difficult task. What were you doing in the ‘80s at this time?
Burger: I was at the Marine Safety Office in Chicago where we brought on-line the maritime defense zones. I was in the area of Great Lakes Naval Training Center so I got to work with the Navy admiral up there in helping set up the maritime defense zone for the Great Lakes. Also, too, at that time, Vice
President Bush appointed me as the deputy for the National Narcotics Board Interdiction System for the northern region, which was from Blaine, Washington to Messina, New York. The Coast Guard admiral in
Cleveland gave me the authority to use Coast Guard assets on an emergency basis and to assign them, when I thought it was necessary.
Bradley: Were you a captain at this time, sir?
Burger: I was a captain at that time.
Bradley: Did you have to use anything? Did anything go down during this time period? 25
Burger: We provided a Coast Guard helicopter that had infrared equipment to go out and survey some farm out in Iowa that the DEA was trying to get a search warrant based on electric bills. The judge wouldn’t give them one, so we got infrared pictures of the farm and the barns and you could almost see the marijuana plants growing inside. During that time I was also on the Organized Crime Task Force. We were able to provide assistance to FBI and DEA, namely Coast Guard auxiliary vessels and air craft that didn’t have to fly a Coast Guard flag. Participation was very good.
Bradley: It sounds like you and the Navy really came together a little bit more in the ‘80s than normal. Is
that the case? Were you guys training a lot more together and working together more to secure these
borders?
Burger: I would say yes, because it was a new assignment – actually new to the Navy and new to us. Of course we’ve always had the captain of the port responsibility and the security duties for the ports. Taking the entire coast and establishing zones and responsibility was monumental. Assigning assets to be able to carry out that mission, was, I think, very well run between Navy and Coast Guard.
Bradley: The Navy did get a lot of funding. At this time I believe Reagan pushed the Navy to about a 600 ship Navy.
Burger: Yes, he was pushing for a 600 ship Navy.
Bradley: Was the Coast Guard getting up there too?
Burger: I won’t say the Coast Guard was getting up there in numbers, but we were getting some replacement vessels. The 270 class vessels as well as the 100 foot class vessels came on line during that period. They were a welcome addition to the fleet as the fleet was starting to age.
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Bradley: You retired in 1988, sir?
Burger: That’s right.
Bradley: It’s amazing how time flies. From 1960 to 1988, we just covered almost 30 years. I’m sure it
felt longer to you than just talking about it for the last hour. 1988 – it seems as if the military, itself, was getting a little better. Were drugs a problem in the ‘80s as well as the ‘70s, in your opinion?
Burger: Drugs – with regards to the personnel?
Bradley: Yes sir.
Burger: I think that drug use decreased in the service in the ‘80s, compared to the early ‘70s. I think that the testing and non-tolerance helped a great deal. If you had a drug conviction the Coast Guard would not take you. I don’t know about the other services, but the Coast Guard would not take someone who had used or were convicted of drug use, whether it be marijuana or whatever. I think that the random testing had improved a great deal and that people knew that they weren’t going to get away with using drugs. I think the quality of the people improved so that drug use wasn’t a problem. There must have been some there, but it wasn’t a problem.
Bradley: So, what were you doing your last two years? It’s now 1986 and you’ve been all around the place. What were your assignments at this time?
Burger: My last assignment was as commanding officer of the Marine Safety Office, Norfolk, Virginia.
Under the Maritime Defense Zone I had the responsibility and title of Commander, Coast Guard forces.
We did our normal marine inspection and captain of the port work. We did boardings. We inspected the facilities for hazardous material handling and off-loading of hazardous cargo. We inspected the passenger vessels that carried U.S. passengers, the tankers that came in carrying hazardous cargo. It 27
was a pretty busy port. It was the largest safety office the Coast Guard had at the time and we had about
100 people in the office, which is a fairly good-sized office for a Coast Guard marine safety office, even
today. The commander of Coast Guard forces hat – when I wore that for Maritime Defense Zone, I had
500 people under me, including my office, plus about 300 reservists, plus 50 or 60 Army people who were
responsible for explosives loading on vessels and explosives handling on vessels, along with the Coast
Guard people. We had a Navy unit that was responsible for positioning vessels in the port. One of our
responsibilities was to get Navy vessels out safely by establishing moving safety zones for those vessels and then patrolling them with armed craft.
Bradley: I see, sir. Terrorism – was it in the vocabulary yet?
Burger: It was not in the book. Well, I guess it was coming in to the vocabulary. I’m not sure that we used the word terrorist. That part of it hadn’t started to evolve yet. Today, it’s there, that’s for sure.
Bradley: And speaking of today, I’m going to ask the captain some basic questions about the changes that the Coast Guard has been going through, which has been an immense amount in the last five years, especially, but over the last 15 years since his retirement. First we’re going to start off with the first Gulf
War. Now I do understand that the Coast Guard was sent to Iraq the first time and the second time concerning our problems with Saddam Hussein. How did they perform from what you learned? I mean, it’s 1991 and you were retired at this time, but I’m sure you were still keeping up with the basics of what was going on in the first Gulf War. How do you think the Coast Guard did?
Burger: Well, in the first Gulf War the Coast Guard was very active regarding those oil wells burning and the pollution that evolved out of that cutting the oil lines and setting them on fire and the rest of it. That was a pretty important job that they had. Of course we had cutters assigned to the naval units that were there. Right now we have two major cutters assigned to the Gulf area, plus several smaller vessels to keep the ports open, to handle dangerous cargo, to have explosive loading details, to supervise the off- loading of munitions on the vessels over there, to board the vessels looking for contraband. They are 28
assigned to Navy units. In peacetime the Coast Guard has what we call “leadets” – law enforcement detachments assigned to Navy vessels. The Navy finds a merchant vessel out there that’s flying a flag that doesn’t agree with its name on the stern, or home port on the stern, and they provide the platform to have the Coast Guard board these vessels. So there are quite a few of these out there, stationed on naval vessels.
Bradley: Do we have any naval vessels, sir?
Burger: Was I ever on a naval vessel or assigned to one?
Bradley: Yes sir.
Burger: No.
Bradley: You just visited to see what they were doing. Would you say they traded officers during your tenure there? Did that happen often or was it pretty rare to be sent to a naval vessel and a naval officer be sent to a Coast Guard vessel?
Burger: Back up a ways to Academy training – the service academies have exchange programs where cadets from the other service academies go to the Coast Guard Academy for a semester and where
Coast Guard cadets go to the other service academies for a semester, which has helped a great deal in relations between the services. As far as exchanges go during the Vietnam War, the Coast Guard exchanged pilots with the Air Force. The Air Force would send Air Force pilots to Coast Guard air stations. The Coast Guard would send pilots to Vietnam to fly the Air Force helicopters such as the Jolly
Greens in search and rescue. So there is that type of exchange program. I know that several Academy graduates each year go to Navy vessels to become familiar with the Navy operations and their vessels and the weapons systems on their vessels. I know the superintendent of the Academy that just retired was one of the first to be assigned to the Navy back in 1969 or 1970 – somewhere in that range – to 29
integrate with the Navy and he was given some responsibilities. He was the first one, including Annapolis graduates on that vessel, to qualify as an underway watch officer. He also was made gunnery officer on a DLG, which was a pretty high assignment, I would think, for a young officer. That’s one I’m familiar with because he served on the vessel that I was assigned to as engineering officer.
Bradley: Now, to the more contemporary times – September 11, 2001 – the U.S. was attacked by Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida and terrorism is in everybody’s vocabulary at this point, but there were drastic changes made in homeland security, the most drastic being a proposed bill, the Homeland Security Act of
2002, that proposed the Coast Guard be moved to the Department of Homeland Security. This went through March 1, 2003. Do you think that this was the best move to make? In looking at the world today, maybe the Coast Guard should be more directly under Defense than being under Transportation?
Burger: No, I think the Coast Guard should not be under the Department of Defense. The Coast Guard is unique. It’s multi-mission. It can do a lot of jobs that are prohibited by law for the other services, especially with regards to the United States. I think that the country needs this type of organization to do these missions. Some things are right down the alley of the Coast Guard. For instance, by assigning a
Coast Guardsman as senior officer to the Katrina catastrophe, he provided invaluable experience.
Having worked with civilians, he was able to organize civilian companies and civilian organizations. No, I don’t feel that the Coast Guard should move to the Department of Defense. Whether Homeland Security or the Department of Transportation is the right home for the Coast Guard is debatable. I feel that they are better out of the Department of Defense. I think there is a need to interact with the Department of
Defense as much as we can. I think it is very important that we maintain our military aspect and that we can integrate and do jobs that the Navy can do. The Navy is deep water; Coast Guard can be shallow water or deep water. It can provide all kinds of expertise with regards to interdiction of drugs or munitions or smuggling of anything. They know how commercial vessels are built. They know where void spaces are on these vessels or secret compartments that were built in these vessels. They have a need for organization like the Coast Guard, I think, outside of the Department of Defense but be able to integrate if necessary. 30
Bradley: From what I would gather, your main reason why you are against the DOD is because of the
laws restricting the Coast Guard – just to get that clear.
Burger: No, I also think the Coast Guard produces identity and is so much more than just an armed force.
Bradley: Blends with the Navy, pretty much.
Burger: If you’re going to put the Coast Guard in the Navy, then you will lose a lot.
Bradley: I hear you sir. Now I’m going to throw some numbers at you of the Coast Guard as it stands today. The budget is wider. I think they propose to give five billion dollars in 2006 – that’s the proposal as far as funding. But active duty right now is 39,000 with 6,000 active duty officers. Is that a staggering number from your experience as being in the Coast Guard? I mean, 6,000 officers? I believe the Navy has almost 50,000. I mean, is this small number common? Do you think it has grown since you’ve been in, or maybe it’s decreased?
Burger: It’s grown by about 1,000. When I retired there were approximately 5,000 Coast Guard officers.
That includes commissioned warrant officers. That number, 6,000, the warrant officers are included in that number. I believe the cadets are included in that number too. It’s a small organization, smaller than the New York City police department.
Bradley: The police department, I believe, is 44,000. I’m from New York City. You’re right – it is smaller.
Burger: So it’s a small organization. That 39,000 – I don’t know if that includes the civilians. When I retired from the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard had about 34,000 and that included the civilian work force.
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Bradley: As far as the 39, sir, that’s just the enlisted and just the officers and chief warrant officers.
There are about 7,000 civilians on top of that and about 8,100 reservists right now. Roughly 2,000 have
been called up due to the attacks on September 11th of those reservists. Now, with these numbers – it’s a big coastline – do you think that the Coast Guard should up its numbers or is it fine where it is, or maybe decrease?
Burger: If they’re going to put more responsibility on terrorism and protecting the coast of the country, the
Coast Guard, of course, is going to need more assets. There’s no doubt about that. Right now they have a program going on called Deep Water Program. It’s a multi-billion dollar, multi-year program. They are bringing on-line, I believe it is, eight major cutters of 418 feet. They are bringing on smaller vessels. I forget the number of those they are bringing on. But they’re having all the communications equipment on the existing vessels and their aircraft updated so that they can communicate with anybody, basically, and have the ability to interdict lots of things. They can have unmanned aircraft on these vessels to provide surveillance and possibly interdiction. It’s quite a program that they’re involved in right now. It began about three years ago with the appropriations of the money and, I guess, approval of the concept with regards to the building of these new vessels, but it’s twenty-six million over, I believe, about a 14 year period, which started about three years ago. So they’ve got another 11 years to go. The first cutter has been completed. It has got to be outfitted yet but the last module was put in the dry dock a month ago and she should be outfitted during the next year. I think she’s scheduled for early 2007 delivery.
Bradley: Now the Coast Guard, amongst those other things, is also putting together a SWAT team for port security. We’re talking about a highly trained unit. Do you think that this is a good move, to get those more experienced operators in the Coast Guard?
Burger: I think it’s a good move for the country, I really do, and this special SWAT team that they’re putting together, is going through Special Forces training. I believe they’re getting some SEAL training and they’ll be quite an organization when it’s all put together and operating. I feel that it’s going to be necessary, with just the climate of today with regard to terrorism. 32
Bradley: Concerning port security, in the early months of 2006 a Dubai Company wanted to purchase or let’s just say, wanted to run some ports out on the West Coast. Could you please give us your comments on that and developments and maybe a Coast Guard perspective on having Dubai run those ports?
Burger: It wasn’t just the West Coast. It was six major ports. The Coast Guard’s initial concern was the personnel in the company. That there was no control over the personnel that they would be hiring or assigning to these six ports to be their officers or whatever. Not officers as in the military but officers running the company. I think the concern was that possibly a terrorist would infiltrate this company and therefore have almost free access to the port. The actual security of the port itself would not have been affected by the company as such, because they weren’t responsible for the waterside security of the port or the facility. The main concern would be for somebody going through the fence and stealing something out at the port. I think those questions were answered and the vice commandant has made a public statement. It’s null and void now, basically, because Dubai has backed out, but his feelings were that things that were put in place, the safety of the port would be greater under the control of the Dubai outfit than under the present P&O.
Bradley: Which is a British company, sir?
Burger: Which is a British company which would be better patrolled by the government in this country than it presently has been. But it’s over, so it doesn’t make any difference.
Bradley: This should put a smile on your face. With the beginnings of modular design in the ‘60s, it has great bearing on the fleet today, in both the Coast Guard and the Navy. In 2005 the United States Navy commissioned a Virginia class submarine which is a multi-task submarine, meaning that you can outfit it to fit submarine ballistic launch missiles and, as well, fit it to be an attack submarine, all due to modular design. And I’m reading here that the national security cutter is now assembled which is also using this technology, quote, modular design, which everybody seems to think that now that it’s out, it’s this new 33
and wonderful thing to build these large vessels but, like you said, it’s old – over 35 years old now. Right, sir?
Burger: Almost 40 years old.
Bradley: So this is 40 year old technology, but it’s still in effect today. How do you feel about that? Did you think that modular design would go as far as it did, up until 2006?
Burger: Yes. It was the way to build vessels. It was cheaper to build them that way; it was cost-effective, it was safer. A good deal of the construction could be done in the down hand position of welding, rather than in all different positions. Things could speed up because you could work on several modules at the same time in different places in the shipyard and then, as they were completed, move them down to the dock in the order that you wanted to place them in the dock. Yes, I think the modular design is a good thing. It certainly revolutionized the way a ship is built, for sure.
Bradley: And to think, this is over 40 years old, ladies and gentlemen. Well, Captain Burger, it’s been a pleasure. I thank you for being with us at the Virginia Military Institute for this important project. Would you like any final words to be put in for your bio?
Burger: No – just that I really appreciate the opportunity to participate in this program. I think that the questions that you put together were good. I think you kind of stumped me on a few of them. I think that it helps with the understanding of how all the services work and operate and I think that the program has got real merit. I’m glad that Col. Muir is in charge of it and that he suggested that you invite me to participate in it. I appreciate this opportunity.
Bradley: Thank you.