The EAGLE has landed.

CGC Eagle, Coast Guard Academy training ship returns from 4 month cruise to the Caribbean. Officer candidates, cadets and the Eagle's crew sailed to Barbados, St. Martin, Colombia, Mexico and Puerto Rico, making their last stop at Norfolk, Va., four days ago before returning to New London.
"The ship's primary mission is to train those cadets and officer candidates, but the vessel also has a public relations mission", said Captain Chris Sinnett, the Commanding Officer . The Eagle's stops in the Caribbean were chosen because they have U.S. embassies or a strong Coast Guard presence.
The Coast Guard estimates the vessel hosted more than 40,000 visitors over the last 112 days. The cadets and crew took part in several community service projects along the way, helping to repaint a baseball stadium in Colombia, volunteering at an animal shelter in Barbados and making repairs to an orphanage in St. Martin.

A male crewmember and a female cadet were sent home to be with their families after an alleged assault while on liberty during a port call in Veracruz, Mexico, in mid-July. According to the crewmember and the cadet, two Mexican policemen surprised them after a swim at a local beach, attempted to handcuff them, stole some of their possessions, threatened them and forced the female to perform oral sex on one of them, a Mexican prosecutor told The Associated Press.

The police officers have been charged with robbery, abuse of authority and sexual misconduct.

When asked about the female cadet and the crewman that he left behind in Veracruz, Mexico, Captain Sinnet had no comment.
(The Day. 18 Aug 2007)

THIS JUST IN: Captain Chris Sinnett can probably be forgiven for leaving the female cadet and the enlisted man behind in Veracruz. He had other things on his mind. There were some very nasty and mean-spirited things going on below decks on the Eagle. For example, an African American cadet awoke one morning to find a hangman’s noose had been left in his bag. Was this just a practical joke, or was this evidence of infiltration of the cadet corps and the ship’s crew from certain sick elements in our society? Could this possibly be more fallout from the Webster Smith court-martial? Well placed sources confirm that there has been no official investigation and no suspects have been named.
ALEXANDRIA, La., Aug 15, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Grace Chung Becker, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, and Donald W. Washington, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, today announced that Jeremiah Munsen, 19, of Pineville, La., was sentenced to four months in prison for his role in using nooses to threaten marchers who participated in the "Jena Six" civil rights rally. In addition to the four-month prison term, Munsen received one year of supervised release and 125 hours of community service.
On Sept. 20, 2007, in an incident that garnered national media attention, Munsen and another person allegedly attached the nooses to the back of a pickup truck and repeatedly drove slowly and menacingly past a large group of African American individuals who had gathered at a bus depot in Alexandria, La., after attending the civil rights rally in Jena.
The defendant pleaded guilty April 25, 2008, admitting that he displayed two large, life-sized nooses from the back of his pickup truck with the intent to frighten and intimidate the demonstrators.
This gives an indication of the environment and the atmosphere at the Academy that gave rise to the things that happened to Webster Smith. The Academy is pretty much a closed society. Attitudes and actions start at the top of the chain of command and run down hill. The senior officers set the tone, and the lower ranking officers and cadets take their clues from them. The senior officers gave the impression that they wanted to scape-goat African American cadets to make political points with Congressman Shays and the Militant women's organizations to show how they were protecting the young white female cadets.
What they did to Webster Smith signaled to the cadets that they could engage in some subtle racially intimidating behavior. Also, if they were caught the punishment would be lax or little at all. They started to roll a snowball down a mountain, and now it is picking up momentum. They unleashed a whirl wind. Who knows where it will end? One thing is sure, Van Sice and Wisniewski opened up a Pandora's Box.
This did not happen over night. It has been brewing. What happened to Webster Smith was not an abberation. It was in keeping with the decisions and signals from the Superintendent and the Commandant of Cadets.
The correct decision in the Formal Complaint of Racial Discrimination could put the brakes on this trend, and might even stop it all together. It would show some of the lesser bigots that their pranks or intimidating acts will not be tolerated by the larger society outside of the Academy grounds.
The Rule of Law still prevails in this country. Most people would do the right thing for the right reason, if they were allowed to do so.
On the September 25 the AP reported that Congressman Elijah E. Cummings has called for a thorough military investigation in the Noose Incidents at the Coast Guard Academy.
Rep. Cummings, a Maryland Democrat and chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, urged Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen to address the full academy and asked for a more intensive probe.
"Racial discrimination and intolerance have no place in either the Academy or the Coast Guard, and these incidents run directly against the efforts being made to increase diversity throughout the Coast Guard," Cummings said in a statement.
"I have asked Admiral Allen not only to conduct a thorough investigation into the incidents, but also to address the entire academy to convey that such behavior will not be tolerated in the service," he said.
Cummings praised the efforts of the academy to expand training in race relations but said that was not enough.
The first noose was left in a Black cadet's bag July 15 on board the Coast Guard cutter Eagle. The second was found in early August on the office floor of a female officer who had been conducting the race relations training in response to the first incident.
Academy Superintendent Burhoe was outraged that the incident happened to a cadet in that training environment. The campus has launched a full investigation and race relations training for the next group of cadets headed to The Eagle.
The investigation came up empty and the white instructor of the race relations classes found a second noose on the floor of her office.
"I would expect the public to hold us to a higher standard" Burhoe said.
Burhoe is continuing the search for the culprits and remains proud of the overall academy and its adherence to the Coast Guard's core values of honor, devotion of duty and respect.
"We really can't let the few bring the majority who are doing exactly what they should be doing when they're doing it down," Burhoe said.

I shutter to think that this may have become the preferred means of racial intimidation on high school and college campuses. A few months ago three white teens in Jena, La. were accused of hanging nooses in a tree on their high school grounds. They were suspended from school, but they were not criminally prosecuted.
Racial tensions first erupted after a black student tried to cross an invisible color line and sit under the schoolyard's "white tree" to be greeted the next morning by nooses hanging from the tree.
Later, six Black teens were accused of beating a white classmate. Five of the Black teens were initially charged with attempted murder. That charge was reduced to battery for all but one, who has yet to be arraigned; the sixth teen was charged as a juvenile.
Congress woman Maxine Walters denied racism was involved.
"This case has been portrayed by the news media as being about race," Walters said. "And the fact that it takes place in a small southern town lends itself to that portrayal. But it is not and never has been about race. It is about finding justice for an innocent victim and holding people accountable for their actions.""I cannot overemphasize what a villainous act that was. The people that did it should be ashamed of what they unleashed on this town," Walters said.
Mychal Bell, one of six Black teens arrested for allegedly attacking a white classmate in Jena, La., has had both of his convictions in the case thrown out. A Louisiana judge ruled that Bell, a minor at the time of the crime, should not have been tried as an adult.
LaSalle Parish district attorney Reed Walters told a press conference that the case "is not and never has been about race."
He denounced the students who hung the nooses from a tree last September but said he was unable to prosecute them because it did not qualify as a hate-crime -- a conclusion also reached by the region's federal prosecutor.
"This was an awful act," Walters said. "It was not a prank but a vicious and crude statement ... The people who did it should be ashamed of themselves and mortified at the havoc they have unleashed on this community."
Presidential candidate Barrack Obama said "When a noose hangs from a schoolyard tree in the 21st century and young men are treated in a way that is not equal nor just, it is not just an offense to the people of Jena or to the African-American community, it is an offense to the ideals we hold as Americans," he said in a statement.

In Washington, President Bush on 20 Sept 2007 said he is concerned about the racial tensions in Jena, adding that federal law enforcement agencies are monitoring the situation.
"The events in Louisiana have saddened me, and I understand the emotions," he said. "The Justice Department and the FBI are monitoring the situation down there. And all of us in America want there to be, you know, fairness when it comes to justice."

Minority applications to the Coast Guard Academy are down almost to the pre-1970s level. Some might say that is a good thing. I say that it is un-American and can only lead to embarrassment for the Academy and a Pandora’s Box of traumatic incidents for innocent young cadets. I say it sounds like a few rotten apples are being allowed to spoil the whole barrel. This all started at the top of the Chain of Command. How far down has it metastasized?
It is written that he that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind. We reap what we sow. Let us pray for cooler heads as well as calm seas.

12 Jan 2008, Update: White Teenage Female Cadet Claims Sexual assault By Mexican Police on Veracruz Beach.
Two Mexican law enforcement officers accused of assaulting a white female Coast Guard Academy third class cadet and a Black enlisted crew member stationed onboard the Coast Guard Academy training ship USCGC Eagle are still in jail.
The incident occurred during a port call in Veracruz, Mexico, in mid-July 2007.

The case is under review by the First Criminal Court in Veracruz, and the judge has not issued a final decision, according to a Coast Guard Academy spokesman.

The U.S. Embassy has just received a verbal update from the Mexican court.

According to that update, the accused police officers filed an appeal against their imprisonment, and a federal court denied the appeal, but the criminal court is expecting a new appeal. Mexican courts are like German jokes, they are not funny and you never know where they are going or how they will come out.

The third-class female cadet and the male crew member said the police officers attempted to handcuff them, stole some of their possessions, threatened them and forced the female to perform oral sex on one of them, while they were on liberty after a late night swim at a beach in Veracruz, Mexico.

The two policemen have allegedly been charged with robbery, abuse of authority and sexual misconduct.